Senecio scrobicarioides DC., Prodr.

Calvo, Joel & Granda, Arturo, 2022, On the taxonomic identity of five Senecio species (Compositae) described by Candolle on material collected by Haenke during the Malaspina Expedition, Candollea 77 (2), pp. 145-158 : 154

3. Senecio scrobicarioides DC., Prodr. 6: 430. 1838.

Lectotypus (designated here): PERU: sine loco, s.d., Haenke s.n. ( PRC [ PRC453170 ] image!; isolecto-: G-DC [ G00487062 ]!, PR-514867 image!; P [ P01816514 ] image!) .

Notes. – CANDOLLE (1838) described Senecio scrobicarioides based on a Haenke collection whose provenance was uncertain as the locotype indication reveals: “in Mexico ad Real del Monte? aut fortè in Peruviâ legit cl. Haenke”, but he placed it in “ser. XV. Mexicani”. The species is currently widely accepted as Peruvian (SMITH, 1988; DILLON & HENSOLD, 1993; VISION & DILLON, 1996; BELTRÁN, 2018), which coincides with the fact that no works dealing with the Mexican flora record the species (VILLASEÑOR, 2016; PRUSKI, 2018).

The delimitation of Senecio scrobicarioides , however, remains ambiguous and this name has often been applied to specimens belonging to S. bonplandianus DC. or S. sulinicus Cabrera (CALVO, 2022a). These species are certainly very similar but differ in capitulum type (radiate in S. scrobicarioides vs. discoid in S. bonplandianus and S. sulinicus ). They belong to a taxonomically complex assembly of taxa from the highAndes of Peru and Bolivia centered around S. hohenackeri Sch. Bip. , which includes, among others, S. crassilodix Cuatrec. , S. octophyllus Sch. Bip. ex Rusby , S. pavonii (Wedd.) Cuatrec., S. saxipunae Cuatrec. , S. sublutescens Cuatrec. Because of the radiate capitula with short ray florets, S. scrobicarioides seems to be closer to S. saxipunae but if one rather focuses on the foliar morphology, it resembles to S. bonplandianus as aforementioned. F or the time being, the particular combination of characters of S. scrobicarioides leads us to treat it as a distinct species, however, a comprehensive revision of this group is essential to understanding the variability of each species. Our preliminary approach suggests that some names would fall in synonymy.

Concerning the type material, we located duplicates of the Haenke collection at G-DC, P, PR, and PRC. Although there is a specimen kept at G-DC, we prefer to typify the name on the material in Prague as it was the main set studied by Candolle. The specimen at PRC is more complete than that at PR, and for this reason the former one is designated here as the lectotype.

It is noteworthy that we found at MA [MA-232356] a specimen attributed to Née that undoubtedly corresponds to the Peruvian species Senecio scrobicarioides . The specimen bears a handwritten label (unknown hand) with the following information: “Cineraria / ex Chalma in Nov. Hispania / Nee iter”. Chalma is a village located in the Mexico State not far from Mexico City known for the homonym XVII century sanctuary, which was visited by Née in August 1791 (MADULID, 1989; MUÑOZ GARMENDIA, 1994). However, we believe that this is another case of mislabeling (see above). Indeed, it is striking the great similarity of this specimen with the type material of S. scrobicarioides (same size, habit, morphology, phenology, and preservation conditions). On this basis, it is feasible to think that all these specimens belonged to the same collection, that were shared between Haenke and Née, and later mislabeled in Prague and Madrid, respectively. However, these are conjectures that remain beyond the scope of the present study.