Trichosanthes metamorpha (Cucurbitaceae), a striking new species from Guangxi, China

Trichosanthes metamorpha, a new species from Guangxi Autonomous Region, China, is described and illustrated. Morphologically, it closely resembles T. dunniana and T. pubera but can be readily distinguished by its tiny black dots about the size of a pinpoint (c. 0.1 mm in diameter) on the stem surface, the leaf shape and basal leaf marking patterns, short and brittle petal fringes, orange-yellow fruit, and broadly ellipsoid seeds without ridges or ornaments. Molecular phylogenetic analyses based on a plastid coding sequence dataset comprising 67 protein-coding genes (cp-CDS) and a concatenated three-locus dataset (ITS, matK, and rpl20-rps12) consistently place T. metamorpha within T. sect. Involucraria. The integrated evidence of its morphological characteristics and phylogenetic placement supports the recognition of T. metamorpha as a distinct species.