Botrychium lanuginosum Wallich ex Hooker & Greville (1828

Joshi, Pushpesh, Kumar, Brijesh & Dwivedi, Himanshu, 2017, Typification of the name Botrychium lanuginosum (Ophioglossaceae), Phytotaxa 332 (2), pp. 199-200 : 199

Botrychium lanuginosum Wallich ex Hooker & Greville (1828 : t. 79)

Lectotype (designated here):— NEPAL. “Mons Sheopare” (Shivpuri), 1821, Wallich Cat. No. 48 ( E00413863 , right hand side specimen; isolectotypes E00413863 left hand side specimen, K001109106 , K001057645 , BM001038222 , BM001038226 digital photos!).

Remaining syntype: INDIA. Kamoun (Kumaon), 1824, Wallich Cat. No. 48 (K001057646 digital photo!).

Notes:— Hooker & Greville (1828) validated Wallich’s unpublished manuscript name Botrychium lanuginosum and their protologue was based on collections from Nepal and Kumaon by Nathaniel Wallich and Robert Blinkworth respectively. Wallich in fact, in the first part of his “Numerical List” published in 1829 ( Stafleu & Cowan 1988), mentioned the species as ‘ Botrychium lanuginosum Wall. apud Hook. & Grev.’ ( Wallich 1828 -1849).

Herbarium scrutiny revealed six specimens of Botrychium lanuginosum (Wall. Cat. No. 48), housed in ‘K’ (K001057645, K001057646 & K001109106), ‘E’ (E00413863) and ‘BM’ (BM001038222, BM001038226). It is evident from the handwritings of Wallich and Hooker on the sheets that all the above mentioned specimens belong to the original type materials. ‘ E.I.C.’ written on the two sheets (K001057646 and E00413863) is a clear indication that these sheets were provided by the East India Company, as mentioned by Hooker & Greville (1828). Of these, Fraser-Jenkins et al. (2017) mentioned the Edinburgh specimen (E00413863) as ‘Holotype’ which is erroneous as original material consists of multiple elements. The herbarium specimen at E with barcode number E00413863 has two specimens mounted on a single sheet. The left hand side specimen partially matches with the illustration (1828: t.79), but the specimen is incomplete (lacking basal portion of frond); hence it does not reflect all the characters (sparsely hairy bulbous base) mentioned in the protologue. On the other hand, the right hand specimen is near complete and matches most closely with the description having sparse hairs present on the upper side of bulbous base, and is designated here as lectotype.

It deserves to be mentioned that in B. lanuginosum sporophore usually arises above the junction of lamina and exceptionally in small specimens from the junction of lamina as in B. virginianum ( Linnaeus 1753: 1064) Swartz (1801: 111) , hence, the point of attachment of sporophore is a not reliable feature. B. lanuginosum is pubescent whereas B. virginianum is glabrous or sparingly pubescent. Sporophore stalk of B. virginianum is long, usually much exceeding the blade in length ( Clausen 1938), whereas in B. lanuginosum it is short.