Drimia wightii, Lakshminarasimhan, 2003

Yadav, Pradnya B., Lekhak, Manoj M. & Yadav, Shrirang R., 2016, Typifications in Drimia with notes on the identity of D. wightii (Asparagaceae, Scilloideae), Phytotaxa 289 (3), pp. 256-262 : 259-260

Identity of Drimia wightii

Drimia wightii was originally described as Urginea congesta by Robert Wight in 1853 with diagnosis and illustration. Jessop (1977) reduced Urginea to a synonym of Drimia . Stearn (1978) accepted Jessop’s view and proposed a new combination for U. congesta Wight , i.e. Drimia congesta (Wight) Stearn (1978: 208) . However, ‘ D. congesta (Wight) Stearn’ is an illegitimate name, since a later homonym of D. congesta Bullock (1932: 504) , an entirely different plant from Africa. Consequently, Lakshminarasimhan (2003) proposed a new name D. wightii to replace the illegitimate D. congesta (Wight) Stearn.

The scrutiny of literature on Drimia revealed that Rajgopal & Satyanarayan Reddy (1987) had collected a hysteranthous specimen from Hyderabad in 1969, which was sent to Kew for identification. Sir George Taylor, Kew Herbarium identified it as Urginea congesta . He emphasized that “It is Urginea congesta Wight , and matches well with his material from Condungalungoo which we have at Kew, which does not have the leaves and flowers appearing together as indicated in Hooker’s synopsis.” Consequently, Rajgopal & Satyanarayan Reddy (1987) agreed that “ Urginea congesta Wight is hysteranthous and not a synanthous species as stated in literature” ( Hooker 1894, Fischer 1928, Deb and Dasgupta 1974, 1981). This concept of D. congesta was then followed by subsequent workers, viz. Dixit & Yadav (1989), Yadav & Dixit (1990) and Patil & Yadav (1992 − 93). All these authors paid little attention to the synanthous condition. Thus, an altogether different hysteranthous species [now known as D. raogibikei (Hemadri) Hemadri (2006b: 224) ] was mistaken for Drimia wightii . Drimia wightii completely differs from D. raogibikei in being synanthous. As a part of the taxonomic revision, we could collect live specimens of D. wightii from the campus of Bharatidasan University, Palkalaiperur, Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu. It has linear, subulate leaves, dense inflorescence and sub-globose capsule ( Fig. 4 ).

Figures

FIGURE 4. Drimia wightii Lakshmin.A–B) Habit; C) Detail of a flower; D) Raceme showing triquetrous capsule. Scale bar = 1 cm