Eureiandra orientalis (Cucurbitaceae), a new species from Kenya and Tanzania
Eureiandra orientalis , a new species of Cucurbitaceae from Kenya and Tanzania, is described and illustrated. It was previously treated as Eureiandra sp. A by Charles Jeffrey in the "Flora of Tropical East Africa", and was later referred to as Eureiandra orientalis Q.Luke ined., but it has never been formally described and named. Morphologically, the new species is most similar to E. fasciculata , but is readily distinguished from other members of Eureiandra by its nearly glabrous habit, with hairs mainly restricted to the nodes, leaf veins and margins, dark-green glossy leaves, denser shortly pedunculate male inflorescences, ovate petals, larger fruits, and oblong-elliptic blackish brown seeds with indistinct margins and fibrous testa. In addition, the two species differ in phenology: in E. orientalis , the leaves are fully developed at flowering, whereas in E. fasciculata , the stems are leafless at anthesis. The new species is mostly known from coastal forests of Eastern Africa in Kenya and Tanzania, one of the globally recognized biodiversity hotspots.
Authors
- Quentin Luke (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7256-031X)
- Neng Wei (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0313-3912)
- Neduvoto P. Mollel (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4402-4667)
- Hanno Schaefer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7231-3987)
- Christopher Chapano (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1932-5505)
- Paul Muigai Kirika (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4318-9339)
- Shengwei Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8785-5065)
- Zhaohui Ran
- Qing-Feng Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9143-8849)
- Xue Yan
- Ruo-Zhou Wang
Institutions
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Tanzania National Parks (TZ)
- Tropical Pesticides Research Institute (TZ)
- Wuhan Botanical Garden (CN)
- Heilongjiang Bayi Agricultural University (CN)
- National Museums of Kenya (KE)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Sino-Africa Joint Research Center
- Technical University of Munich (DE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- PhytoKeys
- Published
- 2026-10-15
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.280.206680
- Primary Topic
- Plant and Fungal Species Descriptions
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Bureau of International Cooperation, Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Uppsala Universitet
- National Key Research and Development Program of China
- Sino-Africa Joint Research Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences