Verbascum letourneuxii Asch. ex Asch. & Schweinf., Ill. Fl. Egypt 2: 189 & 114. 1887.

Khamar, Hamid, Oualidi, Jalal El, Touhami, Amina Ouazzani & Civeyrel, Laure, 2023, Nomenclature and typification in Verbascum (Scrophulariaceae) from North Africa, PhytoKeys 225, pp. 115-152 : 115

Verbascum letourneuxii Asch. ex Asch. & Schweinf., Ill. Fl. Egypt 2: 189 & 114. 1887.

Verbascum spinosum = Verbascum spinosum Delile, Fl. AEg. Illustr.: 55. 1813; non L. Cent. II. plant.: 10. 1756. & Amoen. Acad. IV: 307. 1759.

Verbascum marniaricum = Verbascum marniaricum Letournex ap. Barbey Herboris, au Levant: 148. 1882, nom. nud.

Verbascum tourneuxii = Verbascum tourneuxii Aschers., ap. Barbey 1. C: 182, nom. nud.. Aschers., ap. Aschers. & Schweinf. Illustr. l’I. d. Egypt. in Mém. Instit. Egypt., II: 114. 1887.

Type.

[ Egypt]. In apricis calcareo-argillosis prope Oum Rakoumi et Matrouka in Marmorica ad limites Cyrenaicae, April 1879, A. Letourneux, s.n. (lectotype, designated here: G [G00015113]!; isolectotype: W [W1889-0043225]!, G [G00015111, G00015112, G00015114]!, S [S10-27120]!, K [K000975868]!, P [P03417358, P03417357, P03417360, P03417361]!). [image of lectotype available at https://plants.jstor.org/stable/viewer/10.5555/al.ap.specimen.g00015113] .

Notes.

Ascherson (in Ascherson and Schweinfurth 1887) described Verbascum letourneuxii on the basis of specimens separately collected by Ehrenberg and A. Letourneux from the Alexandria region in the north of Egypt. Within the protologue Ascherson and Schweinfurth (1887) confess that the specimen brought by Ehrenberg only constitutes a skeleton of a plant in fruit, while specimens collected by Letourneux, from a few kilometers from the collection locality of Ehrenberg, are well-developed specimens. However, the authors did not indicate the name of the herbarium housing the type specimen. According to Stafleu and Cowan (1976-1988), the original material of Ehrenberg, Letourneux, Ascherson and Schweinfurth were kept at Herbs B, C, G, K, L, LE, P, S, and W. Nevertheless, the Berlin (B) herbarium was bombed during World War II on the night of 1-2 March 1943 ( Hiepko 1987); hence, a good part of the authors’ collection has been lost ( Stafleu and Cowan 1976-1988).

Based on the type specification given in the protologue (locality, collector, and collection date), eleven sheets were traced in different herbaria belonging to the Letourneux collections: W (W1889-0043225), G (G00015111, G00015112, G00015113, G00015114), S (S10-27120), K (K000975868), and P (P03417358, P03417357, P03417360, P03417361). Since the type has not been specified, all of the specimens are to be recognized as syntypes according to Art. 9.6 of the ICN ( Turland et al. 2018). The sheet G00015113 preserved at Herb. G is here designated as lectotype for the name V. letourneuxii , since it is the specimen that shows the best quality of preservation of the important diagnostic features.