Additions of woody climbers (Lianas) to the flora of Manipur, India

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Manipur, one of the northeastern states of India, is a predominantly hilly and forest dominated state with an area of 22,327km 2 . Out of the total geographical area, 17,477km 2 is under forest cover which constitutes about 78% of the total area of the state. The state shares an international boundary with Myanmar (Anonymous 2009). Due to diverse phytogeography and varied climatic conditions, the state has provided suitable habitats for the growth of luxuriant floral elements. The total floral richness and abundance are also evidenced by the diversity of lianas in the state.
To explore the liana diversity of the state, a study has been carried out since 2013. During field explorations, the first author collected many woody climbers (lianas) from the study area of which five were found uncommon ones. After critical morpho-taxonomic examination of all the specimens, scrutiny of relevant literature (Hooker 1875-83;Kanjilal et al. 1934-39;Fang & Staples 1995;Chang et al. 1996;Chen & Turland 2007;Chen et al. 2007;Quang et al. 2013;eFlora 2017) and matching of specimens housed in herbaria of Botanical Survey of India (BSI), Eastern Regional Centre, Shillong (ASSAM) and Central National Herbarium (CNH), Howrah (CAL), the species were identified as Ampelopsis rubifolia (Wall.) Planch. The perusal of relevant literature (Deb 1957(Deb , 1961Chaudhuri & Naithani 1985;Singh et al. 2000) revealed that these species were not so far known from Manipur; hence, this report constitutes five new distribution records and additions of woody climbers to the state of Manipur.
The specimens were preserved following standard herbarium methods (Jain & Rao 1977) and deposited in ASSAM and the Herbarium of Department of Life Science & Bioinformatics, Assam University, Silchar. Detailed taxonomic description, illustration, and photographs are provided for easy identification of the species. In the treatment, families are arranged alphabetically and again species are arranged alphabetically within a family where the family contains more than one species.  1; Image 1).
Habitat: Grows in moist and shady areas at an elevation of 790-1,340 m.
Fruiting: June-July.  (2019), threat status of these five species has not been assessed. No ecological studies were also conducted for enumeration of their abundance in the study area in this present study, however, field observations made in the entire state during the last six years showed that Ampelopsis rubifolia, Argyreia wallichii, Combretum sundaicum, and Jasminum lanceolaria were rare in the state and were recorded only from hill regions of Manipur. The first author could recognize only one population of each of these four species in the field. In contrast, Tetrastigma obovatum was found common throughout and seen growing abundantly in different localities in the state, both in hilly and valley districts. Deforestation of timber-yielding plants might have had a devastating impact on the overall population status of lianas in the state as this curious growth form is fully