Abstract
Taxonomic revision of the tropical Asian species of Solanum revealed two names, Solanum poka Dunal and Solanum graciliflorum Dunal, whose identities were uncertain and whose application has always been tentative. Material collected in Java at the beginning of the 19th century by Jean-Baptiste Leschenault de la Tour and used to describe these taxa has not been found, despite extensive searches in European herbaria. We here stabilise use of these names by comparing herbarium specimens and drawings of original material made by the artist Toussaint François Node-Véran. Detailed descriptions with synonymy, preliminary conservation assessments and specimen citations are provided for both species. Lectotypes are designated for all names (including synonyms) and epitypes designated for Solanum poka and Solanum graciliflorum to stabilise usage.
Highlights
In 1800, shortly after he became First Consul of the Republic of France, Napoléon Bonaparte approved an expedition along the “coasts of New Holland” (Australia)
It is superficially similar to S. cyanocarphium Blume, a sympatric species that is distributed across the Sunda Shelf region, and to S. retrorsum Elmer, that occurs mainly in the Philippines
Molecular data show that S. cyanocarphium and S. graciliflorum are not closely related; S. graciliflorum is nested within the Sahul-Pacific clade while S. cyanocarphium is an unresolved species of uncertain affinities
Summary
In 1800, shortly after he became First Consul of the Republic of France, Napoléon Bonaparte approved an expedition along the “coasts of New Holland” (Australia). Given that no plant specimens corresponding to the protologues have been found, despite extensive searches, we consider the unpublished Node-Véran drawings the most appropriate and only extant possibilities for lectotypifying both S. graciliflorum and S. poka. These two names have long been treated as confusing, or ignored; they have rarely been used (see below in each species treatment), and few herbarium specimens we have seen have been annotated with either name. We designated interpretative types (epitypes), because details of trichome morphology are extremely important in spiny solanum taxonomy, and these are not visible on the illustrations
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