Pauridia capensis, Snijman & Kocyan, 2013

Snijman, Deirdre A. & Kocyan, Alexander, 2013, The genus Pauridia (Hypoxidaceae) amplified to include Hypoxis sect. Ianthe, Saniella and Spiloxene, with revised nomenclature and typification, Phytotaxa 116 (1), pp. 19-33 : 26

Pauridia capensis (L.) Snijman & Kocyan, comb. nov.

Ξ Spiloxene capensis (L.) Garside (1936: 74)

Bas.:— Amaryllis capensis Linnaeus (1760: 10) , non Miller (1768: 12). Type (neotype designated here):— SOUTH AFRICA. [Cape], Caput bonae spei, Oldenland s.n. (G! in Collection Burman [image], named Sisyrinchium aethiopicum foliis gramineis [?] nivei anthos Sisyrinchium Cornuti Hist Canad. 168)

Concerted efforts to trace any original material annotated in Linnaeus’ hand of Amaryllis capensis , the basionym of Pauridia capensis , have proved to be problematic ( Jarvis 2007). The only reference to original material in Linnaeus’ (1760) protologue is to Sisyrrhinchium (sic) in Cornut (1635), but with no reference to a page or figure number. Cornut’s work includes an illustration ( Cornut 1635: 165 t. Xiij) of Sisynrichium indicum (sic), which is later explicitly referred to by Linnaeus (1762) as a synonym of Amaryllis capensis . The figure depicts a plant in which the flowers have five tepals, none with a dark base, a solitary, capitate stigma and a scape which lacks a persistent spathe. None of these features match the protologue: ‘ Scapus infra medium vaginatus. Petala lanceolata , basi interiore atra. Stigmata tria ’, and consequently, it cannot be eligible as the lectotype of Amaryllis capensis . The reference to Cornut’s publication does, however, provide a link to a sheet in Burman’s herbarium (G), the source for Linnaeus’ Plantae Rariores Africanae ( Jarvis 2007), which was based largely on the plants collected by Oldenland circa 1695. This sheet has two plants mounted on paper cut from some other source and it is annotated in writing that matches Oldenland’s hand, with the phrase name Sisyrinchium aethiopicum foliis gramineis [?] nivei anthos, with reference to Sisyrinchium Cornuti Hist Canad. 168. We presume that the page number 168 is a typographic error for 165, since the description on page 168 of this work is of a plant referred to as Solidago maxima . The dried plants are numbered two and three respectively above each corm and they appear to be part of a set comprising at least an additional specimen, numbered four in the same hand, mounted on paper characterized by an irregularly cut top right edge and annotated ‘ Amaryllis capensis ’, thought to be in the hand of Burman. The unevenly cut corner suggests that this sheet is also one of Oldenland’s collections (see Jarvis 2007: 224), probably removed from an original volume believed to have held his Cape collections ( Nordenstam 1968: 92). Although the plants on both sheets of this set correspond well with Linnaeus’ protologue of Amaryllis capensis , the sheet referring to Cornut’s publication in Oldenland’s hand shows the characteristics most clearly. The scape is sheathed below the middle by a persistent spathe and although the stigma is concealed in the left hand specimen, it is exposed and clearly 3-branched in the adjacent plant. The dark spots at the base of the tepals, which were explicitly described by Linnaeus (1760), can be seen clearly in the left hand plant. To maintain what has become established usage of the epithet in Spiloxene from 1936 onwards ( Garside 1936, Arnold & De Wet 1993, Goldblatt & Manning 2000, Manning et al. 2002, Germishuizen & Meyer 2003, Klopper et al. 2006), we designate a neotype of Amaryllis capensis , namely Oldenland s.n. (G!, the sheet with the phrase name, Sisyrinchium aethiopicum foliis gramineis [?] nivei anthos Sisyrinchium Cornuti Hist Canad. 168) in Burman’s herbarium.

= Fabricia stellata Thunberg (1779: 27) Ξ Hypoxis stellata (Thunb.) Linnaeus f. (1782: 197) Ξ Spiloxene stellata (Thunb.) Salisbury (1866: 44) Ξ Ianthe stellata (Thunb.) Williams (1901: 292) . Type (lectotype designated here):— SOUTH AFRICA. [Cape], Cap. b. Spei, Thunberg s.n. (UPS-THUNB! No. 8266 [image]). Three sheets amongst Thunberg’s collections in UPS are annotated ‘ Hypoxis stellata ’. Sheet 8266 is chosen as lectotype since it clearly shows the contrasting colour at the base of each tepal as mentioned in Thunberg’s protologue.

= Hypoxis stellata var. 1 albiflora Baker (1878: 101), syn. nov. [ Hypoxis stellata var. α Thunberg (1823: 304)]. Type (lectotype designated here):— SOUTH AFRICA. [Cape], Caput bonae spei, Thunberg s.n. (UPS-THUNB! 8264 [image]). We choose sheet 8264 from Thunberg’s collection in UPS which is marked ‘ Hypoxis stellata α’ to apply the concept of “ Hypoxis stellata α Thunb. ” which is referred to in Baker’s protologue ( Baker 1878).

Note:— Fabricia stellata was mistakenly allied with Fabricia plicata Thunberg (1779: 29) , designated by Bullock (1962) as the type of Fabricia Thunb. , a synonym of Empodium Salisb.