Besleria macropoda Donn. Sm., 1898

Berger, Andreas, Clark, John L. & Weber, Anton, 2015, Besleria macropoda (Gesneriaceae): lectotypification, distribution, functional epiphylly and discordant fruit morphology of a rare Costa Rican endemic, Phytotaxa 233 (2), pp. 139-152 : 143

Besleria macropoda Donn. Sm. Botanical Gazette 25(3): 155–156. 1898.

Lectotype (designated here):— Cooper [“ Pittier ”] 572 (BR-0005107995; isolectotype: CR-572 ) . Syntypes:— Tonduz [“ Pittier ”] 2495 (BR-0013349196, -202, CR-2495 , CR-75711 , US-00078576 ) ; Tonduz 11358 (BR-0013349219, -226, CR-11358 , GH-00375574, US-00078573 , -574) .

When publishing B. macropoda, Donnell Smith (1898) listed three collections in the protologue: Pittier 572, Pittier 2495 and Tonduz 11358. Upon this syntype collections, a possible lectotype must be selected. In the Gesneriaceae treatment in Standley’s Flora of Costa Rica, Morton (1938: 1153) cited only one exemplary collection for Besleria macropoda : “Damp woods, El Recreo, Pittier 572.” In his later revision of the entire genus, Morton (1939: 454) chose the same collection (intentionally?) as the lectotype by writing “Type. El Recreo, Costa Rica, Pittier 572.” Unfortunately, he did not cite or select a specific herbarium specimen as he did for other specimens and taxa in the same treatment. However, by including the term “type” this has to be considered a valid [first step] lectotypification according to the ICN (Melbourne Code, Art. 9.17).

The type specimens based on Donnell Smith names are usually deposited at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History ( US), to which he donated his private herbarium in 1905 ( Coulter 1908). It must be noted that there are no known duplicates of the above-mentioned collection at US (J. Boggan, US; pers. comm.), indicating that the specimen was lost, misplaced, or sent out for exchange before Morton revised Besleria ( Morton 1938, 1939).

From the two duplicates located by us, the specimen at CR bears a pre-printed “Herb. Instit. physico-geogr. nat. costaricensis” label that gives H. Pittier as collector, which is in accordance with the protologue. The specimen at BR includes the following pre-printed label “H. Pittier & Th. Durand / Plantae costaricenses exsiccatae”, with only the plant name written in. Above it is an additional smaller, hand-written label, which gives the collection number 572, locality, etc. and which indicates that the collection was made by J. J. Cooper, who also collected for J. Donnell Smith. In addition, J. Boggan verified that the collection number and label are in Cooper’s handwriting. Hence, we consider the handwritten label of the duplicate at BR as bearing the authentic information and the label of the duplicate at CR as an incomplete later transcript. We therefore refer to the collection as Cooper [“ Pittier ”] 572 and select the duplicate from BR as the [second step] lectotype. In addition, the specimen at BR includes more fertile material and is in better condition than the specimen at CR.

A similar case is found in one of the syntype collections that is refered to as Pittier 2495 in the protologue, but should be attributed to A. Tonduz as the collector. The duplicate at BR (#0013349196) includes a handwritten label that gives Tonduz as the collector. Concordantly, the duplicates at CR and US include preprinted labels with Pittier as the collector (i.e., Tonduz is not included on the preprinted label). We consider the information of the handwritten BR label as verification that Tonduz is the collector and therefore refer to the collection as Tonduz [“ Pittier ”] 2495.