A New Combination in Acalypha (Euphorbiaceae)

Abstract

In 1961, R. McVaugh conclusively showed that Sereno Watson's Mexican genus Corythea, erroneously placed in the Tribe Hippomaneae by its authora course which was followed by Pax (I912)-is in fact referable to Acalypha (Tribe Acalypheae). Two species had been described in Corythea, namely C. filipes S. Wats., upon which the genus was founded in 1887, and C. multiflora Standl., also from Mexico, in 1923. McVaugh, at the same time as combining C. filipes under Acalypha, also reduced C. multiflora into synonymy with it. However, I have now examined the type-material of both species which is deposited in the Gray Herbarium (GH) and in the Smithsonian Institution (US), and have come to the conclusion that Standley was correct in regarding the type of C. multiflora as being specifically distinct from C.filipes. The leaves of the former are broadly ovate and long-petiolate, whilst those of the latter are narrowly elliptic-ovate and shortly petiolate, and the female inflorescence of C. multiflora is many-flowered, as the epithet indicates, whilst that of C. filipes is only I-2-flowered. C. multiflora has only been collected once since the type collection, and that was by McVaugh himself. The details of this gathering are:-Mexico, Nayarit, 3-2 km SE. of Las Varas, road to Mazatin, 60-90 m, 12 Jul. 1957, McVaugh 15354 (US!). A new combination is required for Standley's species under Acalypha:-