The revision of Prangos subsections Koelzella and Fedtschenkoana (Apiaceae) with some notes to phylogeny and biogeography of the genus: molecular and morphological evidences

Taxonomic and molecular phylogenetic investigation of the genus Prangos with special attention to the species from subsections Koelzella and Fedtschenkoana, distributed in mountainous South-west Asia and Middle Asia, has been carried out. Morphological and carpological features as well as sequences of nrITS/ETS show that Prangos and relative genera Cachrys and Bilacunaria are monophyletic taxa. The phylogenetic results of the current study do not agree with any published infrageneric classifications of Prangos. The majority of intrageneric taxa of Prangos turn out as non-monophyletic groups. Such taxonomically believed morphological features of Prangos as the architecture of inner mesocarp of the fruit are more labile than previously thought. The most important character of the fruit surface is the presence or absence of stomata. The subsection Koelzella comprises two lineages, one of which includes a representative of subsection Fedtschenkoana. The first lineage, designed as "Prangos pabularia'' clade, includes the Middle Asian species, except for P. equisetoides, segregated as new subgenus Koelzella. The second lineages, designed as "Prangos uloptera'' clade, include P. uloptera, P. lophoptera, and P. equisetoides and remained in new section Ulopterae of subgenus Prangos. Independent taxonomic statuses of P. tschimganica, P. lipskyi, P. ornata, P. equisetoides from P. uloptera, and P. fedtschenkoi and P. lophoptera from P. pabularia are confirmed. Prangos gyrocarpa and P. seravschanica were recognized as the subspecies of P. pabularia: subsp. gyrocarpa and subsp. sarawschanica, respectively.