Vesselowskya serratifolia Guillaumin

Fortune Hopkins, Helen C., 2006, Nomenclature and typification in Geissois (Cunoniaceae) in the South-West Pacific, Adansonia (3) 28 (2), pp. 311-327 : 320-321

15. Vesselowskya serratifolia Guillaumin

Annales du Musée colonial de Marseille, sér. 2, 9: 60 (1911b); Guillaumin, ibid., 10: 162 (1912); Bulletin de la Société botanique de France 68: 231 (1921); Bulletin de la Société botanique de France 87: 246 (1941); Notulae Systematicae (Paris) 14: 280 (1952); Mémoires du Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, sér. B, botanique 15: 39 (1964). — Types (as given in protologue): [Pennel (sic) = Peunel] “ no 419” [Bourail] (holo-, not traced); “[...] par Cribs et par Lecard, nº 71 a, à Canala [...]” .

Remarks

Guillaumin (1911b) published the name Vesselowskya serratifolia to describe a plant collected by M. Peunel, always cited by Guillaumin as “Pennel”, near Bourail. According to Guillaumin, Peunel made a collection of 431 numbers from around Bourail, where he was director of the prison. His specimens were deposited in the Musée colonial de Marseille, which no longer exists.While some Peunel collections are now at P, 419 has not been found among them. According to Vegter (1983), there is material collected by Peunel at the herbarium of the Université de Provence, Centre Saint-Charles, Marseille (MARS), where two specimens are extant, Peunel s.n. (s.loc., s.dat., image!) and Peunel 125 (number in Guillaumin’s hand, s.loc., s.dat., image!). Although Guillaumin (1912) indicated that Peunel 125 came from Bourail, there is nothing on the specimen label to confirm this.

It is possible that there may be further Peunel specimens in Marseille, at the Muséum d’Histoire naturelle, Palais Longchamp (no abbreviation), since their website (http://www.mairie-marseille. fr/vivre/culture/museum_3.htm, consulted 4 April 2006) indicates that part of the herbarium of the Musée colonial is now there, but unfortunately I have been unable to find out whether this includes the type of V. serratifolia . Until I have evidence that Peunel 419 cannot be found in Marseille, I am refraining from designating a lectotype .

In the protologue, Guillaumin (1911b) mentioned two other collections of V. serratifolia “par Cribs et par Lecard [sic], no 71 a, à Canala, sur les sommets des montagnes ferrugineuses et dénudées, à 700 mètres d’altitude” which are syntypes. At P, neither Cribs s.n. nor Lécard 71a gives a locality, but Lécard s.n. indicates the locality Canala .

When Guillaumin (1911b) published the name V. serratifolia , he obviously considered that the vegetative characters of the sterile material which he had seen were similar to those of “ Geissois rubriflora ” (sic) (= Vesselowskya rubifolia ) from Australia. However, in 1941 and subsequently, he suggested that the specimens were actually the juvenile form of Geissois , though he continued to use the name Vesselowskya in publications on Cunoniaceae from New Caledonia (e.g., Guillaumin 1952, 1964). Guillaumin & Hamel (1964) said that seedlings raised from the seeds of MacKee 7959 were the same thing as Vesselowskya serratifolia , and they identified MacKee 7959 as G. pruinosa though it is in fact G. magnifica . The specimens Cribs s.n., Lécard 71a and s.n., and Peunel 125 and s.n. are indeed all seedlings of Geissois and are all consistent with G. pruinosa or one of its close relatives. However, in many cases it does not appear possible to distinguish the seedlings of different species of Geissois from one another on the basis of their morphology, but only by association with the parent plant. For this reason, even if Peunel 419 were traced, it is unlikely that the synonymy of this name could be clarified. The morphology of Geissois seedlings has been described by Guillaumin (1964; under V. serratifolia ), ORSTOM (1968; G. racemosa ), and Fogliani et al. (unpubl. data; G. pruinosa ).

INVALIDLY PUBLISHED NAMES