Millettia splendens Wight & Arnott (1834: 263)

Balan, Anoop Puthuparampil, Predeep, Sreevilas Vasudevan & Prakashkumar, Raveendran Pillai, 2021, Lectotypification of two names in Indian Millettia (Fabaceae-Papilionoideae), Phytotaxa 494 (2), pp. 225-230 : 227

Millettia splendens Wight & Arnott (1834: 263) FIGURE 2 , C & D

Lectotype (designated here):— INDIA. Neelgheries , Ballsar, s.d., Wight 998 (K000848703), digital image!; isolectotypes CAL0000012590, E00174565, K000848704, M0233439 and P 02141868 (digital images!)

Distribution:— India, endemic (Kerala and Tamil Nadu).

Notes:— Wight & Arnott (1834) described Millettia splendens based on the collection Wight 998. The collection locality and date are not mentioned in the protologue. Six specimens of M. splendens collected by Wight were traced (CAL0000012590, E00174565, K000848703, K000848704, M0233439 and P 02141868). Of these, K000848703 is chosen here as the lectotype as it well exhibits the diagnostic characters of the species mentioned in the protologue. The exact collection locality, Ballsar, Neelgheries is written on this sheet in Wight’s hand. In the specimens deposited at CAL and M, the collection number was labelled as ‘807’, which was probably a mistake happened during remounting. Wight Cat. n. 807 is Alysicarpus nummularifolius DC. (1825: 353) and 802 to 809 are pertaining to different species of Alysicarpus . The specimens in CAL and K are examined by Dunn during the revisionary studies of the genus Millettia and labelled as ‘typus’.

Figures

FIGURE 2. A. Habit and fruit of Millettia rubiginosa; B. Lectotype of M. rubiginosa (© the Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew); C. Habit and fruit of Millettia splendens; D. Lectotype of M. splendens (© the Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew).