Extended distribution of Dipcadi concanense (Dalzell) Baker: A highly threatened plant taxon of the family Asparagaceae

Abstract

The genus Dipcadi Medik. (Asparagaceae) is distributed from Africa, and the Mediterranean region to India (Mabberley 1997) and comprises 41 species worldwide (The Plant List 2013). Manning et al. (2004) considered it under Ornithogalum L., but in his revised classification (Manning et al. 2009), treated it as a distinct genus, which was supported by Martinez-Azorin et al. (2011). In India it is represented by 11 species (Rao et al. 2016). Dipcadi concanense (Dalzell) Baker, one of the long flowered species, is endemic to the Konkan region in Sindhudurg and Ratnagiri districts of Maharashtra State (Deb & Dasgupta 1981; Karthikeyan et al. 1989; Lakshminarasimhan, 1996; Deshpande et al. 2015a,b; Patil 2015). This was considered as "possibly extinct in the wild" and was known from only two gatherings by Stocks & Law (Dasgupta & Deb 1987) until Mistry & Almeida (1988) recollected the species from Shivaji Nagar in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra after a gap of 123 years. Mishra & Singh (2001) assessed it as critically endangered. In the present study, it is reported from the Mopa Plateau, Goa, thus extending its distribution further south. A total of 10 patches have been observed, which are part of the larger population. The area of occupancy of each patch was calculated using Garmin Montana 650 handheld receiver. The total area of occupancy was calculated by adding the areas of all the sub-populations. The extent of occupancy (EOO) of all the populations has been calculated.