Solanum violaceum Ortega

Knapp, Sandra, 2013, Typification of Solanum species (Solanaceae) described by Casimiro Gómez Ortega, Anales del Jardín Botánico de Madrid 70 (1), pp. 56-61 : 59-60

Solanum violaceum Ortega , Nov. Pl. Descr. Dec. 56. 1798

Ind. loc.: “ Habitat en Bahia Botanica. Floret Octobri et Novembri in Reg. Hort. Matrit. è seminibus Londino missis per Exc. D. Marchionissam de Bute ”.

Neotype, designated here: MA 307449 ; possible isotype MA 208082.

Current accepted name: Solanum violaceum Ortega.

Solanum violaceum is the currently accepted name for the species long known as S. indicum L. That name appears in Appendix II of the Code (McNeill & al., 2006) and was rejected based on inconsistency of its use and the confusion created by this (see Hepper, 1978 ). Solanum violaceum is a wide spread weedy species occurring throughout Asia and into the Mascarene Islands of the Indian Ocean; Hepper (1978 a) quite incorrectly synonymised it with S. anguivi Lam. , a very similar but different widespread species of Africa (see Vorontsova & Knapp, 2012).

Two specimens in MA, both from plants cultivated in the Real Jardín Botánico (“Hort. Reg. Matr.”), are identifiable as S. violaceum . One is a poor sheet with crumpled unusually small leaves and fruits only (MA 208082, Kew negative 17003 taken in Jan 1977), is labelled “Rl. Jard de Mad” in the unknown pale brown hand (see above) and bears no date; the other (MA 307449) is in flower and fruit and has a label “ Solanum indicum Linn. / Solanum violaceum Ortega / Hort. Reg. Matr./año 1801” in hand of José Demetrio Rodriguez. The late Richard N. Lester in appropriately annotated the fruiting specimen as “holotype” material. This sheet does not correspond to the protologue, and in addition to being a poor specimen does not have the long straight fruiting pedicels of material currently identified as S. violaceum . The flowering sheet (MA 307449, Fig. 2 ) corresponds better to the protologue description of sinuate leaves “cordatis sinuatis” with cordate bases, has a date consistent with it being cultivated when Gómez Ortega’s tenure as director and is thus the logical choice for a neotype. Although the sheet is dated 1801, this species does not appear in Cavanilles’s (1802) teaching list.

The protologue states seeds were originally collected “Bahia Botanica” (Botany Bay in New South Wales, Australia) and were obtained from the Marquess of Bute, John Stuart the 4 th Earl of Bute who, like Gómez Ortega, was a Fellow of Royal Society in London. The seeds from which these plants were grown were possibly brought back by Joseph Banks, another member of the Royal Society and friend of Bute. There are no herbarium specimens of S. violaceum definitely attributable to Banks in BM, but a sheet of a plant grown in the Chelsea Physic Garden in London (BM000942956) is dated 1778. I suspect the seeds received by Gómez Ortega were from the same source as this Chelsea plant, most likely India; S. violaceum does not occur in Australia.

Figures

Fig. 2. Neotype of Solanum violaceum Ortega (MA 307449).