Passiflora coccinea Aubl.

Rome, Maxime, MacDOUGAL, John M., Svoboda, Harlan T. & COPPENS D’EECKENBRUGGE, Geo, 2024, A revised and annotated checklist of the genus Passiflora L. in French Guiana, Adansonia (3) 46 (20), pp. 197-221 : 207

Passiflora coccinea Aubl.

Histoire des plantes de la Guiane Françoise 2: 828, pl. 324 ( Aublet 1775).

TYPE SPECIMENS. — Plate 324 from Aublet, Histoire des plantes de la Guiane Françoise 2: 828 ( Aublet 1775) (lecto-, designated here; Fig. 3 ).

French Guiana • Road of Tonate, km 30 from Kourou ; 1.XI.1968; R. A. A. Oldeman 2875; epi-, P [ P05589952 ], designated here ( Fig. 4 ).

DISTRIBUTION. — The distribution of this species is still poorly known due to the difficulty of distinguishing species close to this taxon on herbarium specimens, probably Guianas and Amazon and Orinoco basins.

NOTE

This name has been widely misapplied in the literature to many other red-flowered species of Passiflora .

Following articles 9.4 and 9.11 of the International Code of Nomenclature ( Turland et al. 2018), only the illustration accompanying the protologue of P. coccinea (plate 324) can be considered as original material and thus be defined as lectotype. However, this plate does not show the relevant characters (especially precise structure and colors of series filaments) by which it could be identified and distinguished from other species of Passiflora supersect. Coccinea . The specimen Oldeman 2875 ( Fig. 4 ), showing flowers and mentioning colors, is thus designated as the epitype of P. coccinea .

Figures

FIG. 3. — Plate 324 from Aublet (Aublet 1775), Histoire des plantes de la Guiane Françoise 2 (Aublet 1775: 828), the designated lectotype of P. coccinea Aubl. (Image courtesy of the Peter H. Raven Library, Missouri Botanical Garden via the Biodiversity Heritage Library). The vegetative parts are well represented (with the exception of the stipules), while the drawing of the flower presents an interpretation of series of filaments which does not conform to reality.

FIG. 4. — The fertile herbarium specimen Oldeman 2875 (P[P05589952]), designated epitype of P. coccinea Aubl. The label specifies that the flowers consist of red bracts with a green base, petals green outside and bright red inside, a series of whitish filaments, a green androgynophore and red stigmas and stamens.