''Catamixis'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

assigned to the family

Asteraceae The family Asteraceae, alternatively Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae w ...

, with only one known species, ''Catamixis baccharoides'', a low to medium height, ¾—1¾ m (2½—5¾ ft), shrub. It is native to a very small area of western Nepal and northern India in the Himalayas. It has approximately spoon-shaped, leathery leaves with distanced rounded teeth alternately set along straight, shyly branching stems, and carries many flower heads of about 1 cm, with a few creamy white florets, sometimes with a hint of violet, in

corymb Corymb is a botanical term for an inflorescence with the flowers growing in such a fashion that the outermost are borne on longer pedicels than the inner, bringing all flowers up to a common level. A corymb has a flattish top with a superficial re ...

s at the end of the branches. Flowers and fruits can be found between March and May. Its vernacular name in Hindi is विषपत्री (vishpatri) or विश्पत्र (vishpatra).

Description

''Catamixis baccharoides'' is a shrub of ¾–1¾ m (2½–5¾ ft) high, with straight, shyly branching stems, which are circular in cross-section, initially covered in silky hairs pressed to the surface, but later becoming hairless, carrying alternately set leaves close together, which leave distinct marks after being shed. The leaves are leathery and hairless, 3½—8 cm (1.4–3.2 in) long and 1½—3½ cm (0.6–1.4 in) wide, spoon-shaped, the base tapering into the stalk, while the margin is somewhat wavy, with distanced rounded teeth particularly in the upper half. The flower heads are set in

s at the end of the branches or in the leaf axils. Each flower head consists of an

involucre In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or o ...

, high, with several whorls of lanceolate bracts narrowing into the tip, with papery edges, and contains mostly five, sometimes four or six,

hermaphrodite In reproductive biology, a hermaphrodite () is an organism that has both kinds of reproductive organs and can produce both gametes associated with male and female sexes. Many Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic groups of animals (mostly invertebrate ...

creamy white ligulate florets of 3¾ cm (1½ in), ending in five shallow, but irregular lobes. Each of the five individual anthers per floret has two spurs at its base, giving them an arrow-shaped foot. Like in all Asteraceae, the pinkish

anther The stamen (plural ''stamina'' or ''stamens'') is the pollen-producing reproductive organ of a flower. Collectively the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filam ...

s are fused into a tube through which the style grows, while picking up the pollen that is released at the inside of the tube. The shaft of the style only has few hairs at its base. When ripe, the style opens into two branches of about ½ mm (0.04 in) with short stigmatic papillae at the dorsal side. There are no bracts on the common base of the florets. The indehiscent one-seeded fruits (called cypselas) are long, covered in velvety hairs, and are adorned by ten longitudinal ribs. The

sepal A sepal () is a part of the flower of angiosperms (flowering plants). Usually green, sepals typically function as protection for the flower in bud, and often as support for the petals when in bloom., p. 106 The term ''sepalum'' was coined b ...

s which are changed to barbed long hairs called pappus are white in color. The

pollen Pollen is a powdery substance produced by seed plants. It consists of pollen grains (highly reduced microgametophytes), which produce male gametes (sperm cells). Pollen grains have a hard coat made of sporopollenin that protects the gametophyt ...

tricolpate The eudicots, Eudicotidae, or eudicotyledons are a clade of flowering plants mainly characterized by having two seed leaves upon germination. The term derives from Dicotyledons. Traditionally they were called tricolpates or non-magnoliid dic ...

and has some small spines of less than high.

Common characters with other less related Asteraceae

The flower heads of ''Catamixis'' contain florets with ligulate corollas only, a trait shared with the

Lactuceae The Cichorieae (also called Lactuceae) are a tribe in the plant family Asteraceae that includes 93 genera, more than 1,600 sexually reproductive species and more than 7,000 apomictic species. They are found primarily in temperate regions of the ...

, but also with '' Fitchia'', ''

Hyaloseris ''Hyaloseris'' is a genus of South American flowering plants in the family Asteraceae.Dinoseris'' and ''

Glossarion ''Glossarion'' is a genus of South American flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. ; SpeciesPruski, J.F. 1993. Compositae of the Guayana Highland-V. The Mutisieae of the Lost World of Brazil, Colombia, and Guyana. Boletim do Museu Paraense E ...

''.

Taxonomy

''Catamixis baccharoides'' was described by Thomas Thomson jr. in 1867, who thought it was most closely related to '' Leucomeris'', a genus that is now assigned to the subfamily

Wunderlichioideae The Wunderlichioideae are a subfamily of flowering plants belonging to the family Asteraceae. The subfamily includes eight genera and about 24 species that are concentrated in Brazil ('' Wunderlichia'') and Guyana ('' Chimantaea'', '' Stenopadus ...

, tribe Hyalideae. There are no

synonyms A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...

. It has been difficult to establish the relationships of ''Catamixis'' with other asterids, since no substantial analysis of its genetic material has been published sofar. Because it shares the combination of ligulate florets,

spur A spur is a metal tool designed to be worn in pairs on the heels of riding boots for the purpose of directing a horse or other animal to move forward or laterally while riding. It is usually used to refine the riding aids (commands) and to back ...

red

s, and involucres that consist of several

whorls A whorl ( or ) is an individual circle, oval, volution or equivalent in a whorled pattern, which consists of a spiral or multiple concentric objects (including circles, ovals and arcs). Whorls in nature File:Photograph and axial plane floral ...

of overlapping

bract In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or of ...

s, the species was initially assigned to the tribe Mutisieae

sensu lato ''Sensu'' is a Latin word meaning "in the sense of". It is used in a number of fields including biology, geology, linguistics, semiotics, and law. Commonly it refers to how strictly or loosely an expression is used in describing any particular co ...

, but genetic analysis has since shown that this grouping constitutes a basal

evolutionary grade A grade is a taxon united by a level of morphological or physiological complexity. The term was coined by British biologist Julian Huxley, to contrast with clade, a strictly phylogenetic unit. Definition An evolutionary grade is a group of ...

, which has been consequently divided into nine subfamilies. However, further characters of ''Catamixis'' are shared with different of these subfamilies or the subdivisions they include, but always elements of the unique character combinations of these subfamilies are lacking in ''Catamixis''. More recently, ''Catamixis'' was assumed to be associated with the tribe

Pertyeae The Pertyoideae are a subfamily of the family Asteraceae of the flowering plants. It comprises a single tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage ...

. ''Catamixis'' lacks a deletion of 17

base pair A base pair (bp) is a fundamental unit of double-stranded nucleic acids consisting of two nucleobases bound to each other by hydrogen bonds. They form the building blocks of the DNA double helix and contribute to the folded structure of both DNA ...

s close to one of the chloroplast NADH dehydrogenase genes, that is a common character for members of the subfamilies

Gymnarrhenoideae Gymnarrhenoideae is a subfamily with in the family Asteraceae, with only one tribe, the Gymnarrheneae. Two very different species have been assigned to it, '' Gymnarrhena micrantha'', a winter annual from the deserts of North-Africa and the Middl ...

Cichorioideae The Cichorioideae are a subfamily of the family Asteraceae of flowering plants. Familiar members of Cichorioideae include lettuce, dandelions, chicory and '' Gazania'' species. The subfamily comprises about 240 genera and about 2900 species. It i ...

Corymbioideae ''Corymbium'' is a genus of flowering plants in the Asteraceae, daisy family comprising nine species. It is the only genus in the subfamily Corymbioideae and the tribe Corymbieae. The species have leaves with parallel veins, strongly reminiscent ...

and

Asteroideae Asteroideae is a subfamily of the plant family Asteraceae. It contains about 70% of the species of the family. It consists of several tribes, including Astereae, Calenduleae, Eupatorieae, Gnaphalieae, Heliantheae, Senecioneae and Tageteae. Aster ...

. ''Catamixis'', ''

Pertya ''Pertya'' is a genus of Asian flowering plants in the family Asteraceae The family Asteraceae, alternatively Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly r ...

'', ''

Myripnois ''Myripnois'' is a genus of Chinese flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. It is dioecious, with male and female flowers borne on separate plants. ;Species There is only one known species, ''Myripnois dioica'', native to China (Hebei, Sha ...

'' and two of the ''

Ainsliaea ''Ainsliaea'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae described as a genus in 1838. ''Ainsliaea'' is native to East Asia, the Indian Subcontinent, and Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-Ea ...

''-species share a deletion of 145 base pairs not found in any lineage except Pertyoideae. A

point mutation A point mutation is a genetic mutation where a single nucleotide base is changed, inserted or deleted from a DNA or RNA sequence of an organism's genome. Point mutations have a variety of effects on the downstream protein product—consequences ...

in the

maturase K Maturase K (matK) is a plant plastidial gene. The protein it encodes is an organelle intron maturase, a protein that splices Group II introns. It is essential for ''in vivo'' splicing of Group II introns. Amongst other maturases, this prote ...

gene is shared with the genera ''Ainsliaea'' and ''Pertya'', which belong to the Pertyoideae. This makes it very likely that ''Catamixis'' should be included in the Pertyoideae, but does not fully resolve the position within that subfamily.

Etymology

The name ''Catamixis'' is a contraction of the Greek words ''κατά'' (kata) and ''μιξη'' (mixi), meaning “mixed affinity”, which refers to its combination of characters, that makes it difficult to assign it based on morphology within the Asteraceae.

Distribution and habitat

A narrow range endemic monotypic genus distributed in lower Shiwalik belt of Western Himalaya from an altitude range of . The species is reported from few localities in India from Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh and one from West Nepal. The species is habitat specific and grows on exposed, dry, sandstone or calcareous rocky cliffs of lower Shiwalik belt.

Conservation

Since the genus is threatened, a number of efforts were carried out for the conservation of this species under ex-situ conservation. This habitat-specific species is also propagated and cultivated in the botanical garden of Botanical Survey of India, Dehradun in an artificially created rocky mound and is also planted in the experimental garden of Forest Research Institute, Dehradun.

References

{{Taxonbar, from1=Q5051410, from2=Q15560513 Pertyoideae Monotypic Asteraceae genera Flora of the Indian subcontinent Plants described in 1867