Drymaria veliziae (Caryophyllaceae), a new species from the Andes of Cajamarca (North Peru)

Abstract A new species from the Northern Peruvian Andes (Cajamarca department), Drymaria veliziaesp. nov., is proposed in the present paper. It grows in the high-elevation montane grasslands and it is morphologically similar to D. auriculipetala from which it differs in having elliptic-ovate leaves, blade margin bases glandular, large number of stipules arranged in a pedicel form at the leaf axis and by the short and glandular pedicels. A detailed description, original photographs and a location map are provided, as well as an updated diagnostic key of Drymaria Ser. Frutescens. The IUCN status of the new species is assessed as Endangered (EN).


Introduction
The genus Drymaria Willd. ex Schult. (Caryophyllaceae Juss.) contains 48 species mainly distributed in subtropical regions of the Western Hemisphere (see the most recent revision of the genus by Duke 1961), whereas one species (Drymaria cordata Willd. ex Schult.) is widespread, occurring in Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Madagascar (Villarreal and Estrada 2008). Duke (1961) recognised 17 Series but they were not validly published because Latin diagnoses were not given (nomina nuda; see Art. 38.2 Ex. 1 of ICN, Turland et al. 2018) (see Hartman 2005 andVillarreal andEstrada 2008). After Duke (l.c.), no studies have been made on Peruvian Drymaria taxa.
Concerning the molecular data, those available for Drymaria are included in the large phylogenetic study of Caryophillaceae by Greenberg and Donoghue (2011), but here no Andean species of Drymaria were involved.
On the basis of some authors (Macbride 1937;Brako and Zarucchi 1993) and our ongoing studies (Montesinos-Tubée in prep.), 24 Drymaria species (including 18 infraspecific taxa) are expected to occur in the Peruvian Andes.
As part of the ongoing floristic and taxonomic studies on Peruvian Flora (Montesinos-Tubée 2013; Montesinos-Tubée and Kool 2015; Montesinos-Tubée et al. 2018), we found an interesting population belonging to the genus Drymaria which, however, cannot be identified with any of the currently known species. We, therefore, decided to propose a new species for Science.

Material and methods
Specimens of Drymaria, housed in many South American and other herbaria (B, CUZ, F, HSP, HUT, HUSA, K, L, LP, LPB, MOL, P, SI, SGO, USM, WAG; acronyms according to Thiers 2019+), were studied by the first author (DBM-T). Additionally, field surveys were carried out. Specimen information (including digital images) were searched using online sources such as GBIF (2019), JSTOR Global Plants (2019), Tropicos (2019) and herbarium databases of several herbaria.
Etymology. The epithet "veliziae" honours Claudia Véliz Rosas (1978-2019), a passionate biologist who devoted her research efforts to the study Peruvian biodiversity. Her deep love of nature, people and travelling inspired her to work throughout Peru, studying freshwater, marine and mountain ecosystems. Her research contributed to the establishment of protected areas and the development of management plans. Claudia dedicated many years to study taricaya turtles in the Amazon, helping local human communities to improve taricayas' management and conservation. She was an excellent and supportive friend, a talented amateur painter and dancer and a keen cyclist. Paratype: Peru: Cajamarca: Hualgayoc: Hualgayoc, less than 1 km from the Goldfield mine, surrounded by agricultural fields downslope, found on sandy clay loam soils, 3715 m elev., 6°46'43''S (DMS) and 78°37'5''W (DMS), 100% slope and 5% rock cover. 01 June 2009, C. Tovar 909 (CPUN-22858!).
Ecology and distribution: Drymaria veliziae grows on steep mountain cliffs (slope 60-100%) on sandy clay loam soils at an elevation of 3295-3715 m on the eastern slopes of the Jalca, on the headwaters of the Llaucano River, tributary of the Marañon River. Climatic characteristics for the localities of the type and paratype, extracted from the CHELSA climatology (Karger et al. 2017), show mean annual temperatures in these areas are 8.5-11.5°C, with minimum temperatures estimated between 1.8 and 5°C. Total annual precipitation ranges from 900 to 1200 mm with driest months receiving 16-28 mm. Other species found in the two localities were Hieracium peruanum Fr. (Asteraceae), Hypochaeris taraxacoides (Meyen & Walp.) Ball (Asteraceae) and Calamagrostis spp. (Poaceae). In the type locality of Drymaria veliziae (Fig. 4), it has been observed that it grows associated with shrubs (e.g. Coreopsis senaria S. Taxonomical notes. On the basis of the classification proposed by Duke (1961), Drymaria veliziae would belong to the ser. Frutescens Duke sharing the leaf shape (linear to lanceolate) glandular pedicels, the number of sepal nervadures (3-5) and petals bifid which are not tapered to the claw.
Drymaria veliziae is morphologically similar to D. auriculipetala Mattf. (1936: 438-439) but differs in having glands covering the stems and pedicels, leaves with elliptic-ovate form, shorter in size, by the leaves arranged in fascicules (vs. simple opposite leaves), stipules larger numbers per axis, shorter pedicel size and smaller capsule size.
An updating of the diagnostic key for the ser. Frutescens, as proposed by Duke (1961: 214)  Conservation status. Only the two localities referring to holotype and paratype are currently known for Drymaria veliziae (these localities are separated by about 12 km). The surrounding areas are characterised by various types of human activities, for example, agriculture, land conversion, forestry with exotic species, slash burning, natural resource extraction, amongst others ( Figure 1). Land use change occurred between 1987 and 2007 with a reduction of the 25% of grasslands and an increasing of landscape fragmentation (see Tovar et al. 2013). The type specimen was collected on a Jalca patch surrounded by agricultural fields (Vicia faba L. (Fabaceae), Solanum tuberosum L. (Solanaceae), Zea mays L. (Poaceae)), while the paratype was collected in a smaller patch less than 1 km distant from a mining area developed after 1987. A total of 110 vegetation plots were sampled across the Jalca in 2007 (Tovar et al. 2012) and the new species was found in only two of them. Using the criteria B1a and B1b of the IUCN (2019), we assessed D. veliziae as Endangered species (EN).