Iris susiana Linnaeus (1753: 38)

Altinordu, Fahim & Crespo, Manuel B., 2016, Nomenclatural type designation of four Linnaean names in Iris sensu lato (Iridaceae), Phytotaxa 268 (4), pp. 296-300 : 296-297

1. Iris susiana Linnaeus (1753: 38)

Type (lectotype, designated here):—Herb. Linnaeus No. 61.3 ( LINN [photo!]).

The protologue of Iris susiana ( Linnaeus 1753: 38) consists of a diagnosis “ IRIS corollis barbatis, caule foliis longiore unifloro” with citations from earlier works ( Linnaeus 1738: 18, van Royen 1740: 17), followed by one synonym from Bauhin (1623: 31, 1658: 579): “ Iris susiana , flore maximo ex albo nigricante”. Bauhin (1658: 579) provided an illustration (available at http://bibdigital.rjb.csic.es/ing/Libro.php?Libro=3057&Pagina=302) that can be considered original material. Except for this illustration, Jarvis (2007) cited as Linnaeus’s original material one specimen at LINN, Herb. Linn. No. 61.3 ( LINN) (image available at: http://linnean-online.org/800/). This specimen bears Linnaeus’s annotation “1 susiana ”, where “1” explicitly refers to the number of the species account of Iris susiana in Species plantarum ( Linnaeus 1753) . The sheet bears also the abbreviation “ HU ” indicating that the plant was grown in the Uppsala botanical garden.

Both original elements (the specimen from the Linnaean herbarium and the illustration from Bauhin) are definitely congruent with the traditional and current concept of Iris susiana , keeping in mind that this plant is only known in cultivation and its true origin is unknown (see e.g., Dykes 1912). The specimen Herb. Linnaeus no. 61.3 at LINN is better suited as lectotype of the concerned name, because any specimen is a potential source of additional characters (including molecular, chemical, and micromorphological data) that cannot be provided by an illustration. We therefore designate the specimen in the Linnaean herbarium ( LINN) as the lectotype of Iris susiana .