Iris oxypetala Bunge (1833: 63)

Boltenkov, Eugeny V., 2018, Taxonomic notes on Iris ser. Lacteae (Iridaceae) with typifications of fifteen names and one new combination, Phytotaxa 383 (3), pp. 283-292 : 288-289

4. Iris oxypetala Bunge (1833: 63)

≡ Eremiris oxypetala (Bunge) Rodionenko (2006: 1708)

Protologue citation:—“Hab. frequens in montosis et pratensibus [China boreali]”. Type (lectotype, designated by Grubov 1970: 31, as “type”):— CHINA. [Beijing], China , [fl.], 1831, Bunge s.n. ( LE 01011526 !, isolectotypes HAL0109666 [digital image!; the label was erroneously replaced by that the specimen HAL0109667 ], LECB0000941 !, P02163649 & P02163650 , left-hand side specimen [digital images!], P02163649 [digital image!]) .

– Iris ensata auct., non Thunb.

= Iris pallasii [var.] β. chinensis Fisch. ex Sims (1822: t. 2331) ≡ I. ensata var. chinensis (Fisch. ex Sims) Maxim. in Regel (1880: 161) ≡ I. lactea var. chinensis (Fisch. ex Sims) Koidzumi (1925: 300) ≡ I. lactea subsp. chinensis (Fisch. ex Sims) Kitagawa (1940: 115) ≡ Eremiris lactea var. chinensis (Fisch. ex Sims) Crespo et al. (2015: 58) . Protologue citation:—“Chinese Mongolia”. Type (lectotype, designated here):—[icon] in Sims, Bot. Mag. 49: t. 2331 (1822).

= Iris moorcroftiana Wall. ex Don (1840: 315) . Protologue citation:—“Habitat in Ludak”. Type (lectotype, designated here):— INDIA. [Jammu and Kashmir State], [Label 1]: Iris, Ladakh , [fl.], W. Moorcroft s.n.; [Label 2]: Iris moorcroftiana Wall., Ladak , s.d., Moorcroft s.n., in Wallich list no. 5051 ( K001104614 !) .

Notes:— Iris oxypetala was described by Bunge (1833) from plants collected in the northwest of China during the expedition of 1831, on its way back from Bejing through Mongolia to St. Petersburg. Grubov (1970) indicated the specimen from Bunge’s gathering, deposited at LE, as “type”. Indeed, this herbarium contains the only original specimen, which should be accepted as lectotype. From the protologue of I. oxypetala it follows that this species is close to I. lactea (cited as I. pallasii ), but differs by its acuminate outer perigone segments: “ Habitus Iridis Pallasii , sed diversa lobis corollae acutis integerrimis ”. The lectotype specimen includes one plant, an envelope in the lower right corner containing the flowers, and a label with Bunge’s note, in which the species name is not indicated. All the isolectotype specimens, found by me, have Bunge’s labels: “ Iris oxypetala mihi. China bor[ealis]., [fl.], [1831], [Bunge] s.n. Herb. Bunge”.

Iris pallasii var. chinensis was described by Sims (1822) based on cultivated plants introduced by Anderson in May 1820 from the Chelsea Physic Garden in London, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In this garden, the plants were raised from seeds sent from Gorenki by Friedrich Ernst Ludwig von Fischer, to whom the name I. pallasii var. chinensis was ascribed. Fischer managed the Russia’s foremost Razoumoffsky Botanical Garden in Gorenki near Moscow in 1806–1822 ( Lipsky 1913). The protologue contains an illustration that is designated here as the lectotype of the name. The author provided the Mongolian name of this plant, “Zu-jui-lan”. This name was also indicated by Fisher on his original handwritten label to another specimen: “[Specimen from cultivated plants], Iris pallasii Fisch. β. chinensis, Zy-ioni-lan. Cult. in hto Gorenkensi e seminibus e Pekin allatis” (P01840441 [digital image!]). Seeds of this plant were originally collected near Beijing, China, from which I. oxypetala originated. The outer perigone segments of the specimen P01840441 are also acuminate, as those in I. oxypetala (LE01011526), and, therefore, the name I. pallasii var. chinensis is applicable to the latter taxon. Due to this fact, the specimen P01840441 helps clarifying the origin and taxonomic identity of I. pallasii var. chinensis . In many works, I. oxypetala is mentioned under the name I. lactea var. chinensis , which is a homotypic synonym of I. pallasii var. chinensis .

Iris moorcroftiana was described by Don (1840) based on plants collected in Ladakh, northern India, by William Moorcroft in the 1820s ( Bakshi 1997). The name was given to the plants by Nathaniel Wallich, who assigned it number 5051 in his list ( Wallich 1831 –1832, Majumdar & Banerjee 1976), and cited by Don. A single gathering was indicated in the Wallich Herbarium (stored at K) by the original author. It is possible that only one specimen (K001104614) ever existed, and in this case it should be accepted as the holotype of I. moorcroftiana , according to the Art. 9.1 of the ICN ( Turland et al. 2018). Unfortunately, as I cannot be certain about this, because there is no definite indication in the protologue, I select the specimen as the lectotype. In the I. moorcroftiana protologue, it was noted that this species differs from I. biglumis by its longer peduncles and narrower sepals, which are “ lanceolatis acutiusculis [outer perianth segments lanceolate, acutate]”. These features of I. moorcroftiana suggest its belonging to I. oxypetala .