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 : 192-193

Specimens of Chenopodium hircinum in LE associated with Schrader

According to Stafleu and Cowan (1985: 316), Schrader’s collection is mainly in LE, with some specimens (including sets and exsiccates) being also represented in several other herbaria: B (mainly destroyed during World War II), BP, FI, G, GOET, LZ, M, PH, UPS, etc. Evidently, most of Schrader’s extant original specimens are now in LE.

It is known that the purchase / procurement of the Schrader herbarium was initiated by Friedrich Ernst (Fedor Bogdanovich) Fischer, and about 10 000 species were received in St. Petersburg in 1841 (see Lipsky 1908, Fedtschenko 1913, Lipschitz & Vasilchenko 1968, Geltman 2004 –onward, and references therein). Trautvetter (1873: 215) reported that the cost of that “considerable collection of dried plants (about 10,000 species) and other botanical items” in 1841 was 3 750 silver Rubles provided by the imperial order. Now specimens of Schrader are incorporated in the main collections of the LE herbarium. Our search of the JSTOR Global Plants (https://plants.jstor.org/, accessed 21 November 2019) for specimens of taxa described by Schrader and deposited in LE resulted in information on 111 specimens. It means that, definitely, many of Schrader’s types currently held in LE have not been yet identified as types and/or digitized.

However, two sheets from LE presumably containing original material of Chenopodium hircinum have been digitized and are now available online through the web site of JSTOR Global Plants (see the links below).

The sheet LE00011695 (digital image available online from https://plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/al.ap.specimen. le00011695) is characterized in the JSTOR Global Plants database as original material of Chenopodium hircinum and is associated with “Relig. [sic!] Schrader”. The specimen contains parts of two plants: upper and middle part of one plant, and another plant, complete with roots. Both these plants most probably belong to C. hircinum (as it is understood now) but their leaves are less distinctly trilobale than those in plants in LE00011694 (see below). The plants are immature (collected at the early flowering stage) and thus it is impossible to check their fruit characters. The specimen has the label with the typographically printed text “Ex horto bot. Petropolitano”. No other data associating this specimen with Schrader is available. It is possible that these plants were cultivated in St. Petersburg from seeds received from Schader, or probably from some other source. Morphologically the plants are not well representative of the species, or even their placement in C. hircinum could be questioned due to their not so typical leaf morphology and the absence of fruits/seeds.

The sheet LE00011694 (see below the link to the online digital image) contains three plant fragments most probably belonging to two individual plants, plus small fragments in an envelope mounted in the bottom right side of the sheet. The left-hand plant fragment represents the upper and middle parts of one plant ca. 40 cm long (25 + 15 cm, folded). The label below indicates that the specimen came from the herbarium of Fischer (“Herb. Fischer”, in black ink) and has the identification “ hircinum ” in pencil.

Two fragments mounted on the right side of the sheet LE00011694 represent the upper portion (ca. 13 cm long) and the mid-stem part (ca. 24 cm) with several primary branches, most probably of the same plant. The label mounted below these two fragments bears the following text: “Reliq. Schrader” (in black ink) and “Chenop. hircinum” (in pencil). A careful study of the physical specimen at LE by Irina Sokolova revealed that the cited original label mounted on the right side of the sheet has a faint, barely visible additional inscription in pencil, which she interpreted as containing three or four digits, “183?” [the third digit is transcribed tentatively, the fourth digit, if it was indeed present, is non-decipherable]. Probably that was the year of collection or provenance, or the year of Schrader’s publication (1833?). Taxonomically all plant fragments mounted on LE00011694 rather well correspond to the original description and the modern concept of Chenopodium hircinum and represent its rather widespread variety with distinctly trilobate leaves and rather long middle lobes.

It is quite possible that the sheet LE00011694 in fact contains two specimens, one from the Fischer herbarium (mounted on the left side) and another from the herbarium of Schrader (on the right side). There might be, however, an alternative explanation (advocated by the second author, Irina Sokolova). The two labels in pencil (see above) seem to be written by one person, quite probably by Schrader himself, and thus both specimens mounted on LE00011694 probably originated from the Schrader herbarium. We may assume that one specimen (or a fragment) of Chenopodium hircinum was initially preserved in LE in the general collection, together with many other specimens from the Schrader herbarium, while the second Schrader’s specimen of that species Fischer for some reason kept in his office, where he also had not only his herbarium but also some other interesting or important specimens from other collections and the general collection. When the Fischer herbarium was merged with the main collection in LE, the curatorial note “Herb. Fischer” was added to the second specimen of C. hircinum (of the two now mounted on one sheet), thus indicating its direct provenance.

Another supposedly original specimen of Chenopodium hircinum was mentioned by Murr (1903: 111), among other representative specimens that he studied before preparing his article, as “ Ch. hircinum Schrad. teste Bunge. Paraguay. Ex herb. Schrader (Ex herb. horti Petropol.). B [meaning the Berlin herbarium – “Herb. Mus. reg. Berolin.” according to Murr 1903: 111, footnote]. fig. 1”. Thus, that specimen was received at B not directly from Schrader but through LE, where it was annotated by Alexander A. Bunge (1803–1890), who in those times was one of the best experts in taxonomy of Chenopodiaceae ( Sytin 2004, Hilbig 2013). The drawing of a distinctly trilobate cauline leaf of that specimen reproduced in Fig. 1 of the table in the article by Murr (1903) corresponds well to the morphology of cauline leaves in the LE specimen LE00011694. However, since the specimen from the Berlin herbarium reportedly originated from Paraguay (not from Brazil, as stated in the protologue of C. hircinum ), its status as part of original material was at least questionable. However, it is now irrelevant for typification purposes because that specimen most probably was destroyed at B during World War II, together with many other specimens, including those of Schrader (see the comment in Stafleu & Cowan 1985: 316).

We designate here the right-hand specimen (two plant fragments; see above) of LE00011694 as the lectotype of the name Chenopodium hircinum .

Figures

FIGURE 1. Lectotype of the name Chenopodium hircinum Schrad. (LE00011694!, the right-hand specimen consisting of two plant fragments).