Lagerstroemia montana

Turner, Ian M., 2015, The botanical legacy of Thomas Hardwicke’s journey to Srinagar in 1796, European Journal of Taxonomy 108, pp. 1-25 : 9

Lagerstroemia montana

Hardwicke’s descriptive statement for this name is slight:

“ Lagerstroemia Montana, Roxburgh. — This tree grows to sixty or seventy feet high. Stem straight, thick, and clear of branches to a great height (forty feet). Flowers with much beauty in the month of May. Grows both above and below the ghats. Trees not numerous.”

The name appears never to have been taken up elsewhere. There are three similar drawings in the British Library collection (Vol. X nos. 30–32) that represent this species. The first is annotated ‘Coadwara 6 May 1796 ’; the second has a note saying ‘No. 66 Cor Pl. vol 1’. This citation of Roxburgh’s Plants of the Coast of Coromandel ( Roxburgh 1795 – 1820) refers to Lagerstroemia parviflora Roxb. The drawings match L. parviflora , which was published before L. montana . Therefore, it seems best to consider Lagerstroemia montana as an invalidly published name. Surprisingly, Roxburgh did not originally recognise his own species, writing in August 1797 that Hardwicke’s plant was “a charming new Lagerstroemia .... you must give it a specific name”.