Chenopodium hircinum, Schrader, 1833

Mosyakin, Sergei L. & Sokolova, Irina V., 2020, Lectotypification of the name Chenopodium hircinum, a wild relative of the pseudocereal crop species C. quinoa (Chenopodiaceae), Phytotaxa 432 (2), pp. 190-198 : 191-192

Chenopodium hircinum as a wild relative of the crop species C. quinoa

It was and is widely recognized that South American Chenopodium hircinum is closely related to C. quinoa Willdenow (1798: 1301) , an important ancient pseudocereal crop of the Andean origin, which is now becoming increasingly popular around the world as a very promising crop producing high yields, even under harsh condition of draught and salinity (see Wilson 1990, Taylor & Parker 2002, Jacobsen 2003, FAO 2011, Lack & Fuentes 2013, FAO & CIRAD 2015, Mosyakin & Schwartau 2015, Jarvis et al. 2017, Mosyakin & Walter 2018, and references therein). Much research has been done on genetics, genomics, phylogeny, morphology and geography of C. quinoa and its relatives (see Maughan et al. 2007, Jellen et al. 2011, 2019, Fuentes-Bazan et al. 2012a, 2012b, FAO & CIRAD 2015, Walsh et al. 2015, Jarvis et al. 2017, and references therein).

Aellen (1960–1961: 577) placed Chenopodium hircinum and C. quinoa , with several other species (mainly those native to the Americas), in Chenopodium sect. Chenopodium subsect. Cellulata Aellen ser. “ Foveosa ” Aellen (nom. inval. according to Art. 39.1 of the ICN: Turland et al. 2018). It should be noted that several newly proposed infrageneric names in Chenopodium were initially published invalidly in Iljin & Aellen (1936), Aellen & Just (1943), and Aellen (1960–1961) because no Latin descriptions and/or diagnoses were provided (Art. 39.1 of the ICN). The series name with the corrected spelling, ser. Favosa Aellen, was validated in the later nomenclatural note by Aellen (1964: 69). Chenopodium hircinum , C. quinoa , C. berlandieri Moquin-Tandon (1840: 23) and some other taxa share peculiar morphological and anatomical characters of their fruits and seeds, and these characters were traditionally considered important and diagnostic in taxonomy of Chenopodium and related genera (see Iljin & Aellen 1936, Aellen 1960–1961, Uotila 2001, Iamonico 2013, 2017, Sukhorukov & Zhang 2013, Sukhorukov 2014, etc.). The placement of C. quinoa and C. hircinum in subsection Favosa (Aellen) Mosyakin & Clemants (1996: 401) was accepted in an updated infrageneric system of the genus ( Mosyakin & Clemants 1996, see also Clemants & Mosyakin 2003, Mosyakin 2003), which is now under revision (Mosyakin, Mandák and collaborators, in progress) following the newly obtained molecular phylogenetic, morphological, and biogeographical data.

As it is evident now, following the recent molecular phylogenetic findings, the group of tetraploid (2 n =36) North and South American species, including such taxa as Chenopodium quinoa , C. berlandieri , C. hircinum , etc., are in fact allopolyploids that resulted from hybridization of ancestral diploid A-genome and B-genome taxa ( Walsh et al. 2015, Mandák et al. 2018, and references therein). The group of C. quinoa and its relatives is sometimes termed as “ C. berlandieri / hircinum / quinoa allotetraploid species complex” ( Jellen et al. 2019, etc.); cases of hybridization between taxa of that group, including hybridization between C. quinoa and C. hircinum , have been documented and confirmed since the classical research of C. quinoa and its relatives by H.D. Wilson (1980, 1981, 1988, 1990, etc.).

Chenopodium hircinum is rather variable, both morphologically and genetically, and also both within its native range in South America and in its secondary anthropogenic range ( Murr 1903, Aellen 1929, 1931, 1960–1961, Aellen & Just 1943, Wilson 1981, 1988, 1990, Giusti 1997, etc.). Jellen et al. (2019: 188) commented that “From an applied research perspective, efforts to collect and characterize samples representative of the broad geographic and morphological range of C. berlandieri and its wild/weedy South American cousin, C. hircinum Schrad. , are essential”. Such an inventory is impossible without proper understanding of morphological variation of the species, and thus lectotypification of all species-rank names (as well as main names of infraspecific ranks) in the group is important for proper infraspecific classification of accepted taxa, and also for agricultural practice and crop improvement.

The name Chenopodium quinoa has been recently lectotypified by Lack and Fuentes (2013) with a specimen from the Willdenow Herbarium in B (here and below the herbarium acronyms are given following Thiers 2008 –onward). The name was also proposed for nomenclatural conservation against two competing names of nomenclatural priority, C. purpurascens Jacquin (1777: 43 , tab. 80) and C. punctulatum Scopoli (1786: 26 , tab. 11) ( Mosyakin & Walter 2018). Thus, we may expect that the nomenclature of C. quinoa will be soon satisfactorily stabilized.

However, that is not the case with the name Chenopodium hircinum applicable to one of the closest wild relatives of C. quinoa . To the best of our knowledge, the name has not been yet formally and effectively (lecto- or neo-)typified, probably partly because the location of original material of Schrader applicable to that name was considered uncertain. For example, Iljin and Aellen (1936) reported herbaria of deposition for the known type specimens of 27 out of the 32 species-rank names in Chenopodium sensu lato accepted in the Flora of the USSR (including four types reported as deposited in LE), but no herbarium information was provided for a type of C. hircinum , despite the fact that Modest M. Iljin (1889–1967) worked in LE since 1916 and was well familiar with the LE holdings of Chenopodiaceae (see Novopokrovsky 1950, Vasiliyev 1970). In addition to the now known specimens at LE discussed below, another supposedly original specimen of C. hircinum from Schrader’s herbarium was probably held at B (see further details below).