Nomenclatural Status of the Moss Grevilleanum serratum, with Notes on the Early 18th Century American Scientists, L. C. Beck and E. Emmons, Senior

Abstract

From various lines of evidence, including handwriting, contemporary correspondence, and study of herbarium specimens, the holotype of Grevilleanum serratum, the name of a moss that dates from 1826, is shown to be a specimen in the Bryophyte Herbarium of the New York State Museum. The holotype of G. serratum is identical taxonomically to Timmia megapolitana Hedwig (1801), making the former name a taxonomic synonym of the latter. The bryological contributions of the authors of G. serratum, L. C. Beck and E. Emmons, are discussed. Beck's bryophyte herbarium, mentioned as the foundation of an evidently completed but unpublished early moss flora of the United States, has been located largely intact but unrecognized as such in the collections of the New York State Museum. Ebenezer Emmons, remembered today mainly for his significant contributions to stratigraphic geology, had only a passing interest in mosses; Lewis Beck, in contrast, worked extensively on mosses between about 1825 and the 1830s, although the results of his studies were largely unpublished. A new North American moss was described in 1826 by Lewis C. Beck and Ebenezer Emmons, Senior, two accomplished American scientists (and doctors of medicine). They worked mainly in the Albany, New York, region as independent investigators and in association with scientific surveys as well as educational and other scholarly institutions that had been established there or in nearby Troy. While the valid publication of Grevilleanum serratum L. C. Beck & Emmons occurred in a leading periodical, The American Journal of Science and Arts (Silliman's Journal), and the description and accompanying illustrations were remarkably complete, this moss and the application of its name have not been evaluated thoroughly by subsequent study. For example, the name is absent from the authoritative Index Muscorum (van der Wijk et al. 1969), although Grevilleanum and associated bibliographic details are listed by Farr et al. (1979) in Index Nominum Genericorum (Plantarum) and in the Index of Mosses (Crosby et al. 1992). In their Dictionary of Mosses Crosby and Magill (1981) listed Grevilleanum as family insertae sedis (taxonomic position uncertain). The holotype of Grevilleanum serratum remained obscure for reasons that are explained below. Since both Beck and Emmons had worked in Albany, and the Herbarium of the New York State Museum (NYS) is known to contain specimens of vascular plants originally in Beck's herbarium, an initial, but unsuccessful, search for the holotype was made in the Museum's Bryophyte Herbarium at the request of Marshall Crosby. This result was frustrating because Crum and Anderson (1981) reported that the type specimen had been found in the New York State Museum. However, during the preparation of a computer-supported data base consisting of information about plant specimens from Rensselaer County, New York, which is located along the Hudson River, immediately east of Albany, a candidate specimen was discovered filed with the Museum's holdings of Timmia megapolitana Hedw. This specimen was originally overlooked because the sparse label data differed considerably from information published in the protologue of Grevilleanum serratum. We have evaluated this specimen and duplicates of it, which, although located in another herbarium, were crucial in establishing that the specimen is indeed the holotype. SPECIMENS OF Grevilleanum serratum AND THEIR INTERPRETATION Our search for the holotype specimen of Grevilleanum serratum involved an analysis of the protologue, examination of three candidate specimens from the herbarium of the New York State Museum (NYS) and the W. J. Hooker Herbarium at the Natural History Museum, London, England (BM), and information contained in correspondence between L. C. Beck and W. J. Hooker, which is preserved 0007-2745/97/198-203$0.75/0 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.104 on Sun, 19 Jun 2016 06:19:52 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 1997] MILLER & McKINLEY: GREVILLEANUM SERRATUM 199