Acanthaceae
Acanthus

Acanthus seretii De Wild.

First published in Ann. Mus. Congo Belge, Bot., sér. 5, 3: 271 (1910)
This species is accepted
The native range of this species is South Sudan to NE. DR Congo. It is a shrub and grows primarily in the seasonally dry tropical biome.

Descriptions

Extinction risk predictions for the world's flowering plants to support their conservation (2024). Bachman, S.P., Brown, M.J.M., Leão, T.C.C., Lughadha, E.N., Walker, B.E. https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nph.19592

Conservation
Predicted extinction risk: not threatened. Confidence: low confidence
[AERP]

Vollesen, K. (2007). Synopsis of the Species of Acanthus (Acanthaceae) in Tropical East and Northeast Africa and in Tropical Arabia. Kew Bulletin, 62(2), 233-249. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20443348

Type
Congo (Kinshasa), Niangara to Gumbari, Seret 446 (holotype BR!). A photograph of the holotype is at K.
Distribution
Sudan, Congo (Kinshasa), ? Uganda (see note).
Ecology
Tall grassland and scrub at margins of lowland forest, Combretum wooded grassland; 1025 - 1200 m.
Conservation
The last known specimen of this species was collected in 1945. The species was not observed by Friis & Vollesen during field work in the Imatong Mts, Sudan in 1980 and 1982, but those expeditions did not reach the western side of the mountains where the two Sudanian collections were made. The border areas between Congo, Sudan and Uganda have been politically unstable since the 1970's and no field work has been done in these parts since then. Political unrest is, paradoxically, often beneficial to the grassland vegetation as it inevitably decreases the amount of agricultural disturbance. On the other hand it usually increases the amount of forest disturbance as illegal logging is used as a way to pay for weapons. This species is basically a grassland/forest margin species and is therefore not likely to have suffered greatly. Possibly vulnerable (VU) but also currently very Data Deficient (DD) due to inability to obtain information.
Note
Lwanga (1996: 27) records "Acanthus arborescens (pubescens)" as occurring in the Agoro-Agu Forest Reserve on the Uganda side of the Imatong Mts. Considering the total distribution of A. seretii it is entirely probable that it occurs here and also elsewhere in northwestern Uganda. It is, however, also possible that this is a misidentification of A. eminens or even A. polystachius.
[KBu]

Sources

  • Angiosperm Extinction Risk Predictions v1

    • Angiosperm Threat Predictions
    • http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

  • Kew Backbone Distributions

    • The International Plant Names Index and World Checklist of Vascular Plants 2024. Published on the Internet at http://www.ipni.org and https://powo.science.kew.org/
    • © Copyright 2023 World Checklist of Vascular Plants. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

  • Kew Bulletin

    • Kew Bulletin
    • http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0

  • Kew Names and Taxonomic Backbone

    • The International Plant Names Index and World Checklist of Vascular Plants 2024. Published on the Internet at http://www.ipni.org and https://powo.science.kew.org/
    • © Copyright 2023 International Plant Names Index and World Checklist of Vascular Plants. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0