Anemonastrum tenuicaule (Cheeseman) de Lange & Mosyakin, 2018

Mosyakin, Sergei L. & Lange, Peter J. de, 2018, Anemonastrum tenuicaule and A. antucense (Ranunculaceae), new combinations for a New Zealand endemic species and its South American relative, PhytoKeys 99, pp. 107-124 : 107

Anemonastrum tenuicaule (Cheeseman) de Lange & Mosyakin comb. nov.

≡ Anemonidium tenuicaule (Cheeseman) Christenh. & Byng in Christenhusz et al. (Eds) The Global Flora 4: 73. 2018.

≡ Anemone tenuicaulis (Cheeseman) Parkin & Sledge, J. Linn. Soc., Bot. 49: 647. 1935.

≡ Ranunculus tenuicaulis Cheeseman, Trans. & Proc. New Zealand Inst. 17: 235. 1885. Lectotype (designated by Allan 1961: 164; accepted by Burrows 1986: 15, and confirmed and specified here). NEW ZEALAND. South Island, Mountains above Arthur’s Pass, Canterbury Alps. Printed and handwritten label: "Herb. T.F. Cheeseman | Ranunculus sp. [ “sp.” crossed out-S.M. & P.dL.] tenuicaulis n. sp. [new identification added in pencil-S.M. & P.dL.] | Locality:-South Island, N.Z. | Mts above Arthur’s Pass, Canterbury Alps, alt. | 4,500 ft. | Jany [January-S.M. & P.dL.] 1883 | Collector-T.F.C." Small slip attached in the upper part of the sheet: "TYPE SELECTED. Dec. 1941. [signature of Lucy Cranwell]" (AK4232!; isolectotypes: "Herb. T.F. Cheeseman. Com. [communicated?] 9/83 [text in bold added in black ink, handwritten-S.M. & P.dL.] | Ranunculus n. sp.? | LOCALITY: -South Island, N.Z. | mountains above Arthur’s Pass, Canterbury, | alt. 4,500 ft. January 1883 | Collector-T.F.C. [T.F. Cheeseman-S.M. & P.dL.]". Identification added directly on the sheet under the label: " Ranunculus tenuicaulis , Cheeseman" K000692121!, reported by Ziman et al. 2006: 217 as “lectotype”, E s.n. reported by Ziman et al. 2006: 217, non vidi).

Notes.

Cheeseman ( 1885) reported his new species (as Ranunculus tenuicaulis ) from "Canterbury mountains above Arthur’s Pass, altitude 4,000-5,000 feet. T.F.C. " and all his collections from that locality should be considered syntypes. Ziman et al. ( 2006: 217) provided for Anemone tenuicaulis the following type information: "Type: NEW ZEALAND. South Island, Auckland, South Alps, Mountains above Arthur’s Pass, Canterbury, 4000-5000 ft. 1.1883. Lannary (lectotype-K!; isolectotype-E!)". They, however, cited “Auckland” (printed on the label, indicating the location of Cheeseman’s herbarium) as part of the type locality information, misunderstood the handwritten word “January” for a collector name ( “Lannary”), and erroneously listed the combination Anemone tenuicaulis as validated in "Nat. 1 (1932)", the incomplete citation evidently corresponding to the article in Nature ( Parkin and Sledge 1932) in which only preliminary information on the new generic placement of Ranunculus tenuicaulis was reported, but no new combination has been validated. When listing and designating types of Ranunculus names from New Zealand, Garnock-Jones (1990) only mentioned Ranunculus tenuicaulis among the taxa that are excluded from that genus but gave no type information.

The following type information was provided by Allan (1961: 164): "Type locality: "Mountains above Arthur’s Pass, alt. 4000-5000 feet." Type: A, T. F. Cheeseman", which constitutes effective lectotypification (Art. 7.10 of the ICN: McNeill et al. 2012). In this citation, the letter “A” indicates the Herbarium of Auckland Institute and Museum (AK). Burrows (1986) in his article also provided a table entitled "List of vascular plant taxa described originally from Arthur’s Pass National Park" and listed Anemone tenuicaulis ( Ranunculus tenuicaulis ), with proper references to the authors of the basionym and combination and their original publications. He reported ( Burrows 1986: 15) the date and place of the original collection of Cheeseman ("Jan 1883 Mts above Arthur’s Pass") and the location of the type specimen ( “AUCK”, meaning "Auckland Institute & Museum [AK]"; see explanation in Burrows 1986: 17). Considering the lectotypification information provided above, the Kew specimen is not the lectotype of Ranunculus tenuicaulis , but an isolectotype.

There are several specimens of the species at AK collected by Cheeseman, e.g., AK4233, AK4234 (data and images available from the Auckland War Memorial Museum: http://www.aucklandmuseum.com), but only one collected in January 1883 near Arthur’s Pass and matching other data provided by Allan (1961) and Burrows (1986). Lucy M. Cranwell, who incorporated the Cheeseman collections (ca. 10 000 specimens) into AK, in December 1941 annotated the specimen AK4232 as the type (see above), but her type designation was not formally published. It is documented ( Goulding 1974, 1975, 1976) that Cheeseman exchanged herbarium specimens with several European, American, and Australian herbaria and individual botanists; thus, additional isolectotypes or syntypes could be found in some other collections, in addition to the specimens known to be at K and E.