SPERGULARIA IRAQENSIS (CARYOPHYLLACEAE), A NEW SPECIES FROM IRAQ

Spergularia iraqensis sp. nov. is described as a new species from Iraq. This species has been collected from Diyala Province in the central east of Iraq; it is closely related to Spergularia rubra (L.) J. Presl & C. Presl, 1819 and Spergularia bocconei (Scheele) Graebn., 1919. The distinguishing of the morphological characteristics of the new species alongside the two similar species are discussed with photographs, and an identification key is given for Spergularia iraqensis and other closely related species.

INTRODUCTION Spergularia (Pers.)J.Presl & C.Presl, 1819 is a cosmopolitan genus with about 40 species; some of these species are halophytes and distributed worldwide (Ghazanfar and Nasir, 1986;Townsend et al., 2016).The first revision of the genus Spergularia in Iraq was done by Handle‫ـ‬Mazzetti (1910); he recognized two species which are Spergularia salina J. Presl & C. Presl, 1819 and Spergularia diandra (Guss.)Heldr., 1851; later Guest (1933) reports that there are two species of the genus Spergularia, S. diandra and S. marina (L.) Besser, 1822 in Iraq.In 1935, Anthony pointed out that there are three species of the genus Spergularia in Iraq: S. rubra, S. media (L.) C. Presl, 1826 and S. diandra, then in 1948, Blacklock listed two species S. diandra and S. marginata (DC.)Kitt., 1844;Zohary (1950) listed only two species S. salina and S. diandra grow in Iraq, while Al-Rawi (1964) who collected the data of all previous studies, and mentioned five species of Spergularia distribute in Iraq: S. diandra, S. marginata, S. media, S. rubra and S. salina, Rechinger (1964) in the flora of lowland Iraq reported only two species S. salina and S. diandra, Ratter (1980) in flora Iranica mentioned only two species of Spergularia collected from Iraq which are S. marina and S. diandra, however, Townsend et al. (2016) in the flora of Iraq which is the newest study for Spergularia in Iraq described four species: S. media, S. marina, S. bocconei and S. diandra.
During a plant field survey in 2019 to upper plains and foothills region in Diyala province central east of Iraq, two unusual specimens of Spergularia was collected from two different places and homed in the National Herbarium of Iraq (BAG), the specimens could not be identified by using the key provided in the flora of Iraq (Townsend et al., 2016), or by crosschecked with Spergularia accounts of the relevant literature, like flora Orientalis (Boissier, 1876), flora of Syria, Palestine, and Sinai (Post, 1933), Flora of the USSR (Gorshkova, 1936), Flora Europaea (Monnier and Ratter, 1964), flora of Turkey (Ratter, 1967), Flora of Saudi Arabia (Migahid, 1978), Flora Iranica (Ratter, 1980), Flora of Egypt (Boulos, 1999), Flora of China (Dequan and Rabeler, 2001) Spergularia in Australia (Adams et al., 2008), and also cross-checked with the specimens at BAG and the University of Baghdad herbarium, College of Science (BUH).Therefore, this paper aims to describe the Spergularia iraqensis as new species for science.

Distribution and habitat:
This species endemic to Iraq, it was collected from two separate sites in the east of Diyala Province within the same habitat extension, which is located between the eastern foothills and the alluvial lower Mesopotamia in Iraq, and it was found growing in clay soil with Tamarix sp. and Lycium barbarum L. community and also grows in clay soil in the grass open area near the Hamrin Lake bank.

Etymology:
The species is named after Iraq country where the plant grows and is recorded for the first time.

Conservation status
There are numbers of threats in the areas where the species grows, the most important of which are grazing, agriculture, tourism, and urban activities, as well as, the geographical range of S. iraqensis restrict to a narrow region estimated to about 2,000 km 2 .So, based on the measurement of the species' extent of occurrence (EOO), which is less than 5,000 km 2 , and the number of locations where plant growth is less than 5, as well as the quality of its habitat, which is estimated to be declining due to human activities, the assessment of the species according to IUCN Red List categories (IUCN, 2012): Endangered, EnB1ab (iii).
Key for identification S. iraqensis and other related species

Discussion
The new species is annual herbs, its stipules deltate, white and long acuminate, shortly connate for base.Bracts (except for the bracts in the first inflorescence node) much shorter than leaves, with sepals less than 2.3 mm and 10 stamens.Capsule as long as fruiting calyx or slightly shorter; seed brown, unwinged; these are the most distinguishing characteristics of the new species, and these characters are not found in any other species of the genus.Interestingly, only S. media in Iraq has 10 stamens, also S. rubra which grows in Turkey has 10 stamens, however, the capsule of S. media longer than 7 mm, as well as, S. rubra has capsules longer than 4 mm which differ from the shorter capsule of S. iraqensis, S. dinandra and S. bocconei which could reach less than 2.5 mm but S. dinandra and S. bocconei have androecium with less than 8 stamens and the stipules of these species are not acuminate which differ from S. iraqensis androecium and stipules (Gorshkova, 1936;Monnier and Ratter, 1964;Ratter, 1967;Ratter, 1980;Dequan and Rabeler, 2001;Townsend et al., 2016).LITERATURE CITED Adams, L. G., West, J. G., and Cowley, K. J. 2008. Revision of Spergularia (Caryophyllaceae) in Australia.Australian Systematic Botany, 21(4): 251-270.

Plate ( 1 ):
Spergularia iraqensis; (A) Habitat, (B) Plant habit (in nature), (C) Plant habit (holotype 60268 BAG), (D) Inflorescence, (E) Leaves, (F) Stem node with stipules and leaves,(G) Bracts, (H) Show the stipules color (the microscope light from the upper side), (I) Show the stipules shape (the microscope light from the lower side so the upper stipules face shaded and look dark).