Floral organogenesis found in Urophysa rockii

The Chinese endemic genus Urophysa (Ranunculaceae) consists of two species, Urophysa henryi (Oliver) Ulbrich and Urophysa rockii Ulbrich, both distributed on cliffs, fissures of rocks or wet places by streams in southern China. The former species was been placed in Isopyrum, Aquilegia and Semiaquilegia. In 1925, J. F. Rock, an American plant collector, discovered the latter Urophysa species for the first time on moist, mossy banks along the Fujiang River in Jiangyou County, in western Sichuan Province, China. In 1929, Eberhard Ulbrich formed a new genus Urophysa based on Isopyrum henryi Oliv. = Semiaquilegia henryi (Oliv.) Drumm. et Hutch. This new genus included Urophysa henryi (Oliver) Ulbrich and U. rockii Ulbrich, with “rockii” in memory of J. F. Rock.

U. rockii had not been collected after 1925 until Dr. Chunyu Li found it again 80 years later near the Fujiang River in Jiangyou County of western Sichuan Province in 2005. Unfortunately, there are only about 2000 individuals in four populations surviving in the cracks of rocks in the upper reaches of Fujiang River. To preserve the species, the government moved most of the individuals to a new habitat in the year 2011, because their original habitats would be completely submerged by Wudu Reservoir project. The Ranunculaceae, as one of the core families in the Ranunculales, belongs to the early-diverging eudicots and is a "transitional" group between basal angiosperms and core eudicots. This in-between group is diverse in its floral characters.

Over the last past 20 years, molecular phylogenetic studies have contributed greatly to the resolution of phylogenetic relationships within the Ranunculaceae and thus to the continuous improvement of their systematics and taxonomy. In subfamily Thalictroideae of Ranunculaceae, three major groups were recognized by molecular data (1) Thalictrum, Leptopyrum, Paropyrum, and Paraquilegia; (2) Urophysa, Semiaquilegia, and Aquilegia; and (3) Dichocarpum, Enemion, and Isopyrum. At the same time, tremendous progress has been made in understanding the floral organogenesis of Ranunculaceae, including floral morphology and development. The Thalictroideae offers a wealth of opportunities to study comparative floral development both in morphology and gene expression. However, floral organogenesis of the Thalictroideae has been reported for only a few genera (Aquilegia, Semiaquilegia, Enemion, Dichocarpum and Thalictrum).

In the Urophysa-Semiaquilegia- Aquilegia group, flowers of Aquilegia possess morphological innovations, namely elaborate petal spurs and staminodium, that are well suited to the investigation of key questions about evolutionary development, thus this genus has become a new model for studies of plant development, ecology, and evolution. In contrast to knowledge about Aquilegia, a detailed study of the floral organogenesis of Urophysa, which may be of great help elucidating its systematic affinities within Ranunculaceae, had not been conducted. Since the species was rediscovered, however, studies have been done on its habitat, vegetative anatomy, seed dispersal and germination and genetic diversity.

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