Corchorus fruticulosus Visiani (1836a: 205

Clementi, Moreno, D’Antraccoli, Marco & Miola, Antonella, 2019, Nomenclatural and taxonomical notes on some taxa described by Roberto de Visiani from Egypt and Sudan, Phytotaxa 399 (1), pp. 49-64 : 56

Corchorus fruticulosus Visiani (1836a: 205 ; also treated in Visiani 1836b: 21; 1836c: 66)

Locus classicus:— “circa Chartum in Sennaar”.

Lectotype (designated here):—Illustration in Visiani 1836a: tab. 3 fig. 2.

Note:—We were unable to locate any specimen from the original material during our research.The name has sometimes been considered a synonym of C. trilocularis Linnaeus (1767: 77) (e.g. The Plant List 2018). Nevertheless, we believe the description of the plant and its illustration fit better with that of C. depressus (L.) Stocks (in Blatter 1931: 891), for its prostrate habit (not erect) and the smaller, elliptical to ovate, crenate-undulate leaves (not 3–5 cm long, lanceolateelliptical, serrate). The flower depicted in the analysis in Visiani (1836a) is 5-merous, while C. depressus usually has 4-merous flowers ( Mandaville 1990). It should be noted, though, that 5-merous flowers do occur in C. depressus . Moreover, given the general bad state of preservation of Brocchi’s material, we can easily imagine that Visiani may have considered 4-merous flowers as incomplete, knowing that the genus is generally 5-merous. Once again, any attempt at designating an epitype should be left to specialists with a deeper understanding of both the taxon and suitable modern material.

Volkameria acerbiana Visiani (1836a: 207 ; also treated in Visiani 1836b: 23; 1836c: 66), “Volkamera” Locus classicus:— “in AEgypto”.

Lectotype (designated here):— EGYPT. s.l., [1828–1829], G. Raddi s.n. (G00678626!, lower left specimen) (see Fig. 5 ).

Additional specimen examined:— SUDAN. Berber Mograd, in insula, 1841, C.G.T. Kotschy 359 (P00442333!, G00678639!).

Note: —The specimen by Kotschy in P, bearing the name V. acerbiana , is labelled as “ Type ”, but we could find no evidence of it having been effectively designated as such.

The specimen we select as type was collected by Giuseppe Raddi (1770–1829) on his 1828–1829 expedition to Egypt, during which he contracted a fatal illness ( Baldini & Pignotti 2018). His specimens were sent to Pisa, Italy, where they were examined by Gaetano Savi (1769–1844) in 1830 ( Savi 1837). In the same year, Savi sent some of the specimens to Geneva, Switzerland (in sched.). By 1834, he had prepared a paper describing the plant as a new species in a new genus, with the name Cornacchinia fragiformis Savi (1837: 179) , but the work could only be published three years later, after Visiani (1836a) had meanwhile published V. acerbiana based on material by Acerbi, unaware of Savi’s previous discovery.

One of the specimens sent by Savi to G was later recognised as V. acerbiana , and marked with an exclamation mark, indicating that the specimen was seen by the author ( Visiani 1836a) of the associated name. Indeed, the handwriting on the specimen looks like that of Visiani. Given that it is very well preserved, and that it was almost certainly recognised as V. acerbiana by Visiani himself, we choose it as the lectotype. The label of the type seems to refer to two branches at different stages of development: a flowering branch on the left, and a branch with two dried calyces, remaining after the maturation of the fruit, on the right. Since Visiani clearly based his description and later illustration ( Visiani 1836a: t. 4 fig. 1) on flowering specimens, we consider it safer to limit our designation to the left branch.

It is noteworthy that, according to Boulos (2002), the mainly tropical V. acerbiana is nowadays very rare in Egypt, only occurring south of Kom Ombo, where both Raddi and Acerbi probably collected it.

Figures

FIGURE 5. Lectotype of Volkameria acerbiana Vis.: Raddi s.n. (G00678626, lower left specimen).