Piper hymenophyllum Miq. London J. Bot.

Mukherjee, Prasanta Kumar, 2018, Nomenclatural notes on Piper Linn. (Piperaceae) from India II, Phytotaxa 338 (1), pp. 17-32 : 21

7. Piper hymenophyllum Miq. London J. Bot. 5: 554. 1846

Type:— INDIA: Kerala: Courtallum, Wight 888 (lectotype designated here U 1476705 image!; syntypes Courtallum, Wight s. n. E00313759

image!, MH!, P 0205544 image!). Piper lanatum Wight ex Miq. London J. Bot. 5: 553. 1846 nom . illeg. non Roxb. (1820: 161). Type:— INDIA. Peninsula Ind. Or Dr. Wight 8 (lectotype designated here U 147707 image!). Piper nilghirianum C. DC. Prodr. 16(1): 364. 1869 Type:— INDIA, Wight in Wallich 6642 H (lectotype designated here G 00207048 image!; isolectotype CAL!; syntype Nilghiri mountains,

Hook. f. et Thoms. CAL!).

Distribution:— INDIA: Tamilnadu: Kerala, Karnataka; SRI LANKA.

Note: —According to Huber (1987: 280), the nomenclatural type of P. hymenophyllum is ‘ Wight, Courtallum at K’. This specimen is not available in the Catalogue of digital images of herb. K. Therefore, Huber’s action is suspected to be wrong. Instead, the specimen at U bears an annotation by Miquel. It is well known that Miquel’s herbarium is at Utrecht. As such, it is designated as the lectotype of the species. A better specimen at E, which lacks the annotation by Miquel and the collection number as at U, is recognised as a syntype. The type specimens of Piper lanatum present at U and K hardly differ from P. hymenophyllum . Comments have already been made for P. hookeri vis-a-vis P. hymenophyllum . Piper hymenophyllum Miq , forma b C. DC. (1912: 522) cannot be considered as a name and is ignored. Distinctive features of this species are the hairy nature of the whole plant, long spikes, and thinly membranous and pellucid leaves.