Summary
Rankin Rodriguez, R. & Greuter, W.: Humboldt, Willdenow, and Polygala (Polygalaceae). – Taxon 50: 1231–1247.2001. ‐ ISSN 0040–0262.
Based on published sources (including contemporary correspondence) and the Humboldt expedition's field notebooks, some information on Humboldt and Bonpland's plant collections in their relation to Willdenow and his Species plantarum is provided. The genus Polygala served as a test sample. The Willdenow Herbarium (B‐W) holds 23 Polygala specimens from the Humboldt expedition (several others were erroneously attributed to Humboldt), representing 17 of the 18 species described by Kunth in the Nova genera. The following main conclusions are drawn: (1) three types of handwriting can be recognised on the expedition's field labels in B‐W, which are identified as Bonpland's, Humboldt's, and a third one that is tentatively ascribed to an unknown field assistant; (2) a full set of the plant collections from Venezuela was sent to Willdenow from Havana early in 1801 and had been received in Berlin by September 1802; (3) in vol. 3(2) of Willdenow's Species plantarum, published in early November 1802, a single species (Hypericum caracasanum) was described based on the new Humboldt material; (4) the numbers found on many of Humboldt's labels refer to the numbered entries in the field notebooks, but are not collection numbers in the modern sense, because many collections, on which no notes were taken, remained unnumbered; (5) numbering was fairly consistent, all duplicates of collections on which field notes exist being normally numbered, except when the label was accidentally lost; (6) the set of duplicates given by Humboldt to Willdenow was virtually complete, but the equally complete set in Bonpland's herbarium (P‐Bonpl.), having been studied by Kunth in the first place, should be used to typify the names of new taxa first published in the Nova genera. Based on an improved understanding of the background of these collections, a recently proposed type designation for Polygala tenella Willd. is rejected. This long forgotten name is here neotypified in such a way as to retain its traditional place in the synonymy of P. paniculata L.
Harpalyce greuteri (Leguminosae: Brongniartieae), a new species from eastern Cuba, with a synopsis of and key to the Cuban species of the genus Version of record first published online on 28 June 2021 ahead of inclusion in August 2021 issue.
Summary
Rankin Rodríguez, R. & Greuter, W.: Charles Plumier's drawings of American plants and the nomenclature of early Caribbean Aristolochia species (Aristolochiaceae). ‐‐ Taxon 48: 677‐688. 1999. – ISSN 0040‐0262.
Among the 1657 mostly unpublished drawings of Caribbean plants made by Charles Plumier between 1689 and 1697, 6 concern species of Aristolochia. All have served, either in original (kept in the Central Library of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris) or in copy (from the series drawn for Boerhaave in 1733 and studied in 1738 by Linnaeus), or as published plates base on either set, or by an associated description, as the main basis for 7 heterotypic binomials referring to 6 species. Having studied the original drawings and Plumier's correlated manuscript notes in Paris as well as the 4 extant Boerhaave copies and all relevant literature, the authors critically review the typification and application of the binomials concerned, designating lecto‐ or neotypes where needed and epitypes in most cases. Current usage of names is maintained with two exceptions. The name A. bilabiata has, since 1966, been misapplied to the species that was previously and correctly known as A. oblongata, and should therefore now be rejected as a confused name (rather than being adopted in the sense of its type, displacing A. chasmema to designate a rare endemic of Haiti, Hispaniola). A. punctata, so far considered a doubtful name, is synonymous with A. fuertesii and must be adopted in its stead for another seldom collected endemic of Hispaniola.
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