STUDIES ON THE GENUS NOMOCHARIS(LILIACEAE)
Liang Song-yun
1984, 4(3):
163-178.
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The genus Nomocharis is closely related to Lilium and Fritillaria, and there has been a difference of opinion about how todraw a demarcation line between them, especially between Nomocharis and Lilium. For example, Fritillaria lophophora Bur. et Franch. and Lilium henrici Franch. were once included in Nomocharis by some authors, but this was not accepted by Sealy and others. In the present paper, we follow Sealy's opinion that Nomocharis is characterized by tepals spreading and dissimilar, the inner tepals dark coloured at the base and there with fleshy flabellate crest on either side of a short median channel, the outer ones flat at the base, not channelled nor saccate, the filaments usually inflate into fleshy cylindrical or turbinate body at the lower part, or abruptly contract to a awn-like part at the top. The genus comprises eight species, belonging to two sections:Sect. I. Ecristata Balf. f. 1. N. aperta (Franch.) Wilson 2. N. saluenensis Balf. f. 3. N. forrestii Balf. f. 4. N. synaptica Sealy 5. N. biluoensis Liang, sp. nov. Sect. Ⅱ. Nomocharis 6. N. basilissa Farrer et Evans 7. N. pardanthina Franch. 8. N. meleagrina Franch. Nomocharis is largely distributed in Sino-Himalaya region. extenging from Leibo of Sichuan in the northeast, through Huize and Tali of Yunnan and Chayu of Xizang, south toAssam of India. It is of geographic importance that the section Ecristata Balf. f. of Nomocharis and its allied species of Lilium occur near the edges of the region where Lilium is abundant. In section Ecristata leaves are scattered, filaments slender and compressed, and margins of inner tepals not yet differentiating into fimbriate, which are very similar to those of Lilium nanum Klotz. et Garcke, L. sculiei (Franch.) Sealy and L. henrici Franch. They seem to be the intermediate forms between No-mocharis and Lilium. The distribution pattern of these taxa indicates that the genus Nomocharis may have been in the course of the uplift of Qinghai-Xizang plateau newly differentiated from Lilium, and the place of its origin was in the southern part of the Heng-duan Mauntains, as suggested by Wu Cheng-yih (1979).
