Agarista coriifolia (Thunb.) Hooker ex Niedenzu (1890: 236) var. coriifolia

Dalastra, Claudenice Hilda & Heiden, Gustavo, 2023, Typifications and nomenclatural notes on Agarista (Ericaceae, Vaccinioideae, Lyonieae), Phytotaxa 618 (1), pp. 1-17 : 5-6

4. Agarista coriifolia (Thunb.) Hooker ex Niedenzu (1890: 236) var. coriifolia

≡ Andromeda coriifolia Thunberg (1817: 9) ≡ Leucothoë coriifolia (Thunb.) Candolle (1839: 605) .

Type:— BRAZIL. Minas Gerais: Villa Rica [ Ouro Preto ], G. W. Freyreiss s.n. (holotype UPS V-085230 , image!).

= Andromeda neriifolia Chamisso & Schlechtendal (1826: 522) ≡ Agarista neriifolia (Cham. & Schltdl.) G.Don (1834: 838) ≡ Leucothoë neriifolia (Cham. & Schltdl.) Candolle (1839: 605) ≡ Leucothoë laxiflora var. sellowii Meisner (1863: 157) .

Type:— BRAZIL. Minas Gerais: without locality, F. Sellow s.n. (lectotype E00326876 , image!, here designated; isolectotypes G00352129 , image!, K000494435 , image!, L0006621 , fragment, image!, NY00008203 , fragment!; the former lectotype B †, designated by Sleumer 1959: 462).

Note:—The type specimen of the basionym Andromeda coriifolia was collected by George Wilhelm Freyreiss and posteriorly published by Carl Peter Thunberg in Plantarum Brasiliensium I ( Thunberg 1817). As Moraes (2014) have already treated, the first ten species published in Plantarum Brasiliensium (Decas prima) were written by Thunberg and defended by Johan Immanuel Billberg. Some later publications have cited the taxonomic authority of the name Andromeda coriifolia as Thunberg and Billberg due to the authorship of Plantarum Brasiliensium. On the other hand, Moraes (2014) mentions that Thunberg wrote by himself the Plantarum Brasiliensium and this one was defended by a responder, and as this was a commonplace at the time, the taxonomic authority related to the names published in those dissertations must to be attributed to Thunberg and not to the respondent. Additionally, according to the Art. 46.6 of the ICN (Turland el al. 2018), the authorship of a publication is the authorship of the part of the publication in which the name appears, regardless of authorship or editorial of the publication as a whole.

The material used to describe Andromeda neriifolia is the collection Sellow s.n., from “Brasilia tropica,” without date or location. In the protologue, Chamisso & Schlechtendal (1826: 522) did not indicate a single specimen or specify an herbarium of deposit. Thus, the specimens that comprise this collection should be considered syntypes ( McNeill 2014).

Sellow dispatched his collections to the Royal Botanical Garden at Scĥneberg, now part of B ( Urban 1893, Moraes 2020, Carvalho et al. 2022), and the specimens used to describe new species through his collections were probably deposited in B, but this information cannot be confirmed. Sellow also sent his specimens to R ( Urban 1893), although we were not able to find any duplicate at R. The original material at B was later destroyed by the fire in 1943. The remaining syntypes consist of five specimens being three entire sheets (E00326876, G00352129, K000494435) and two fragments (L0006621 and NY00008203). No lectotypification of this name was proposed until the present.

Agarista coriifolia occurs in the states of Bahia, Goiás, Minas Gerais, and S ã o Paulo ( Brazil), being most common in the southeast mountainous region between S ã o Paulo and Minas Gerais. According to Urban (1893), Friederich Sellow collected in this region between 1829–1831 in about 1500 distinct localities with simple, chronologically consecutive numbers written in pen or pencil with only some of them having detailed descriptions along with date and place, the later often generally accurate. Moreover, Sellow did not enclose all the associated information he had on these specimens, as local records and notes, when dispatching these collections ( Moraes 2020, Carvalho et al. 2022). Therefore, the pattern used by Sellow to identify his collections was unknown at B and thus his duplicates were inconsistently labeled. As similar in many cases in Agarista , little information is present and provided with only scarce locality data, often only with the printed note “Brasilia legit F. Sellow” ( Herter & Rambo 1953, Moraes 2008, Carvalho et al. 2022).

Some similar cases were already indicated and discussed accordingly in Agarista ( Dalastra & Heiden 2020) . There is a lack of precise information concerning the Sellow collections, especially about the collection number and consequently the date and location. Based on the work of Urban (1893) and Carvalho et al. (2022), we know that until mid-1830 these collections were made in the S ã o Paulo state, and until November 1831 in Minas Gerais state. From this information, we could infer the type specimen of Ag. neriifolia to be from Minas Gerais or S ã o Paulo and collected between 1829 to November 1831, although the precise date or location of the collection is not specified. Even in the protologue, the information about this collection is restricted to “In Brasilia tropica legit Sellow”. According to Carvalho et al. (2022), Sellow collection numbers for Minas Gerais are between the numbers 801–1450.

Sleumer (1959) called the B † specimen as “ holotype ” and the remaining syntypes as “isotypes.” Judd (1984, 1995) followed this same pattern of type designation. According to Art. 7.11, Ex. 13 of the ICN (Turland el al. 2018), Sleumer (1959) designated the specimen at B † as the lectotype. The remaining syntypes specimens then became isolectotypes. As this lectotype was destroyed, according to the Art. 9.11, a new lectotype must be designated as its substitute. Therefore, we revised the isotypes previously indicated by Sleumer (1959) and Judd (1984, 1995), searched for additional duplicates in the herbaria where Sellow used to send his specimens and agreed with the duplicates previously indicated. Finally, following also the Art. 9.12, we designated one specimen from E (E00326876) as the lectotype due to the material being well conserved and in accordance with the protologue. Additionally, the material here selected as lectotype is available in the digital herbarium database from E ( RBGE 2022).