Urginea pygmaea Duthie (1928: 10)

Martínez-Azorín, Mario, Crespo, Manuel B., Dold, Anthony P., Pinter, Michael & Wetschnig, Wolfgang, 2015, New combinations and lectotype designations in Asparagaceae subfam. Scilloideae, Phytotaxa 201 (2), pp. 165-171 : 169

Urginea pygmaea Duthie (1928: 10)

Type (lectotype, here designated):— SOUTH AFRICA. Stellenbosch Flats , February–March, A. Duthie 1603 ( NBG, bar code 0197707-0!; the eleven bulbs with leaves on the left hand side of the label, harvested on 3 June 1926 under the collecting number 1603a) .

When Duthie (1928: 10) described Urginea pygmaea , no type indication was made in the protologue, although she provided the following information: “Stellenbosch Flats, in sandy soil, occasional; flowering Feb.–March. Herb. Univ. Stell.; Flora Reg. Stell. 1603”. Further data are present on the labels of three herbarium sheets corresponding to A. Duthie 1603 ( K, bar code 000257367!; NBG, bar code 0197707-0!; PRE, bar code 0049740-0!). The sheet at K shows bulbs with leaves and unconnected flowers, capsules and seeds, and bears the annotation “flowering Feb.–March”. The sheet at NBG bears numerous plants with leaves, flowers and fruits, which are separated into five groups by solid lines. Each group includes plants in the same stage of development, and those groups are dated in pencil “ April 1925 ”, “ March 27. 1925 ”, “ March 30 1925 ”, “ March 1925 ”. “April 29”, and “ June 3 1926 ”. Finally, the sheet at PRE includes several leafy bulbs and four unconnected flowers, and the following dates are annotated in pencil: “1603a […] Leafing plants June 3 1926 ” and “1603 […] March 1927 ”. It is evident therefore that the original material, A. Duthie 1603, includes plants collected at different times. As in 1928 there was no need for a type designation, the name is validly published. Jessop (1977: 306) indicated the “type” of U. pygmaea as follows: “Type: Stellenbosch Flats, Duthie s.n. sub Ste 1603 ( STE, holo.!, K!, PRE!)”, while considering it a synonym of Drimia minor ( Duthie 1928: 11) Jessop (1977: 306) . The herbarium STE was incorporated to NBG, where it is currently kept. As Jessop’s “type” designation referred to five or six different specimens, it has no standing, and the entire original material is available for the purpose of lectotype designation. We nevertheless designate here a portion of the NBG sheet, the eleven bulbs with leaves located at the base of that sheet, as the lectotype of U. pygmaea . The selection of sterile material as the lectotype is due to the fact that flower and inflorescence morphology in the group of species related to U. pygmaea is relatively constant, but they mainly differ by leaf morphology.