Chamaedorea galeottiana H. Wendl. ex Dammer

Dowe, John Leslie & Hodel, Donald Robert, 2021, Taxonomy and nomenclature of four unresolved names published by Udo Dammer in the genus Chamaedorea (Arecaceae), Candollea 76 (1), pp. 93-98 : 96-97

Chamaedorea galeottiana H. Wendl. ex Dammer in Gard. Chron. ser. 3, 38: 44. 1905, syn. nov.

Lectotypus (designated here): MEXICo: Oaxaca, 2000 – 3000 ft [600 –900 m], s.d., H. Galeotti 4972 ter ( GOET [ GOET025370 ]!).

= Chamaedorea elatior Mart. in Linnaea 5: 205. 1830 ( Fig. 1B ). ≡ Nunnezharia elatior (Mart.) Kuntze , Revis. Gen. Pl. 2: 730. 1891.

Holotypus: MEXICo: Veracruz, Jalapa, s.d., Schiede s.n. ( M [ M0208949 ]!).

Notes. – DAMMER (1905) provided the following description: leaves pinnate, segments regularly arranged, either lanceolate, oblong-lanceolate or elliptical, not decurrent, less than 15 per side, less than 3 cm wide, single nerved. The specimen designated here as lectotype for Chamaedorea galeottiana [Galeotti 4972] was cited in MARTENS & GALEOTTI (1843) under the name “ Chamaedorea oblongata ? Mart.” and was noted as growing in the woods and dark damp ravines of the German Colony of Mirador from 2,000 to 5,000 feet with yellow flowers in December. After returning to Europe, Galeotti renumbered his collections more or less into family groups, so specimen numbers cannot provide any information about time or place of his collections ( MCVAUGH, 1973). Henri-Guillaume Galeotti (1814–1858) was a French-born Belgian botanist and collector in Central America (1835–1840) and later director of the botanic garden of Bruxelles (1853 –1858) ( MCVAUGH, 1973).

The lectotype chosen here [GOET25370] consists of a single collection composed of two sheets. One sheet has a complete inflorescence with attached fruit, and the apical portion of a leaf. The second sheet has the middle and basal portions of a leaf. The collection was labelled by Wendland as “ Ch. galeottiana sp. nov. ”.

Chamaedorea elatior ( Fig. 1B ), currently the only climbing species in the genus, has reflexed terminal pinnae that act like grappling hooks, enabling the plant to clamber up and onto adjacent vegetation. Ranging from Honduras into Mexico, it is a variable species in habit, with solitary, cespitose, and aerially branched forms, and in leaf, with an unusual form that retains simple, bifid, typically juvenile foliage well into maturity. More work is needed to sort out these various segregates of C. elatior satisfactorily; some might be worthy of specific or varietal status.

Figures

Fig. 1.– A. Chamaedorea tepejilote Liebm., moist montane forest, Suchitepequez,Guatemala; B. Chamaedorea elatior Mart., moist forest, Veracruz, Mexico; C. Chamaedorea warscewiczii H. Wendl., moist forest, Panama; D. Chamaedorea costaricana Oerst., moist forest, Costa Rica. [B: Hodel 949; C: Hodel 725; D: Hodel 693] [Photos: D.R. Hodel]