A new subspecies of Corydalis wendelboi Lidén (Papaveraceae) from NW Türkiye, evidence from morphological and molecular analysis

Corydalis wendelboi subsp. fragilis subsp. nov. (Papaveraceae), a new subspecies is described from northwest Anatolia, Türkiye. It is closely related to C. wendelboi subsp. wendelboi Lidén and C. wendelboi subsp. congesta Lidén & Zetterl. but it differs in having very narrowly lobed leaves, in having bracts, which are smaller and divided into very thin lobes, and in more lax racemes. The ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS 1, 5.8 S rRNA, ITS 2) region was employed to ascertain the phylogenetic relationship of Corydalis DC. species, utilising Maximum Likelihood and Bayes Inference methods. The phylogenetic results provided compelling evidence in support of the description of this new subspecies. An identification key has been created to facilitate the morphological distinction of closely related taxa.