New names and status for Pacific spiny species of Solanum (Solanaceae, subgenus Leptostemonum Bitter; the Leptostemonum Clade).

Sandra Knapp,Michael Nee,Donald H R Mcclelland

doi:10.3897/phytokeys.145.48531

Abstract

Five new species of spiny solanums (Solanum subgenus Leptostemonum Bitter; the Leptostemonum Clade) are described from the islands of the Pacific. Two of the new species are from Fiji (S. pseudopedunculatum D.McClelland, sp. nov. and S. ratale D.McClelland, sp. nov.), two from New Caledonia (S. memoayanum D.McClelland, sp. nov. and S. semisucculentum D.McClelland, sp. nov.), one from Papua New Guinea (S. labyrinthinum D.McClelland, sp. nov.) and another from Vanuatu (S. vanuatuense D.McClelland, sp. nov.). A new status and combination is provided for the rare Hawaiian endemic S. caumii (F.Br.) D.McClelland, comb. et stat. nov. and a new type designated for S. peekelii Bitter of Papua New Guinea, for which a description is also provided. All species are illustrated with digitized herbarium specimens, mapped and have been assigned a preliminary conservation status using current IUCN guidelines. Details of all specimens examined are provided in a Suppl. materials 1: file SM1.

Highlights

Solanum L. (Solanaceae) is one of the largest genera of angiosperms (Frodin 2004), with ca. 1,400 species occurring on all continents except Antarctica
Symon (1985) applied the name S. peekelii to the plants we here recognise as S. labyrinthinum, applied the name S. torricellense to plants matching the description of S. peekelii and provided a new name for plants matching the type of S. torricellense, creating a taxonomic labyrinth (see below under typification of S. peekelii for details, and Solanaceae Source for descriptions of the other taxa involved)
Brown (1931) recognized the entity we here delimit as S. caumii as two varieties of S. nelsonii, a coastal species found on many islands in the Hawaiian archipelago

Summary

Introduction

Solanum L. (Solanaceae) is one of the largest genera of angiosperms (Frodin 2004), with ca. 1,400 species occurring on all continents except Antarctica. Using a combination of morphological and molecular characters the species of these groups have been shown to fall into two monophyletic clades corresponding to Bitter’s sections (McClelland 2012), but their members have generally not been included in wider molecular analyses of Old World spiny solanums (e.g., Aubriot et al 2016) We provide preliminary conservation assessments for each of these species

Materials and methods

Discussion