Nomenclatural type designation of four Linnaean names in Iris sensu lato (Iridaceae)
Author
Altinordu, Fahim
Author
Crespo, Manuel B.
text
Phytotaxa
2016
2016-07-27
268
4
296
300
http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.268.4.9
journal article
10.11646/phytotaxa.268.4.9
1179-3163
13653621
1.
Iris susiana
Linnaeus (1753: 38)
Type
(
lectotype
, designated here):—Herb. Linnaeus No. 61.3 (
LINN
[photo!]).
The protologue of
Iris susiana
(
Linnaeus 1753: 38
)
consists of a diagnosis “
IRIS
corollis barbatis, caule foliis longiore unifloro” with citations from earlier works (
Linnaeus 1738: 18
,
van Royen 1740: 17
), followed by one synonym from
Bauhin (1623: 31
,
1658: 579
): “
Iris susiana
, flore maximo ex albo nigricante”.
Bauhin (1658: 579)
provided an illustration (available at http://bibdigital.rjb.csic.es/ing/Libro.php?Libro=3057&Pagina=302) that can be considered original material. Except for this illustration,
Jarvis (2007)
cited as Linnaeus’s original material
one specimen
at
LINN
, Herb. Linn. No. 61.3 (
LINN
) (image available at: http://linnean-online.org/800/). This specimen bears Linnaeus’s annotation “1
susiana
”, where “1” explicitly refers to the number of the species account of
Iris susiana
in
Species
plantarum
(
Linnaeus 1753
)
. The sheet bears also the abbreviation “
HU
” indicating that the plant was grown in the
Uppsala
botanical garden.
Both original elements (the specimen from the Linnaean herbarium and the illustration from Bauhin) are definitely congruent with the traditional and current concept of
Iris susiana
, keeping in mind that this plant is only known in cultivation and its true origin is unknown (see e.g.,
Dykes 1912
). The specimen Herb. Linnaeus no. 61.3 at
LINN
is better suited as
lectotype
of the concerned name, because any specimen is a potential source of additional characters (including molecular, chemical, and micromorphological data) that cannot be provided by an illustration. We therefore designate the specimen in the Linnaean herbarium (
LINN
) as the
lectotype
of
Iris susiana
.