Article

Four Cistanche species are reported from Transcaucasia in the literature: C. flava, C. salsa, C. ambigua, and C. fissa. The first and last of them are undoubted members of the region’s flora, but the occurrence of the other two is at best unconfirmed. Conversely, two additional species are here recorded: C. armena, formerly confused with the quite different C. salsa, and C. ridgewayana, which had on occasion been misidentified as C. ambigua. Together with C. fissa, the two newly recorded species are growing in a smallish area in the Arax River valley, on the border between Armenia and Nahičevan, and should be looked for on the opposite side of the Arax, on Turkish territory, from where none is known so far. Cistanche armena is a new combination, validated here.