Steps:

1. Look for any monograph/revision for the entire genus that contains your species. If there is one, follow the identification key. If your plant does not match any of the species described in the key, it is very likely that your species is new. Search also for the specialists on the group to where your species belong.

2. Now, if the revision has been published long ago (e.g.

To begin with, define the genus of your plant, then study the distribution of this genus in surrounding regions/countries. It is a good idea to find researchers interested in this genus found in references in related research.

Thank you Dr Salem for your suggestion, but in some cases you can find an American plant naturalized in Arabia, so I think it is necessary to revise all the genus, my question is there any source describing briefly all the species of one genus?

The first thing to do when you collect a plant is to make a short description of the plant: life-form, color of flowers or fruit in your field notebook. If afterward you realized that is not found in the flora of that region, try to check in the flora of neighboring countries. if this cannot solve your problem, and you know the genus then is better to look for a Botanist or group of Botanists working on this genus for further identification. If they agree that your species is new, then you have discover a species new to science. More extensive identification of plants can be done in different Herbaria such as the Missouri Botanical Garden Herbarium, St. Louis, U.S.A, and Kew Gardens. This also depends where the specimens is coming from because some herbarium like to host specimens only from particular countries or Region.

You have to look for specific bibliography of the genus that you found, monotraphies, and floras of neibourgh areas. when you stablished certainly that is a new record or a new species for the science. You have to write a paper, you have to describe briefly the plants that you collect, make a draft or take a pictures. The specimens collected and identified will be the exsicatta for your paper

Firstly try to collect all available data of these plants in surrounding territories. And if it possible, identify the life strategy of these plants (violnets, patients or explerents). Also necessary to collect herbarim specimens and note full description of every species. After this procedure you may to compare your material with such material collected by another researchers. If genera so large you may be sure that you successfully excluded infraspecific variability (in some cases it greatly depends on enviromental conditions). You may to consult with the specialists in botany, who currently work with this genus in the world.

Another aspect of this problem is how to determine the term "species" (what level of differencies between 2 taxa inough for its identification as 2 separate species).

In case if you want to describe new species you may to apply some another methods (i.e. molecurar phylogeny, barcodind, anatomy, biochemical traits ets.) of plant identification than traditional morphology description. These methods in some cases (especially difficult morphological identificatoin) are very helpful.

If I know the last editionof the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICBN), the latin descriptin is not necessary for the description of new species.

Good wishes

Good.!

1. As a first step you have to check all relevant details of the plant (general morphology of vegetative and reproductive characters, anatomy, macro and micro climatic conditions of the particular location, if possible chemical traits etc)

2. compare your observation with other species of the particular genus

3. if there are still clear differences from characters from other species, prepare a concept note with all you observation and handed over it to your country national herbarium to send it to expert group in particulrar genus ( May be Kew experts)

.

If you find a species new to science and you want to describe it the English version of the protologue (the description of the main morphological features useful to identify the plant and to discriminate the new taxa from the closest ones) should be enough according to the new International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (Melbourne Code), so translation to Latin it isn't compulsory, I guess.

Steps:

1. Look for any monograph/revision for the entire genus that contains your species. If there is one, follow the identification key. If your plant does not match any of the species described in the key, it is very likely that your species is new. Search also for the specialists on the group to where your species belong.

2. Now, if the revision has been published long ago (e.g.

As you mentioned, there are lot of exotic species entering into Saudi Arabia. So make sure this is not an alien plant. If it is a ruderal, then there is possibility that this might be belonging to that lot. Latin description is not compulsory now.

Floras and Monographs for the family/genus are usually the standard place to look for information about a genus. Of course, there are several cases in which new species are described after the last monograph came out, so searching for papers describing new taxa in the group is highly recommended. For the record, what are the family and genus in question?

About visiting herbaria, such as Kew, etc., to describe a new species (or subspecies or about any taxa, really), it is necessary to make a analisys of the witness specimens, or vouchers, collected and compare tham with vouchers from other closely related taxa. These vouchers are deposited in herbaria around the world, and have different amounts of information depending on the taxonmic group, geographic region, importance of the herbarium itself, etc.

the genus found is Pulicaria "Asteraceae" after checking the of 12 Pulicaria species growing in Saudi Arabia, the species in question is very different it has a Betula nigra like leaves, and it has a long petiole. All species of Pulicaria are sessile with exception of one species called Pulicaria petiolaris which has a petiole.

Pulicaria species growing in Saudi Arabia are:

Pulicaria arabica

Pulicaria crispa = P. undulata

Pulicaria guestti

Pulicaria glutinosa

Pulicaria incisa ssp. candolleana

Pulicaria incisa ssp. incisa

Pulicaria jaubertii

Pulicaria inuloides

Pulicaria petiolaris

Pulicaria schimperi

Pulicaria vulgaris

Pulicaria somalensis ssp. somalensis.

Warm thanks for all comments, I am very happy for this scientific environment and positive interactions.

1. Search for the broadest possible monograph of the genus in question to see if you can key it out. Sometimes there is not sufficient documentation of plants from a given country, the plant has been recently introduced, or escaped from cultivation. With the monograph, you can try to identify it.

2. Consult the virtual herbaria that contain images of specimens from that genus, to double check any species that approach the entity.

3. Determine the family and genus if possible, then check with the largest herbaria of the world to ascertain who is the recognized specialist, then send that specialist an image if the species can be determined that easily. You will have to trust the specialist that he or she will not "scoop" you. They should be grateful for your sending them the image, and if they identify it, you should "pay them" by sending them a duplicate of the collection.

4. If the specialist says it is new, ask him or her if they would like to co-author the description of the new species with you. Even though you are the finding party, you will learn that ultimately, it pays to work with a monographer rather than a floristician.

I hope these suggestions are useful to you

There is no a straigth forward answer, It requieres a significant ammount of experience on the group. Find the most recent monograph for the correspnding genus and select a set of informative characters used on keys and tables. Search a digital libraries for all recently published species. Build a preliminary table for each significant character of your potential new species. Check wether your characters match with any of the species in the monograph or the recently published species. Make sure that you have sufficient quantitative and qualitative characters to separate your species, otherwise yo may end up with a subspecies. Visit selected herbaria with good representation for yur study area to have an overview of variability, you may find not only your new species but several more, be carful though many determinations there can misslead you. You may also find further clues for youre description. Go back to the field in search of missing or additional characters that have not been used before.

Firts, you have to request all the information of the flora from the study area in order to be sure that your records are not cited previously. Not only check the Flora, you have to check monographs of the genera or families in question. Check carefully the features of your collectaed plants and compare with the species of the same genus recorded in the regional Flora. when you are sure that your records are not cited previously in this area you can write a short article with the new records. On the other hand you have to take account that some of your records could be new species. In this case is very important that that you having some experience in the family or genus before describe a new species. You could request help to a specialist botany and share the description of new species and you have to visitng some herbaria with specimens of your study area..

One approach would be to immerse oneself in the details of such discoveries by someone like Vicki Funk, who regularly discovers new species of daisy with her colleagues.

My own advice is less likely to be useful, coming from a neuroscientist without a single botanical publication  until last year. However, since I did succeed in discovering a new species of baobab tree that is widespread in Africa and was under everyone's noses, my tips from a maverick might have slim chance of bearing fruit.

1. Total Immersion:

First it is essential to learn as much as possible about your plant group of interest. A picture of the undescribed species (if there is one) may emerge in your mind from amongst all the myriad details, perhaps to fill a gap in the existing account. In other words, you need to become an expert, by immersion, in Pulicaria. This should preferably be supported by experience in the field, because drying distorts or loses many features of interest in herbarium specimens (see below). This may enable you to visualize a hole in the morphodistribution of species in the genus that seems to be filled by the "new" species. At this stage you might also try to erect a preliminary phylogeny, which can also highlight gaps.

In my own case, the picture of a new baobab in Africa emerged from a combination of cytogenetics and biogeography of the existing 8 baobabs, one each in Australia and Africa and 6 in Madagascar, all of which were diploids except for the African species , which is tetraploid. There was no consensus about the place of origin, but tetraploidy is unlikely to have appeared and then been lost 6 times over, so the African tetraploid was probably derived. It may therefore have a diploid progenitor in Africa.......which was the focus of my successful search, later supported by corroborating data, including DNA, from my colleagues.

The biogeography of Pulicaria might also help you, as did the baobab biogeography help me. Knowing this would also facilitate your detection of a vagrant.

2. Appropriate Survey Methods:

Although modern journals insist on DNA sequence from the new species, if you take a look at recent papers, including my own description of the new baobab, you will notice that the DNA sequence often cannot discriminate the new species unequivocally from the congenerics. Moreover, it is not very practical to use DNA to help identify the new species in the field. It becomes a different, boring exercise to collect leaf in the field and identify the taxa retrospectively using DNA in the lab. if the study is not driven by direct contact with the target species in the field. On DNA, one can always preserve leaf during the vital field studies that can later be used to obtain ITS sequence, either from a commercial outfit or from colleagues.

How does one survey in the field then? This approach probably requires one to have that picture in one's mind, to provide the focus and the motivation needed to sustain one over the many months likely to be needed in the field.

A. Be there in the flowering season!

Species is a reproductive phenomenon, so a new species will be instantly recognizable by its flower, and also by its pollen, which can be diagnosed easily in the field if one carries a small portable microscope.

B. In addition to flower and pollen, at any time, without catching flowering, one can also use stomata on the underside of the leaf, viewed by their impression in a Magic tape leaf-lift in the portable microscope. This is  particularly valuable when the new species has different ploidy from the already-described congenerics, as was the case with the new African diploid, which has smaller, more densely populated stomata compared to the large, sparse stomata of the African tetraploid.

Armed with some double-sided sticky tape (for pollen), Magic sticky tape (for the leaf lift of stomata) and a Poyser portable microscope, one can efficiently and widely survey in the field, leaving the DNA analysis for later in the lab.

This would be easy if most plant round the world had updated database records of morphological features and other taxonomic features.

But the logical way out is to compare your findings with the closest genus or family of your potential new species and note congruent and non-congruent features.

Finalize your findings by consulting at least 3 experts in the field who have worked with members of that family or genus in the last 15 years.

Sound advice from the participants. If you are not familiar with the taxonomy of the group, or lack the time or means to investigate the problem, involving an international expert(s) will be your best bet.

In your case, Pulicaria, it might be very wise to send a specimen to a specialist: there is a chance it is not Pulicaria after all, but a related genus. Composites is a large family, with many changes in generic delimitation in the past 40 years, and without having access to a large herbarium with most taxa included there is a large chance you end up with a paper either describing an already existing species or (with some luck) it will be shot down by a reviewer who does recognise the plant. On the other hand, it might be a new species, but a specialist would be able to make that out too.

Understanding aspects of plasticity or adaptive radiation of a suspected plant family may help accuracy in recognizing the possibility of your find being a new species.

Ammar,

just a thought on the regional variation and the idea of "species". The individual itself may be morphologically different but not genetically different. Have you thought about comparing ITS sequences with a known species? That would be a great start, and most universities would be happy to help with the sequencing and comparison. It would then be useful to see if the individual is not a single unit (mutation) but an existing endemic population. There are a number of species "concepts" that define a species, and trusting a single one concept, on one example alone, is difficult. meeting 2 out of 3 concepts adds more strength to the possibility. Might I suggest a paper that may help clarify, "Adaptive speciation in Mimulus: an ecological comparison of M. cupriphilus with its presumed progenitor, M. guttatus" (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-8137.1989.tb02383.x/pdf).

I am studying a similar case and have utilized 3 species concepts, including morphology, to test for either allopatric or incipient speciation.

Hope it helps and best of luck.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-8137.1989.tb02383.x/pdf

This is a big challenge for systematics to introduce new species.

You should have some steps for that:

First of all, you have to know all species of your region. You have to access to Typus samples and their description in literature. For introducing new species, you must see type specimens first. You need a good bibliography of your data.

Then you should know the neighbor countries flora, monographs and everything about your taxa. Your sample may be a new record for your country or it may be a new species.

If you have some complex species in your genus, the problem becomes worse.

But I recommend to have contact with herbaria which your type specimens have been deposited there and have access to them. You can have contact with experts of your taxa in the world and have a collaboration with them.

Paul, I am pretty sure that leaf form is the result of some damage to the developing leaf in bud. I would doubt that it has much an impact on the physiology of the tree as a whole. What a cool find, though!

Very good and complete comentary of Alina Freire-Fierro about the steps for identify plants and the reference book of describing species in pdf. I think is good guide and instruction for that. More complementary comments are good too.

The Royal Botanical Garden , Kew will be the best way for such analysis.

Thank you Dr. Alina Freire-Fierro for giving us a guide in identifying a plant  And, for recommending to use a reference book in Describing a Species.

I have a species want to describe and have a revision.