Xyris neocaledonica Rendle, Journ. Bot. 1899

Morel, Jérémie & Munzinger, Jérôme, 2021, Novitates neocaledonicae. XIII. Taxonomy and nomenclature of the genus Xyris (Xyridaceae, Poales) in New Caledonia, with description of a new species, Phytotaxa 502 (3), pp. 219-229 : 225

Xyris neocaledonica Rendle, Journ. Bot. 1899 , 507.

Type:— NEW CALEDONIA. Mt. Mon [=Mou], E. Vieillard 1408, (lectotype, designated here: BM [BM000990765] (image seen); isolectotype: P [P01766970]!) .

Nomenclatural remarks:—The protologue of Rendle (1899: 507) indicates “Hab. New Caledonia. Dry ferruginous soil, 400 metres; Pancher no. 411. Mt. Mon [=Mou]; Vieillard 1408 in herb. Hance no. 17,369 ”, thus implicitly designing a syntype ( Turland et al. 2018; Article 40, Note 1). The two collections cited were mounted on the same sheet at BM, where Rendle was working, but clearly identified as distinct, and each having a barcode [BM000990764, BM000990765]. Hance has never made a collection in New Caledonia ( Morat 2010), so he received collection 1408 from Vieillard, and gave it his own number 17,369. This Vieillard collection [BM000990765] is in good condition, with flowers and bears the locality of the protologue, and this is selected as the lectotype. Then, it is usual for Pancher and Vieillard to encounter the same label numbers assigned to different gatherings ( MacKee and MacKee 1981; Hopkins and Bradford 2009). Six duplicates of Vieillard 1408 were found at P, five collected from “M’bée mountains” in 1855-1860 [P01766975, P01760201, P01760200, P01760183, P0176697] and one from “Mont Mou”, 1861-1867 [P01766970]. Therefore, only this latest specimen, whose locality conforms to the protologue, can be considered as an iso-lectotype.