Piper hookeri Miq. London J. Bot.

Mukherjee, Prasanta Kumar, 2018, Nomenclatural notes on Piper Linn. (Piperaceae) from India II, Phytotaxa 338 (1), pp. 17-32 : 20

6. Piper hookeri Miq. London J. Bot. 4: 437. 1845.

Type:— INDIA: Bombay , Collector unknown (( lectotype designated here U1476704 image!; syntypes Bombay, J. S. Law s.n. K00794458 image!; isosyntypes Bombay, J. S. Law s.n. K000794457 image!; Bombay, Mahabaleswar hills, J. S. Law s.n. K000794456 image!).

Distribution:— INDIA: Maharashtra.

Note: — Mention by Miquel (1845: 437) of a Lambert collection as the type remains doubtful. A. B. Lambert never visited or collected in India as his travels were confined to England and Ireland. He created a personal herbarium out of passion and received specimens as gifts or otherwise from a great number of botanists/collectors from various parts of the globe. Lambert requested botanists of his time to describe taxa based on specimens in his herbarium, and Miquel likely was one of the beneficiaries. F. A. W. Miquel certainly received material from several European herbaria for his Systema Piperacearum ( Stafleu 1966). Therefore, he probably examined the specimen from Bombay in Lambert’s herbarium, which was likely collected by J. S. Law.

A. B. Lambert received specimens from the Bombay Presidency as gifts from Law himself. Subsequently, specimens of Lambert’s herbarium were sold and/or gifted to other herbaria, including Kew. Miller (1970) quoted a W. J. Hooker letter to Miss Pigott dated 28 December 1841, mentioning that Hooker selected Law’s specimens from Lambert’s herbarium at Lambert’s particular request. Hence, Law’s specimens landed there via Lambert and it can reasonably be assumed that “ Bombay, Lambert ’’ indicates specimens from Bombay in the Lambert herbarium collected by J. S. Law. A search of web portals of different herbaria shows that only K has developed an exclusive site for the accession of Lambert’s herbarium stored there. There are specific indications to that effect. For example, the type of Baliospermum indicum Decne. (1844: 154) has the label ‘ Bombay, herb. Lambert (K 000247077). However, an extensive search did not find the specimen labelled as “ Bombay Lambert ” at K for P. hookeri . There is a specimen at U with the label “ Piper hookeri Bombay ” in Miquel’s handwriting (U 1476704). It is presumed to be one from Lambert’s herbarium. The specimen represents a single leaf. In addition, there are three sheets at K, all collected by J. S. Law and one of them (K 000794458) bears Miquel’s annotation and the leaf matches exactly to the specimen at U. The specimen at U is designated as the lectotype of P. hookeri Miq. CAL has one of Law’s specimens similar to the one at K.

There is some historical confusion about the nature of the bract of P. hookeri . It was described by Miquel (loc. cit.) as oblong decurrent, sparsely hirtellous or glabrate below. They are linear-oblong and adnate according to Wight (1853: 4). Hooker (1886: 89) indicated that they are mixed, orbicular-peltate and sometimes decurrent. The specimen at CAL shows upper flowers with orbicular-peltate bracts but the lower ones have them decurrent. Observations on one of the sheets (K 000794457) mentioned that bracts are both peltate and decurrent, but this cannot be checked.

Piper hookeri was considered as the correct name for P. hymenophyllum Miq. (1846: 554) by Rahiman & Nair (1987), but the two differ in their leaves. The leaves are subcoriaceous, hirtellous on veins below, ovate, shallowly unequally cordate at base and shortly acute in P. hookeri . In contrast, leaves in P. hymenophyllum are membranaceous, pubescent throughout, elliptic, unequally narrowly rounded at base, and acuminate at apex. The spikes in P. hymenophyllum are longer than the leaves. Hooker (1886) included a major part of Piper wightii Miq. as its synonym, but without specifying the part. Piper hookeri is recognised here as a distinct species. The species apparently looks similar to P. sylvestre Lam. ( nom . illeg., non Piper sylvestre Lour. ) but further action is deferred pending further scrutiny and resolution of the name P. sylvestre Lam.