Ammi crinitum Gussone (1826: 128–129)

Peruzzi, Lorenzo, 2014, Miscellaneous typifications of selected species occurring in Calabria (S Italy), Phytotaxa 178 (1), pp. 50-52 : 50

Ammi crinitum Gussone (1826: 128–129) .

≡ Visnaga crinita (Gussone) Giardina & Raimondo in Giardina et al. (2007: 13).

Type (lectotype, designated here):— ITALY. Calabria. Alto [di] Cassano , 28 May 1824, G . Gussone s.n. ( NAP-GUSS!) .

Gussone (1826) described this species from several localities in Calabria (“Inter segetes et in arvis argillosis Calabriae orientalis; Catanzaro presso il fiume Tacina, S. Leonardo, Cassano, Francavilla”). A specimen of original material conforming to the protologue is designated as the lectotype. A further specimen in NAP-GUSS! [in arvis argillosis Siciliae meridionalis, s.d., Gussone s.n.], is lacking a date and moreover was collected in Sicily (a region not cited in the protologue). The lectotype confirms the current application of the name (e.g. Tutin 1968, Pignatti 1982). Albeit several authors consider it doubtfully distinct from Visnaga daucoides Gaertner (1788: 92) ( Tutin 1968, Giardina et al. 2007), V. crinita is deemed here to be a good morphological species. Indeed, according to the protologue the following character states observed in the lectotype of V. crinita seem best suited to distinguish this species from V. daucoides (at least in dried material): 1) capillar foliar segments; 2) presence of sparse thick setae in the upper part of stem; 3) laciniate bracteoles; and, 4) flowers becoming yellow when dried.

After several years of personal field studies, it was not possible to find this plant in any of the cited Calabrian localities (for the topotypical locality Alto di Cassano, see also Bernardo & Maiorca 1997). The rarity of this species, endemic to Calabria and Sicily ( Peruzzi et al. 2014), was already highlighted for Sicily by Lojacono (1891: 265, “Specie a quanto pare rara, a me sconosciuta o almeno nota soltanto da un saggio imperfetto di Gussone stesso, conservato nell’Erb. Palerm.”, [“Species seemingly rare, unknown to me, with the exclusion of an incomplete Gussone’s herbarium sample, conserved in Palermo herbarium”]). On the contrary, V. daucoides is rather common all across both regions, often with very tall and branched forms (lacking however, the distinctive features listed above).