Goeppertia flavescens (Lindl.) Borchsenius & Suárez (2012: 630)

Saka, Mariana Naomi & Lombardi, Julio Antonio, 2015, Nomenclatural notes on Goeppertia (Marantaceae), Phytotaxa 222 (2), pp. 155-158 : 156

Goeppertia flavescens (Lindl.) Borchsenius & Suárez (2012: 630)

Basionym: Calathea flavescens Lindley (1825: 932) . Type (lectotype, designated here):— Lindley (1825: t. 932).

= Phrynium grandiflorum Roscoe (1825 : t. 33) ≡ Calathea grandiflora (Roscoe) Schumann (1902: 99) . syn.nov. Type (lectotype, designated here):— Roscoe (1825: t. 33).

Notes:— Lindley (1825: 932) described Calathea flavescens based on cultivated material from Rio de Janeiro and discovered by John Forbes. The description of the species was based on the following characteristics: leaf blade plicate, coriaceous bracts with the apex acute, each with one open flower; yellow spreading flowers, with both outer and callose staminode petalloid, obcordate, both equal in size.

Roscoe (1825: t. 33), apparently unawareness about the publication of Calathea flavescens , described Phrynium grandiflorum based on a cultivated material from Rio de Janeiro and also discovered by John Forbes. Besides the probability that these two species were probably described based on the same material, Roscoe’s description indicates the same characteristics related to C. flavescens .

A few years later, Schumann (1902) combined Phrynium grandiflorum into Calathea , considering, for unknown reasons, C. flavescens as a nomen nudum and therefore a synonym of C. grandiflora .

Both names were validly published (Art.38.1 of ICN, McNeill et al. 2012) and are lectotypified here. Nevertheless, the name C. flavescens has priority over C. grandiflora (Art. 11.4 of ICN, McNeill et al. 2012) because it was published a few months earlier (in October, according Stafleu & Cowan 1979) than C. grandiflora (in December, according Cullen 1973). Goeppertia flavescens is therefore considered the correct name for this taxon, and consequently the names Phrynium grandiflorum and the combination Calathea grandiflora should be considered synonyms.