Ceropegia kachinensis Prain (1900: 170)

Singh, Rajeev Kumar, Garg, Arti & Singh, Paramjit, 2015, Lectotypification and a new synonym of Ceropegia kachinensis (Apocynaceae), Phytotaxa 197 (3), pp. 215-221 : 215-221

Ceropegia kachinensis Prain (1900: 170) ; Huber (1957: 50); Ansari (1984: 19); Jagtap & Singh (1999:

227); Karthikeyan et al. (2009: 162).

Type: — Myanmar, Upper Burma, Kachin Hills, Myitkyina , November 1897, Shaik Mokim s.n. (lectotype K-000857821!, here designated; isolectotypes CAL-0000018016!, DD!, M-0175137!, Z-000001595!) .

Ceropegia farrokhii McCann (1945: 210) , syn. nov.

Type: — Myanmar, Upper Burma, Kachin Hills, Myitkyina (collected on 16 Oct. 1897), flowered at the Royal Botanic Garden , Calcutta , November 1902, Shaik Mokim s.n. (holotype CAL-0000018015!; isotype CAL-0000018014!) .

Distribution: — India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar.

Notes: — Prain (1900) described Ceropegia kachinensis on basis of the living specimens which flowered in the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta from the tubers cultivated by Shaik Mokim from Kachin Hills, Myanmar but no specific herbarium sheet was designated by him as holotype. Further no herbarium specimen of these ‘living specimens’ could be traced if they were prepared at all. The specimens mentioned in the protologue by Prain to have been erroneously distributed in 1898 under the name C. pubescens , and later annotated by him as C. kachinensis , should be considered original material. Five such specimens were traced, one each at CAL, DD, K, M, and Z. The best one of these K-000857821 is chosen here as the lectotype, as it agrees well with the protologue.

Ceropegia farrokhii was described on the basis of two specimens which flowered at the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta, in November 1902, raised from the tuber brought by Shaik Mokim in 1897 from Kachin Hills, Myanmar. Of these two specimens, the branching one is mentioned as type in protologue, which is therefore the holotype (CAL-0000018015) and second specimen, the isotype (CAL-0000018014). Both these specimens are mentioned in the protologue with same date of tuber collection as 16 Oct. 1897 and date of flowering in the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta, as Nov. 1902, although the two labels are written by two different hands, one of Prain (the isotype). These two specimens were misinterpreted and labelled as isotypes of C. kachinensis by M.Y. Ansari.

The specimen CAL-0000018013 was also misunderstood as isotype of C. kachinensis by M. Y. Ansari as this was prepared from the plant which flowered at the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta, in 1906, brought from the type locality in form of a tuber. However, this is not a part of the type material of either of the two species C. farrokhii and C. kachinensis .