Solanum cymosum Ortega

Knapp, Sandra, 2013, Typification of Solanum species (Solanaceae) described by Casimiro Gómez Ortega, Anales del Jardín Botánico de Madrid 70 (1), pp. 56-61 : 57

Solanum cymosum Ortega , Nov. Pl. Descr. Dec. 12. 1797

Ind. loc.: “ Habitat in Regno Mexicanensi. Floret mense Augusto, Septembri, et Octobri in Reg. Horto Matrit. è seminibus missis per D. Sessè ”.

Neotype, designated here: MA 476353 .

Current accepted name: Solanum lanceolatum Cav.

I found no material in the MA general herbarium that was cultivated in the Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid filed under Solanum cymosum , nor did I find any cultivated material for S. lanceolatum , the species that best matches Ortega’s protologue. The source of the seeds from which the plant described by Ortega was grown was Martin Sessé y Lacasta, the director and principal botanist of the Real Expedición Botánica a Nueva España, better known to botanists as the Sessé and Mociño Expedition. The expedition lasted sixteen years (1787-1803), and covered territory from Guatemala to Canada, though Sessé was based in Mexico City. Full accounts of the personalities and events of the expedition can be found in McVaugh (1977), Maldonado (1997) and San Pío & Puig Samper (2000).

A sheet in the Cavanilles herbarium (MA-476353) labelled “ Solanum cimosum de Ortega” in the hand of José Demetrio Rodriguez, “Jardin de Madrid” in an unknown hand in pale brown ink and indicated as cultivated in the garden is the logical choice for a neotype ( Fig. 1a ); it is the only specimen I found with any connection to Ortega’s epithet and that met my criteria. The sheet is of a particularly narrow-leaved plant of S. lanceolatum , a species described by Cavanilles two years earlier ( Cavanilles, 1795), also from Mexico (but not attributed to Sessé and Mociño). The protologue does not match this specimen particularly well as it describes a plant with prickly stems and oblong leaves, but the phrase “ramea nonnulla lanceolata” suggests Gómez Ortega was specifically differentiating his plant from Cavanilles’s S. lanceolatum . Solanum lanceolatum is extremely variable in leaf shape.

Figures

Fig. 1. a, neotype of Solanum cymosum Ortega (=Solanum lanceolatum Cav.) (MA 476353); b, neotype of Solanum ficifolium Ortega (= Solanum ferrugineum Jacq.) (MA 334586); c, neotype of Solanum leprosum Ortega (=Solanum elaeagnifolium Cav.) (MA 334600); d, neotype of Solanum subbiflorum Ortega (=Solanum capense L.) (MA308482).