Lavatera maritima

Iamonico, Duilio, 2016, Nomenclatural notes and morphological observations on Malva subovata s. l. (Malvaceae), Phytotaxa 275 (1), pp. 23-34 : 25

Lavatera maritima

Gouan (1773: 46) described L. maritima as “ LAVATERA , caule fruticoso, lanato foliis cordato-orbiculatis quinquelobis obtusus crenatis, pedunculis unifloris, stipulis setaceis deciduis ”; two synonyms were cited from Bauhin (1623: 316, with a question mark) and Tabernaemontanus (1590: 770) (Tabernaemontanus’ polynomial is linked to an illustration); no provenance was given. Furthermore, Gouan (1773) provided an illustration (“Tab. XXI, Fig. 2”). Both Tabernaemontanus’ and Gouan’s images are original material for the name L. maritima . There is one sheet in Gouan’s collection at MPU (code 013820, image available at http://www.herbier-mpu.org/zoomify/zoomify. php?fichier=MPU013820) bearing two plants and five labels. The plant on the bottom of the sheet is linked to the following two labels: “ Lavatera maritima Gouan ...1774” (by A. Gouan), and a recent annotation by P. Teres (21 April 2009) who stated “ ISOTYPE probable ”. Two additional labels are indeed associated with the plant pinned on the top of the sheet: “ Lavatera maritima Gouan nob. [nobis] Pourret 1888”, and another annotation by P. Teres (25 May 2009) who reported “ Matérial Complémentaire ”. A fifth label (“ Lavatera maritima DC. Pr. n. 17”) is placed on the middle of the sheet, but it is not clear if it is associated to the bottom or the top plant. Since the years of collection differ (1774 and 1888), the two plants cannot be part of a single gathering, and Art. 9.17 of ICN cannot be applied. Anyway, both plants were collected later than the year of publication (1773), so they cannot be considered part of the original material, and cannot be elegible as lectotype for the name L. maritima . I have not been able to trace any further specimen which could be cosidered as part of the original material.

Among the two selected elements (images by Tabernaemontanus and Gouan), that from Gouan (1773) is more detailed and better corresponds to the current concept of the taxon (see e.g., Fernandes 1998b, 1993, Iamonico 2010), and is here designated as the lectotype of the name Lavatera maritima .