Plantago maritima var. apennina Terracciano (1894: 173‒174)

Iamonico, Duilio, Hassemer, Gustavo, Rønsted, Nina & Pietro, Romeo Di, 2017, The intricate nomenclatural questions around Plantago holosteum (Plantaginaceae), Phytotaxa 306 (1), pp. 75-84 : 77

Plantago maritima var. apennina Terracciano (1894: 173‒174)

The protologue of this taxon consists of a short diagnosis and in a quote of Terracciano’s previous works ( Terracciano 1872: 156, 1873: 96‒97, 1878: 115). Moreover, Terracciano (1894: 173) reported “In montibus Lepinis, al Pizzone, Rolli ” which would refer to at least one specimen. The Rolli’s collection is currently preserved at RO, as it was at the time of Terracciano who highlighted this (1894: 132‒133, “...Ettore Rolli...La collezione originale e completa trovasi nel R. [Regio] Istituto botanico di Roma” (“...Ettore Rolli...The original and complete collection is in the botanic Institute of Rome”).

We checked all the Plantago specimens preserved at RO (several packages) and found only one specimen (no. 39860) which could be relevant for typification. This specimen bears ten plants and two labels. Both labels report the same in Rolli’s handwriting: “ Plantago serpentina , all. | In elatioribus Lepinis | 28. Giugno 1852 | Herb H. Rolli”. Obviously all ten plants on the sheet belong to the same gathering made in the Lepini mountains (Central Italy). Although the RO specimen was collected by Rolli in 1852 (thus before 1894, the year of publication of P. maritima var. apennina ) in the Lepini mountains, the reference to the precise locality, mount Pizzone, is lacking. Accordingly we cannot be sure that this specimen represents original material and therefore we designate the specimen at RO as the neotype of the name Plantago maritima var. apennina here. On the basis of the morphological features of the neotype and the current wide specific circumscription in the narrow leaved plantains (see e.g., Charter & Cartier 1976, Pignatti 1982, Pedrol 2009) we here propose to synonymize (new synonymy) the names Plantago maritima var. apennina under P. holosteum .