Heliotropium supinum var. gracile Lojac., Fl. Sicul.

Cecchi, Lorenzo & Selvi, Federico, 2015, Typification of names in Boraginales described from Sicily, Natural History Sciences 2 (2), pp. 97-99 : 97

Heliotropium supinum var. gracile Lojac., Fl. Sicul.

2(2): 92. 1907 (‘gracilis’). [ Heliotropium supinum L.] Locus classicus: [ Italy, Sicily] “ad Ustica”. Lectotype (here designated): [ Italy, Sicily] “Ustica”,

s.d., [Lojacono] s.n. (P�L 63726!).

Note. �mong the several floristic synopses published in Italy between the end of XIX century and the beginning of XX century, the Flora Sicula by Michele Lojacono Pojero (1907) has been often neglected by contemporary and later authors. One of the names in Boraginales still to be typified after the recent account by Domina et al. (2014) is Heliotropium supinum var. gracile . In the original description of this taxon, Ustica was cited as the only growing locality, while H. supinum var. supinum was excluded from this island. Our search in several herbaria conserving Lojacono’s material (FI, GE, P, PAL, PI, PORUN, TO, VER) resulted in four specimens of H. supinum L. from Ustica, all of which are kept in Palermo, where Lojacono spent most of his time (P�L 63726!, 63732!, 637361!, 63742!). These specimens predate the publication year (1907), but have no reference to the variety name in their labels. They were all collected at the beginning of anthesis and are consistent with the diagnostic sentence “ Spicis gracilibus laxioribus”. However, only one was annotated as “ Heliotropium supinum / Ustica” by Lojacono himself and therefore certainly seen by the author. This specimen is designated here as the lectotype of the name. In our opinion, both individuals mounted on the type sheet fall into the range of phenotypic variation of H. supinum and are not worthy of taxonomic recognition.