From Plant Press, Vol. 18, No. 3, June 2015.
A new species of Bellardiochloa (Poaceae) was first discovered not on the rocky steppes of Turkey where it grows, but in a forgotten herbarium mount. Before the discovery, Bellardiochloa featured four alpine species, all occurring in Turkey, including two endemic species. Bellardiochloa doganiana, the newest member of this genus, was first recognized as distinct by Robert Soreng on a sheet at Herbarium Turcicum (ANK) at the Ankara University in 1991. The two flowering shoots, mounted along with an Eremopoa persica ([Trin.] Roshev. in Komarov 1934: 756) (=Poa persica Trin.), was annotated as “Bellardiochloa”. In 2014, Soreng returned to Turkey, and with Evren Cabi (Namık Kemal University), and Burçin Çingay (Nezahat Gökyiğit Botanic Garden), revisited ANK and established that the specimen was indeed a new species. To support the discovery, they traveled to the Palaz Dağları to collect additional samples to check for variation and collect a suitable type. Ersin Karabacak (Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University) illustrated the new species.
Bellardiochloa doganiana Cabi & Soreng was named in honor of Prof. Dr. Musa Doğan, a Turkish botanist responsible for extensive contributions to the knowledge of Turkey’s flora, especially of grasses. It is endemic to the Palaz Dağları (range) of the Taurus Mountains, in southwestern Turkey, growing on high steppe to low subalpine rocky areas between 2,000 and 2,300 meters. This species differs from all other Bellardiochloa species by its short, rigid, sharply tipped basal leaf-blades, and sparsely flowered panicles. The discovery was published in April in Phytotaxa 205(2): 123-128.