Sabicea dewevrei De Wild.

Zemagho, Lise, Lachenaud, Olivier & Sonké, Bonaventure, 2018, Four new species of Sabicea (Rubiaceae) from tropical Africa, with additional notes on the genus, Candollea 73 (2), pp. 277-293 : 291

Sabicea dewevrei De Wild. in Ann. Mus. Congo, Bot. ser. 3, 1: 112. 1901.

Lectotypus (designated here): DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO. Tshopo: Waboundou , 6.XII.1896, Dewèvre 1143 ( BR [ BR0000008856791 ]!; isolectotype: B R [ BR0000008856807 ]!).

= Sabicea gigantea Wernham, Monogr. Sabicea: 71. 1914 . Lectotypus (designated here): DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO. Sankuru: Munungu , III.1910, Sapin s.n. ( BR [ BR000000885698 ]!; isolectotype: BR [ BR000000885695 ]!), syn. nov.

Notes. – WERNHAM (1914) already noted the close resemblance between S. gigantea and S. dewevrei , which share, among other characters, inflorescences subtended by a single pair of shortly connate involucral bracts, and a calyx tube much longer than the lobes. He separated them based on a supposed difference in habit (tree vs liana) and the indumentum of the stems and peduncles (glabrous in S. gigantea vs hirsute in S. dewevrei ). The type of S. gigantea is indeed reported as a tall tree, but this is certainly an error (no arborescent species of Sabicea are known to date) and the indumentum is actually quite variable in S. dewevrei . Accordingly, the two species are here synonymised.

The type collections of S. dewevrei and S. gigantea both consist of two sheets; in either case, we have selected the most complete one as lectotype.