Abstract
A previously validly published name, Ammannia coccinea Rottb. 1773, was cited in the protologue of A. octandra L. f. and therefore the latter is superfluous and illegitimate without conservation. A. coccinea is a different but similar species from the one the younger Linnaeus had before him. The original Koenig specimen he cited in the protologue has not been found, but a Koenig specimen from Madepala, India (BM), could be part of the type gathering. Conserving it as type will maintain the name in its current sense, a common weed of rice paddies and wet places. Ammannia octandra has been used quite unambiguously for over 200 years for a well known species of Lythraceae and is cited at least 16 times in Asian literature as, for example: Matthew (Exc. Fl. C. Tamilnadu: 198. 1991), Kostermans (Weeds Rice Indonesia: 342. 1987), Srinavaran (in Nair & Henry, Fl. Tamil Nadu 1: 165. 1983), Backer & Bakhuizen van den Brink f. (Fl. Java 1: 253. 1963), Gamble (Fl. Madras 1: 510. 1919), and Trimen (Handb. Fl. Ceylon 2: 225. 1894). A later legitimate name is available for the same species, Ammannella linearis Miq. (Fl. Ned. Ind. 1(1): 619. 1856), based on material collected in Java by Horsfield; but it has never been resuscitated from the synonymy to which it was immediately consigned.
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