Grangea maderaspatana (L.)

Beentje, Henk & Lachenaud, Olivier, 2020, The inclusion of Akeassia in Grangea (Asteraceae) and description of a new species from Gabon: Grangea ogoouensis, Candollea 75 (2), pp. 311-319 : 314-315

Grangea maderaspatana (L.)

Desf., Tabl. Ecole Bot.: 95. 1804.

≡ Artemisia maderaspatana L., Sp. Pl. 2: 849. 1753. ≡ Cotula maderaspatana (L.) Willd., Sp. Pl., ed. 4, 3: 2170. 1803. ≡ Grangea adansonii Cass., Dict. Sci. Nat., ed. 2, 19: 304. 1821 [nom. illeg.].

Lectotypus (designated by FAYED, 1979: 452): [ INDIA]: “habitat in India”, s.d., Herb. Linn. 988.47 ( LINN-HL nº 988-47 image!).

= Tanacetum aegyptiacum Juss. ex Jacq., Hort. Bot. Vindob. 3: 46, tab. 88. 1777. ≡ Grangea aegyptiaca (Juss. ex Jacq.) DC., Prodr. 5: 373.1836. Typus: Jacq., Hort. Bot. Vindob. 3: tab. 88. 1777.

= Cotula sphaeranthus Link, Enum. Hort. Berol. Alt. 2: 344. 1822. ≡ Grangea sphaeranthus (Link) Koch in Bot. Zeitung (Berlin) 1: 41. 1843.

Typus: COUNTRY UNKNOWN: “ad fluvium Congo ”, s.d., Anon. s.n. ( B †).

= Grangea strigosa Gand. in Bull. Soc. Bot. France 65: 42. 1918.

Syntypi: INDIA: Goghat , s.d., Nusker 33 ( P); ibid. loco, s.d., Prain s.n. ( P).

= Grangea hispida Humbert in Mem. Soc. Linn. Normandie 25: 37. 1923.

Lectotypus (designated by FAYED, 1979: 465): MADAGASCAR: Majunga , VI.1879, Hildebrandt 3028 ( P [ P00435134 ] image!; isolecto-: BM [ BM000903807 ] image!).

= Grangea glandulosa Fayed in Mitt. Bot. Staats. München 15: 466. 1979.

Holotypus: ZAMBIA: Mbereshi-Luapula, river swamp, 14.I.1960, Richards 12352 ( K [ K000273547 ]!) .

– Grangea mucronata Buch. - Ham. ex Wall. [nom. nud.].

Annual or short-lived perennial herb, with taproot, procumbent or with erect stems to 40 cm high, aromatic. Leaves pale green, sessile, in outline obovate to oblanceolate, 1–9.5(–15) × 0.3 –4 cm, base half-amplexicaul, margins lyrate-pinnatifid with serrate-crenate lobes or less often just lobed, apex obtuse, pubescent to pilose on both surfaces and glandular. Capitula solitary and axillary or leaf-opposed, or terminal and 2–3 together in leafy corymbs, individual capitula subglobose, 4– 12 mm long, 6– 14 mm in diameter, erect in flower, nodding in fruit; phyllaries ± 17, 2–3-seriate, ovate to elliptic, the outermost 3–7 mm long. Florets many (50+), corollas pale to golden yellow; outer florets female, in 2–4 rows, narrowly tubular with the tube 1.3–1.5 mm long, sparsely glandular, widening near mouth, with 2–4 lobes, lobes 0.2–0.3 mm long; inner florets many, bisexual, shortly (0.5–1 mm) stalked, sparsely glandular, tube 1–1.2 mm long and widening towards mouth with 4–5 triangular lobes 0.3–0.5 mm long. Achenes yellow, narrowly obovoid, those of outer florets slightly smaller than those of inner, but all slightly compressed, with 2(–4) marginal veins, 1.2–2 mm long, sparsely hairy or less often glabrous, always glandular; pappus of outer florets a crownshaped ring with lobes 1–2 mm long, of inner florets a larger coroniform ring, laciniate, 0.2–0.5 mm long.

Distribution and ecology. – A very widespread species in tropical and subtropical Africa, Madagascar, and tropical Asia; river-banks and sandbanks in rivers, swampy grassland, where may be mat-forming or covering large areas; 5–150 m in Gabon, elsewhere 0–1350 m.

Conservation status. – This species was assessed as “Least Concern” [LC] by BEENTJE et al. (2020).

Notes. – See under G. ogoouensis . This species is highly polymorphic in habit (erect or procumbent), leaf shape, density of indumentum, and to some degree in pappus shape (the pappus ring tends to be shorter in specimens from Western and Central Africa compared to those from Eastern and Southern Africa). In the Sahelian region it may be mistaken for the widely sympatric G. ceruanoides ; the latter differs by characters listed in the key above, and also by its smaller phyllaries (<3 mm long).

The original description of G. hispida ( HUMBERT, 1923) is based on three syntypes, Douliot s.n., Hildebrandt 3028 and Perrier de la Bâthie 2951; FAYED (1979: 465) cited the P sheet of Hildebrandt 3028 as holotype, which is treated as an error to be corrected to lectotype ( TURLAND et al., 2018: Art. 9.10).