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(3025) Proposal to reject the name Gymnogramma plantaginea ( Pteridopsida )

2024; Wiley; Volume: 73; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1002/tax.13201

1996-8175

Andriy Kovalchuk, Christopher Roy Fraser‐Jenkins,

Botany, Ecology, and Taxonomy Studies

(3025) Gymnogramma plantaginea Spreng., Syst. Veg. 4(1): 39. 1–7 Jan 1827, nom. utique rej. prop. Lectotypus (hic designatus): Nepal, [1817–1820], Wallich (BM barcode BM001038409 [ex Herb. John Smith] [right-hand specimen] [image!]). Many plant species of the Himalayan region were first described in David Don's work, Prodromus Florae Nepalensis (Don, Prodr. Fl. Nepal. 1825). As outlined in the preface to Don's work, his account is primarily based on collections made in Nepal and surrounding areas by Francis Buchanan (later Hamilton) in the years 1802 and 1803. Don also had access to materials collected by the Hon. Edward Gardner, first British Resident to the Royal Court of Nepal, and by collectors who from 1817 to 1820 sent down specimens to Nathaniel Wallich in the Calcutta Botanic Garden prior to Wallich's own visit to Nepal in 1820–1821 (Fraser-Jenkins, First Bot. Coll. Nepal. 2006). Gardner's collections were sent to England from Calcutta by Wallich, and Don referred to them in his book as "Wallich". Don accessed this material in the herbarium of A.B. Lambert, for whom he was librarian. In addition to numerous new names of flowering plants, 64 newly described ferns were validly published in Don's Prodromus (Don, l.c.). However, a considerable number of those fern names were illegitimate later homonyms of earlier names (see Smith & Fraser-Jenkins in Taxon 31: 326–329. 1982 for a detailed analysis). Kurt Sprengel in the 4th volume of what was described as the 16th edition of Linnaeus's Systema vegetabilium (Sprengel, Syst. Veg. 4(1). 1827) provided legitimate replacement names for some of Don's illegitimate fern names. Five of Sprengel's names provide basionyms for names in current use, namely Polypodium donianum Spreng. (≡ P. tenellum D. Don 1825, non G. Forst. 1786), Polypodium wallichianum Spreng. (≡ P. juglandifolium D. Don 1825, non Humb. & Bonpl. ex Willd. 1810), Aspidium nepalense Spreng. (≡ A. auriculatum D. Don 1825, non Sw. 1801), Aspidium wallichianum Spreng. (≡ A. paleaceum D. Don 1825, non Sw. 1806) and Davallia nepalensis Spreng. (≡ D. flaccida D. Don 1825, non R. Br. 1810). There is, however, an additional legitimate replacement fern name published by Sprengel that remained largely neglected by later authors, namely Gymnogramma ("Gymnogramme") plantaginea Spreng., published as a replacement name for the illegitimate Hemionitis plantaginea D. Don 1825, non Sm. 1793 nec Cav. 1802. For some reason, both names Hemionitis plantaginea D. Don and Gymnogramma plantaginea Spreng. were subsequently neglected and there is little mention of them in the pteridological literature. They were omitted in the fundamental works Species filicum (Hooker, Sp. Fil. 1846–1864) and Synopsis filicum (Hooker & Baker, Syn. Fil. 1865–1868). Among 19th century works, the name H. plantaginea D. Don appeared in Edward Lowe's Ferns: British and Exotic in the synonymy of "Polypodium hemionitideum Wall." (correctly P. hemionitideum (C. Presl) Mett.) (Lowe, Ferns 2: 15–16. 1858) and in John Smith's Ferns: British & Foreign in the synonymy of Colysis membranacea (D. Don) J. Sm. (Smith, Ferns Brit. For.: 98. 1866). Remarkably, as can be seen from the synonyms provided, both authors failed to distinguish two superficially similar fern species with entire fronds, originally described by David Don based on Gardner's collections from Nepal as H. plantaginea D. Don and Polypodium membranaceum D. Don (the latter is currently known as Bosmania membranacea (D. Don) Testo or Microsorum membranaceum (D. Don) Ching). However, the superficial similarity between them is misleading, and currently the two species are assigned to different genera. Carl Christensen in his Index filicum (Christensen, Index Filic.: 339, 346. 1906) listed Hemionitis plantaginea D. Don and Gymnogramma plantaginea Spreng. as synonyms, but he did not associate those names with either Polypodium membranaceum or P. hemionitideum, indirectly indicating that he was uncertain about the identity of Don's H. plantaginea. This uncertainty still prevails, as H. plantaginea and G. plantaginea are either omitted or listed as unplaced in modern checklists and nomenclatural databases (e.g., Fraser-Jenkins & al., Annot. Checkl. Ind. Pterid. 3: 156–157. 2021; POWO, http://www.plantsoftheworldonline.org/. 2024; WFO, https://wfoplantlist.org/. 2024; Tropicos, https://www.tropicos.org/. 2024) notwithstanding the fact that the name H. plantaginea D. Don was listed as a synonym of Leptochilus decurrens subsp. hemionitideus (C. Presl) Fras.-Jenk. by Fraser-Jenkins (Taxon. Revis. Indian Subcontinental Pteridoph.: 63. 2008). However, when making this new combination, Fraser-Jenkins overlooked the existence of the name G. plantaginea Spreng., which is the earliest legitimate name for the taxon in question. No evidence of an effective typification of the name Hemionitis plantaginea D. Don could be found in the pteridological literature. In Don's protologue, the origin of the type material is indicated as "In Nepaliâ. Wallich". It is known that Wallich sent materials collected in Nepal to several British botanists, including Aylmer Bourke Lambert (Candolle & Smith in Bot. J. Linn. Soc. 83: 325–348. 1981). David Don served as librarian for Lambert and had access to Lambert's herbarium. However, materials studied by Don during the preparation of his Prodromus (Don, l.c.) were collected in Nepal by Gardner and two collectors sent to Nepal by Wallich, Francis de Silva and Bharat Singh, between 1817 and 1820, i.e., before Wallich's own visit to Nepal in 1820–1821 (Fraser-Jenkins, l.c. 2006). Don sent duplicates from Lambert's herbarium to John Smith under the names he had given them in Don (l.c.). Smith in turn donated his fern herbarium to the Natural History Museum, London (BM). A search in the BM herbarium collection revealed a sheet, barcode BM001038409, with a left-hand single frond and a right-hand specimen consisting of a rhizome fragment with three well-preserved fronds attached to it. The sheet is a part of John Smith's herbarium, and it is annotated by Smith as "Phyllitidis hemionitidea J. Sm., ms. 1843. Nepal (Wallich)". The right-hand specimen has a label in David Don's handwriting "Grammitis plantaginea". Thus it can be concluded that the specimen is a part of the original material of H. plantaginea D. Don and it was among duplicates sent to J. Smith by Don. As discussed above, it was part of the Nepalese collections sent to England by Wallich, but collected either by Gardner or by collectors sent to Nepal by Wallich. The collection agrees with the description in the protologue of H. plantaginea D. Don. The right-hand specimen with a label written by Don is here selected as the lectotype of H. plantaginea. In the protologue of Gymnogramma plantaginea, Sprengel referred directly to H. plantaginea D. Don and repeated Don's descriptive phrase slightly modified. No additional names or specimens were cited by Sprengel. Thus, Sprengel's name clearly represents a replacement name, and it is therefore to be typified by the type of H. plantaginea D. Don (ICN Art. 7.4, Turland & al. in Regnum Veg. 159. 2018). The type of Gymnogramma plantaginea Spreng. belongs to the taxon currently known either as Leptochilus hemionitideus (C. Presl) Noot. or L. decurrens subsp. hemionitideus (C. Presl) Fras.-Jenk. The name G. plantaginea Spreng. (1827) predates both the names Selliguea hemionitidea C. Presl (1836) and Leptochilus decurrens Blume (1828), and thus following the rule of priority, the epithet "plantaginea" ought to be adopted for this taxon, regardless of whether it is treated as a species of its own or is merged with L. decurrens. As shown above, the epithet "plantaginea" has never been accepted as the name for the taxon in question. At the same time, the name L. hemionitideus is well known to pteridologists and is consistently used in contemporary taxonomic literature and reference databases. In order to preserve nomenclatural stability and to maintain the use of the well-established name L. hemionitideus, the rejection of the name G. plantaginea Spreng. is proposed.