Hedysarum yilmazunalii Kandemir, F. Yıldız & H.İ. Türkoğlu sp. nov. (Fig. 1)

Type: Turkey, Erzincan: Kemaliye, NW of Salihli Village, serpentine, (UTM) 37 S 445000 E, 434158 N, 1512 m, 18 June 2020, Kandemir 11190 (holo.: NGBB.: iso.: GAZI); Erzincan: Kemaliye, NW of Salihli Village, serpentine, (UTM) 37 S 445000 E, 434158 N, 1502 m, 12 June 2004, Kandemir 6082 (topo.: EBYU); Erzincan, Kemaliye, NW of Salihli Village, serpentine, 03 June 2020, 1514 m, Kandemir 11214 (topo.: EBYU); Erzincan: Kemah, between Eriç-Yücebelen villages, serpentine, (UTM) 37 S 492709 E, 437287 N, 1403 m, 15 June 2020, Kandemir 11171 (para.: NGBB).

Examined additional specimens: H. candidissimum: Malatya: Between Gürün-Suçatı, 5. km, marn, 1400 m, 19 vii 1991, B. Yıldız 8995 (EBYU!); Turkey, Erzincan: Kemah, Sürek, marn, 01 vii 2020, Kandemir 11209 (EBYU!), H. candidissimum (Fig. 2.). H. malatyanum (sin.: Hedysarum rotundifolium, Diagn. Pl. Orient. ser. 2, 2: 37 (1856), nom. illeg).: Malatya: Arapkir road 40. km, step, 16.06.1996, BY 13450; Malatya, Malatya to Arapkir, 750m, Hub. - Mor. (E, E00362217, photo!); Malatya: Darende, Gürpınar road junction, step, 1100 m, 26 vi 1993, B. Yıldız 10663; Elazığ, in subalpines prope Karput, vii 1852, Noë 819 (G!, type of H. rotundifolium, photo) (Fig 3).

Diagnosis: H. yilmazunalii is related to H. candidissimum in leaflet shape, inflorescence and number of flowers, and fruit indumentum. It differs in broadly ovate, mainly ovate-orbicular leaflets (not elliptic or broadly ovate), dense and globose raceme with 20–50 flowers (not loose and oblong with 10–15 flowers), and glabrous fruits except for long setae (not pubescent with long setae). H. yilmazunalii is also similar to H. malatyanum. It differs from H. malatyanum in having a dense raceme more than 2 cm in diameter (not a loose raceme less than 2 cm in diameter), a 13–18 mm long and sparsely hairy pedicel and a 9–16 mm keel (not a 9–10 mm long glabrous pedicel and a 9–10 mm keel), a peduncle shorter than the leaves (not longer than the leaves), and a glabrous fruit with seta (nonpubescent fruit). The diagnostic characters between H. yilmazunalii, H. candidissimum, and H. malatyanum are listed in Table 1.

Description: Stems numerous from rhizome, prostrate or ascending, 13–22 cm, striate, branched, purple below, greenish above, with anterior indumentum all around. Stipules to 5 mm, brownish, hairy; lower contiguous, narrowly triangular from a broad base; upper free. Leaves (4-) 7–12 cm; leaflets 3–5 pairs, broadly ovate, mostly ovate-orbicular, 5–20 x 5–18 mm, densely covered with silvery addressed hairs below and above, sometimes with mucous membrane at apex; rachis hairy. Raceme 1.5–3 x 1.5–3 cm, (12-) with 20–50 flowers, compact and main axis not visible in flower, elongate in fruit; peduncle 2.5–4 (-8) cm, much shorter than leaves. Flowers dark pink, purple in old flowers. Pedicels to 2 mm, hairy, shorter than bracts; bracts 3–5 mm, lanceolate. Calyx tube broadly cup-shaped 2 x 3 mm, hairy; teeth 4–6 mm. Standard 13–18 mm, sparsely hairy, longer than keel and wings, slightly pointed at apex, gradually narrowing at base. Wing slightly shorter than keel; apex blunt. Keel 9–16 mm; claw 5–7 mm, much narrower than blade; auricle 1 mm. Ovary glabrous laterally, hairy dorsally and ventrally. Lomentum with 1–2 ovate-orbicular segments, 7–12 mm long; surface glabrous, except densely covered with reddish setae; setae up to 4 mm long.

Flowering time: June. Time of fruiting: June–July.

Etymology: The epithet of the new species comes from Yılmaz Unal, a retired lecturer of Erzincan University, a nature lover and an international mountaineer.

The new Turkish Scientific Plant Name for the species: the plant has no Turkish name used in public. Since it was first collected in Eğin (the old name of Kemaliye, Erzincan), it was named Turkish “Eğin batalağı” according to the Guidelines for Turkish Scientific Plant Names (Menemen et al. 2016).

The new species is known in two places in Erzincan. These are the districts of Kemaliye and Kemah in the Serpentine. The specimens from Kemah have mainly smaller leaflets, smaller flowers and looser raceme compared to the specimens from Kemaliye. The population from Kemah is closer to H. malatyanum. However, it differs in terms of fruits, flower stalk and flower characteristics.

H. candidissumum is widespread in Erzincan in the limestone steppe and on sandstone slopes. Unlike H. yilmazunalii, it does not prefer serpentine habitats. H. yilmazunalii differs significantly in terms of morphological and ITS molecular data. The distribution map of H. yilmazunalii, H. candidissimum and H. malatyanum is shown in Fig. 4.

In this study, aligned ITS and trn L-F sequences were taken from Hedysarum taxa. Only the H. malatyanum ITS sequence could not be obtained. The aligned ITS sequences are 712 and aligned trn L-F sequences 243 nucleotides long. Using both ITS and trn L-F sequences using maximum likelihood tree was constructed. In the phylogenetic tree created with the ITS sequence, H. yilmazunalii and H. varium emerged together and were separated from H. candidissimum (Figure 5). However, there was no resolution in the trn L-F tree and the results were polytomy (Figure 6). The nucleotide sequence comparison between the online program MEGA 6.0 and the taxa is shown in Table 2. As can be seen from the ITS sequence comparison, H. yilmazunalii differed from H. candidissimum in six nucleotides, respectively. However, there was no difference in trn L-F results. In both the ITS phylogenetic tree and the sequence comparison, H. yilmazunalii and H. candidissimum are a separate species.