Muscari elmasii Yıldırım (Asparagaceae) is described as a new species to science. It is endemic to the western Anatolia region of Turkey. M. elmasii is known from a single locality in Muğla Province. It is related to M. weissii and M. massayamum by morphological features and shows some similarities in terms of morphological characters and the same distribution area to M. mirum. | Turkish Journal of Botany Research Article Turk J Bot (2016) 40: 380-387 © TÜBİTAK doi: Muscari elmasii sp. nova (Asparagaceae): a new species from western Anatolia, Turkey Hasan YILDIRIM* Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Ege University, Bornova, İzmir, Turkey Received: Accepted/Published Online: Final Version: Abstract: Muscari elmasii Yıldırım (Asparagaceae) is described as a new species to science. It is endemic to the western Anatolia region of Turkey. M. elmasii is known from a single locality in Muğla Province. It is related to M. weissii and M. massayamum by morphological features and shows some similarities in terms of morphological characters and the same distribution area to M. mirum. Diagnostic morphological characters are discussed and compared with those of related taxa. It is easily distinguished from related species by its especially sessile or subsessile and mostly pinkish flowers; relatively longer, cylindrical with sharply-angled shoulder perigon tube; yellowish-green lobes; and relatively bigger fruit. Key words: Taxonomy, Muscari, Muğla, Turkey 1. Introduction The genus Muscari Miller s. lato is represented by about 50 species (Speta, 1998), which are usually distributed in the Caucasus, temperate Europe, Africa, and northwestern and southwestern Asia (Losinskaya, 1935; Davis and Stuart, 1966; Stuart, 1966; Garbari and Greuter, 1970; Davis and Stuart, 1980; Davis, 1984; Feinbrun, 1986; Rechinger, 1990; Jafari and Maassoumi, 2011). According to the latest checklist for Muscari s. str., this genus is represented by 47 taxa distributed worldwide (Govaerts, 2015). The first revision of Muscari was carried out by Davis and Stuart (1984) in Turkey. They described 20 species in their study. After this revision, 14 new species were described from Turkey. To date, 36 Muscari species have been reported in Turkey, 24 of which are endemic to Anatolia
