Drypetes glauca Vahl (1807: 49)

Leyva, Luis Manuel & García-Beltrán, José Angel, 2024, Taxonomical update of the genus Drypetes (Malpighiales: Putranjivaceae) in Cuba, Phytotaxa 655 (1), pp. 54-64 : 61

Drypetes glauca Vahl (1807: 49) .

Lectotype (designated here):— MONTSERRAT. “Montserrat”. J. Ryan s.n. (lectotype C # 10011218 [photo!], isolectotypes C ## 10011216 – 10011217 [photos!])

Discussion:— Greuter & Rankin (2022) list Drypetes glauca Vahl for Cuba, the type species of the genus and endemic to the Caribbean ( Acevedo-Rodríguez & Strong 2012). But there is no record in the herbaria consulted to support its presence in the country, nor is it explained from which work or material the reference of this taxon is based on. Acevedo-Rodríguez & Strong (2012) did not include this taxon in the list of species of the genus present in Cuba. However, these authors refer that the species is known in Cuba by the common name “Hueso de monte”, because Roig (1965) mentions this common name for “ D. glauca Poit. ”, but he also considers it a synonym of D. lateriflora . Yet, the species described by Poiteau for the genus is D. alba .

Moreover, Grisebach (1860, 1865) never described Drypetes glauca , despite two combinations of this name being attributed to his authorship, which are listed as synonyms of D. alba var. latifolia (here D. alba subsp. latifolia ) in Urban (1893). In both cases, these are misidentifications of A. Grisebach himself, based on the collections C. Wright 593 and C. Wright 1928 that he identified as D. glauca , which, as treated herein, correspond to D. lateriflora . Thus, D. glauca should be excluded from the species of the genus present in the largest of the Antilles.

Notes on lectotype:—When consulting the herbarium materials and the works related to Drypetes glauca , we notice that in its protologue, Vahl (1807) mentioned the complete collection J. Ryan s.n. of a plant collected in Montserrat, without naming the herbaria where the sample was placed. In C there are three materials verified and identified by the author that match that data (C # 10011216, C # 10011217 and C # 10011218), making them syntypes of the name and a lectotypification would be needed. What is noteworthy is that in the species protologue, Vahl (1807) described both male and female flowers and the fruit, pointing out that they were dioecious plants and as such he specified that in the materials reviewed by him. From J. Ryan s.n., M. Vahl identifies C # 10011217 as a male individual and C # 10011216 and C # 10011218 as females. However, two branches are shown in the latter, each from a different sex, distinguished by the number of flowers per axil, the pedicel length and the presence of fruits in the bottom right branch. Thus, we designate the material C # 10011218 as the lectotype of Drypetes glauca , because it is the most complete within the collection.