Erythrina americana, Miller, 1768

Guacchio, Emanuele Del, Cennamo, Paola, Torres, Mario Vázquez & Menale, Bruno, 2016, When art meets taxonomy: identity of Erythrina laeta (Fabaceae), Phytotaxa 255 (2), pp. 144-152 : 149

Erythrina americana

The species was firstly described by Miller (1759) by a phrase: “ Erythrina foliis ternatis acutis, caule arboreo aculeto, floribus spicatis longissimis ” and a discussion with a reference to an unpublished manuscript by William Houstoun. Lacking a valid binomial combination, according to the Art. 23.1 of the ICN ( McNeill et al. 2012), there is none valid published name. A good description is reported in the manuscript by Houstoun, i.e. “A manuscript catalogue of the plants which he has observed growing in the Island of Jamaica and Cuba; as also at Campeachy and La Vera Cruz in the years 1728, 1729, and 1732” (see the prefaction in Miller 1768). The protologue ( Miller 1768) is almost identical to the first description, but starts with the valid binomial “ ERYTHRINA (Americana) ”. The only available original material seems to be a specimen by Houstoun, sent to Miller and preserved in the Sloane Herbarium at BM (barcode BM000931446). The specimen is represented by a branchlet with a raceme, partly damaged plus some separate flowers. Two original labels occur on the sheet: the first one reports “Vera Cruz. 1731. Houstoun”, the second label (in Latin) is the description as in the protologue ( Miller 1768) and again reports the indication “a Vera Cruz. 1731”. We have no doubt that this is the material on which Miller based his name. It can be identified with the plant currently named E. americana ( Krukoff & Barneby 1974, McClintock 1982). Krukoff (1939) quoted Vera Cruz as “ Type locality”, and among the specimina visa, he reports the label of the “ type ” observed on a photo from NY: “Vera Cruz: Houston (Vera Cruz, 1731)”. Despite this, Krukoff (l.c.) clarifies that the “ type ” is preserved in BM. Therefore, there is no doubt that he alludes to the specimen BM barcode BM000931446: even if this designation appears somewhat messy, it can be accepted as a valid lectotypification under Art. 7.10 of the ICN ( McNeill et al. 2012).