''Myosotis antarctica'' is a species of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

in the

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

Boraginaceae Boraginaceae, the borage or forget-me-not family, includes about 2,000 species of shrubs, trees and herbs in 146, to 156 genera with a worldwide distribution. The APG IV system from 2016 classifies the Boraginaceae as single family of the order ...

native Native may refer to: People * Jus soli, citizenship by right of birth * Indigenous peoples, peoples with a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory ** Native Americans (disambiguation) In arts and entert ...

to mainland

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, Campbell Island and southern

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

Joseph Dalton Hooker Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (30 June 1817 – 10 December 1911) was a British botanist and explorer in the 19th century. He was a founder of geographical botany and Charles Darwin's closest friend. For twenty years he served as director of t ...

described the species in his 19th century work ''

Flora Antarctica The ''Flora Antarctica'', or formally and correctly ''The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage of H.M. Discovery Ships Erebus and Terror in the years 1839–1843, under the Command of Captain Sir James Clark Ross'', is a description of the many plants ...

''. Plants of this species of

forget-me-not ''Myosotis'' ( ) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Boraginaceae. The name comes from the Ancient Greek "mouse's ear", which the foliage is thought to resemble. In the northern hemisphere they are colloquially known as forget-me-nots ...

are

perennial A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wide ...

with a prostrate habit, bracteate inflorescences, and white or blue corollas. It is one of two native species of ''Myosotis'' in the

New Zealand subantarctic islands The New Zealand Subantarctic Islands comprise the five southernmost groups of the New Zealand outlying islands. They are collectively designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Most of the islands lie near the southeast edge of the largely ...

, the other being '' M. capitata,'' which also has blue corollas.

Taxonomy and Etymology

''Myosotis antarctica''

Hook.f. Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (30 June 1817 – 10 December 1911) was a British botanist and explorer in the 19th century. He was a founder of geographical botany and Charles Darwin's closest friend. For twenty years he served as director of ...

is in the family

and was described in 1844 by

from the

.Hooker, J.D. (1844)
The botany of the Antarctic voyage of H.M. discovery ships Erebus and Terror in the Years 1839-1843 :under the command of Captain Sir James Clark Ross: 1: 57
/ref> After its original description, others expanded the

circumscription Circumscription may refer to: *Circumscribed circle *Circumscription (logic) *Circumscription (taxonomy) * Circumscription theory, a theory about the origins of the political state in the history of human evolution proposed by the American anthrop ...

of ''M. antarctica'' to include plants from mainland New Zealand. In 1961, Lucy Moore's treatment in the ''Flora of New Zealand''

circumscribed In geometry, the circumscribed circle or circumcircle of a polygon is a circle that passes through all the vertices of the polygon. The center of this circle is called the circumcenter and its radius is called the circumradius. Not every polyg ...

''M. antarctica'' to include only plants from Campbell Island and

. Since then, common usage of the name ''M. antarctica'' has largely followed Moore's treatment, and morphologically similar mainland plants have been referred to as ''M. drucei, M. pygmaea, M. glauca'' and ''M. brevis.'' These species constitute the "pygmy subgroup" of New Zealand ''Myosotis'', and the latest taxonomic revision of this subgroup from 2022 recognizes three species: ''M. antarctica'' (with two subspecies), '' M. brevis,'' and '' M. glauca.'' In that treatment, ''M. antarctica'' has an expanded circumscription to include plants from Campbell Island and Chile, as well as those from mainland New Zealand previously called ''M. drucei'' and ''M. pygmaea,'' and two subspecies are recognized''.'' The two subspecies of ''M. antarctica'' are ''M. antarctica'' subsp. ''antarctica'' (previously ''M. antarctica'' and ''M. drucei'') and ''M. antarctica'' subsp. ''traillii'' (previously ''M. pygmaea''). The subspecies are largely allopatric, and can be distinguished from one another based on the hairs on the rosette leaves. The type specimen of ''Myosotis antarctica'' was collected by Joseph Hooker on Campbell Island and is lodged at

Kew Herbarium Kew Gardens is a botanic garden in southwest London that houses the "largest and most diverse botanical and mycological collections in the world". Founded in 1840, from the exotic garden at Kew Park, its living collections include some of the ...

. The specific epithet, ''antarctica'', derives from its presence on the New Zealand subantarctic islands.

Phylogeny

''Myosotis'' ''antarctica'' was shown to be a part of the

monophyletic In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic gro ...

southern hemisphere lineage of ''Myosotis'' in

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...

analyses of standard DNA sequencing markers ( nuclear ribosomal DNA and

chloroplast DNA Chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) is the DNA located in chloroplasts, which are photosynthetic organelles located within the cells of some eukaryotic organisms. Chloroplasts, like other types of plastid, contain a genome separate from that in the cell nu ...

regions). Within the southern hemisphere lineage, species relationships were not well resolved. The sequences of ''M. antarctica'' (including some referred to as ''M. pygmaea'' and ''M. drucei'') grouped with other New Zealand species that are morphologically similar to it, including ''M. brevis''.

Description

''Myosotis'' ''antarctica'' plants are single rosettes. The rosette leaves have petioles 1–20 mm long. The rosette leaf blades are 3–26 mm long by 1–11 mm wide (length: width ratio usually 1.0–4.0: 1), narrowly oblanceolate to very broadly obovate, widest at or above the middle, green or brown, with an obtuse apex. The upper surface of the leaf is densely covered in curved or flexuous, patent to erect, evenly-distributed antrorse (forward-facing) hairs, whereas the lower surface of the leaf is similar but with fewer hairs (ranging from glabrous to with sparsely distributed hairs). The hairs on the leaf edges are appressed to spreading. Each rosette has multiple prostrate, bracteate

inflorescences An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphology (biology), Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of sperma ...

that are usually up to 15 cm long (rarely up to 31 cm long). The cauline leaves are similar in size and shape to the rosette leaves and usually sessile. Each inflorescence has up to 46 flowers, each borne on a very short

pedicel Pedicle or pedicel may refer to: Human anatomy *Pedicle of vertebral arch, the segment between the transverse process and the vertebral body, and is often used as a radiographic marker and entry point in vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty procedures ...

, with a bract. The calyx is 1–4 mm long at flowering and 2–7 mm long at fruiting, lobed to one-third to three-quarters its length, and hairs that are sometimes of two different lengths and types. The corolla is white, cream, or blue, up to 4 mm in diameter, with a cylindrical tube, and small yellow scales alternating with the petals. The anthers are very short (usually < 0.3 mm long) and fully included. The four smooth, shiny nutlets are usually 1.2–1.9 mm long by 0.8–1.2 mm wide and are ovoid in shape. The chromosome number of ''M. antarctica'' is unknown. The pollen of ''M. antarctica'' is ''australis'' type pollen. It flowers August–April and fruits September–April, with peak flowering and fruiting December–January.

Distribution and Habitat

''Myosotis antarctica'' is a

native to New Zealand, Campbell Island, and southern Chile ( Magallanes) from 0–2200 m ASL. In mainland New Zealand, it is found in the following islands and ecological districts:

North Island The North Island, also officially named Te Ika-a-Māui, is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but much less populous South Island by the Cook Strait. The island's area is , making it the world's 14th-largest ...

(Auckland, Taranaki, Gisborne, Volcanic Plateau, Southern North Island),

South Island The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman ...

(Western Nelson, Sounds-Nelson, Marlborough, Westland, Canterbury, Otago, Southland, Fiordland) and

Stewart Island Stewart Island ( mi, Rakiura, ' glowing skies', officially Stewart Island / Rakiura) is New Zealand's third-largest island, located south of the South Island, across the Foveaux Strait. It is a roughly triangular island with a total land ar ...

(Rakiura). ''M. antarctica'' is found in habitats ranging from coastal to subalpine, including on turfs, dunes, fellfields, scree, cliff faces, and terraces.

Conservation Status

''M. antarctica'' was listed as At Risk - Naturally Uncommon on the most recent assessment (2017-2018) of the New Zealand Threatened Classification for plants. It also has the qualifiers "DP" (Data Poor), "Sp" (Sparse) and "TO" (Threatened Overseas). This assessment was based on a narrow circumscription of ''M. antarctica'' which included the Campbell Island populations only. As to the other two species now included in a larger circumscription of ''M. antarctica,'' ''M. drucei'' was listed as Not Threatened and ''M. pygmaea'' was listed as At Risk - Declining with the qualifier "Sp" (Sparse) in the same publication.

Gallery

File:Myosotis antarctica 17153408.jpg File:Myosotis antarctica 17153360.jpg File:Flora Antarctica Plate XXXVIII.jpg, Plate XXXVIII of Hooker's ''

''.

References

External links

''Myosotis antarctica'' occurrence data from Australasian Virtual Herbarium
* {{Taxonbar, from=Q15595630, from2=Q113484151, from3=Q113484168, from4=Q17416566, from5=Q17416941 antactica Flora of New Zealand Flora of Chile Endangered flora of New Zealand Taxa named by Joseph Dalton Hooker Plants described in 1844