Bouchea ehrenbergii Chamisso (1832: 253)

Pablo, Moroni & Nataly, O’Leary, 2017, Typification of names in the genus Bouchea (Duranteae, Verbenaceae), Phytotaxa 306 (3), pp. 211-216 : 212

Bouchea ehrenbergii Chamisso (1832: 253)

Type (lectotype, designated here):— HAITI. “ S. Domingo ”, C. A. Ehrenberg s.n. (HAL 0115153!; isolectoype NY 1337397!) .

Protologue citation:—“Ex Insula San Domingo misit Carolus Ehrenberg, prope Port au Prince lectum.”

Notes:—Chamisso (1832) described B. ehrenbergii based on a collection that was done by C. A. Ehrenberg in the island of “San Domingo”, near Port-au-Prince. Ehrenberg visited the French colony of Santo Domingo, now Haiti, from 1828 to 1831 ( Urban 1901: 43), devoting his free time to plant collecting in this city and in Cap-Haïtien ( Moscoso 1943: XXIX).

Moldenke (1940b: 100) cited as type material an Ehrenberg collection kept at B, indicating the geographical provenance as “ Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Hispaniola”. It is evident that Moldenke has misinterpreted the label on the specimen, referring the material as coming from Dominican Republic instead of Haiti. He also cited a sheet collected by Ehrenberg in Port-au-Prince ( Moldenke 1940b: 103), supposedly housed in the Meisner Herbarium (NY), but this material could not be traced (A. Weiss, pers. comm).

The specimen cited as type is no longer extant at B, because it was lost during the bombing of Berlin in the year 1943 (R. Vogt, pers. comm.). Fortunately, a photograph of the sheet kept at NY (A. Weiss, pers. comm.) allows us to declare that the specimen seemed to be original material since the handwriting on it matches with Chamisso’s calligraphy ( Burdet 1974: 215 − 216). Thus, Moldenke’s statement is here interpreted according to the modern ICN ( McNeill et al. 2012) as a lectotype designation.

Since this specimen is lost, a new lectotype is here proposed. Two specimens studied and annotated by Chamisso were located at HAL and NY; both elements agree with the diagnosis, and the locality cited in the protologue is covered by the label (Port-au-Prince was the capital of Santo Domingo in the time of Ehrenberg). Thus, these specimens are considered as original material for the name. The Ehrenberg material at HAL is annotated “ Bouchea Ehrenbergii Cham ” and “ S. Domingo ” by Chamisso, and contains a fertile branch with four flowers in a good state of preservation and two leaves. Despite the good state of conservation of the sheet at NY, the Ehrenberg material at HAL is here selected as the lectotype since it is more complete and agrees with the traditional and currant usage of the name of this species .