Domingo Bello y Espinosa (1817–1884) and the new taxa published in his Apuntes para la flora de Puerto-Rico

Abstract

AbstractDomingo Bello y Espinosa (1817–1884) was an attorney and naturalist from the Canary Islands who lived in Mayagüez (Puerto Rico) between 1848 and 1878. He is the author of a two–part publication dated 1881 and 1883, which represents one of the first contributions on plant taxonomy made by an island resident. These studies include a total of 88 new taxa. Eighty–four of them are new taxonomic descriptions (3 genera, 59 species, 22 varieties) and 4 of them are new combinations. Eight of these species are still accepted either as published originally by Bello (3 species) or as basionyms of subsequent taxonomic combinations (5 names). Stahlia Bello is also currently accepted. Twelve of Bello's names are not legitimate (11 species, 1 variety). Bello did not leave a herbarium and published illustrations for only 3 of the new species that he described. Therefore, Bello's names need to be interpreted on the basis of his descriptions and indirect accounts primarily provided by Ignatz Urban. This German botanist had access to illustrations (made by Leopold Krug) and plant collections (from Krug and Agustín Stahl) that were originally identified with Bello's names. Here we assign neotypes for 42 of the 59 species described by Bello. The remaining 17 species not typified include 3 names typified in previous works, 9 illegitimate names, 3 names that we could not assign to any infrageneric taxon, and 2 names that are both illegitimate and can not be interpreted taxonomically. In addition, we lectotypify Caesalpinia monosperma (synonym of Stahlia maritima). We present a summary of the life of Domingo Bello that includes new data from archival research in the Canary Islands and Puerto Rico, as well as the only known portrait of him.