THE HISTORY AND THE NOMENCLATURAL PROBLEM OF THE GENUS OURATEA (OCHNACEAE)

Abstract

Harms' series of nomina conservanda published in 1906 (Briquet, Rigles Internationales de la Nomenclature Botanique 86) lists as 5113 the genus Ouratea Aublet which is conserved over the name Jabotapita Adanson. Recently Rickett and Stafleu (Taxon 8: 311. 1959.) made an important observation on this conservation, a point which we shall treat later. The name Jabotapita first appeared in 1648 in Marcgraf's Natural History (Hist. Rerum Nat. Bras. 3: 101) with an ample description and unnumbered plate. The description, and in particular the figure of the fruit, leaves no doubt that the plant is an Ouratea as we understand it at the present time. Jabotapita re-appeared in Plumier's pre-Linnean publication (Nov. P1. Am. Gen. 41. pl. 32, f. a-h, 1703) accompanied by an elaborate description. Plumier, however, provided no binomial name, and although the plate is excellent and leaves no doubt as to certain characters that mark the genus Ouratea as currently conceived, e.g. 10 sessile or subsessile anthers, the generic description omits many important characters. Presumably, the plant Plumier is describing does not belong to the genus Ochna, but to Ouratea. In a subsequent paper Burman (P1. Am. 147. 1758) reduced the generic name to synonymy, subordinating it to the Linnaean genus Ochna and appending a four word description. Since Marcgraf's name Jabotapital) is pre-Linnaean, Adanson (Fam. P1. 2: 364. 1763) at first glance, would seem to have validly published the same in 1763; in this work he cited Plumier as the author of Jabotapita and lists Ochna L. as a synonym. As Rickelt and Stafleu pointed out recently (Taxon 8: 311. 1959), Adanson merely substituted Jabotapita for Ochna, currently published by Linnaeus (Sp. P1. 518. 1753), thus making the conservation of Ouratea over Jabotapita superfluous. Therefore Jabotapita cannot be regarded as a synonym of Ouratea Aublet. As is characteristic of much of Adanson's work, the description is erratic. The stamens, for example, are said to be 5 and the carpels 2-5 in number. We may conclude the discussion of the name Jabotapita by considering it to be a nomen rejiciendum and accepting, as did Harms, the widely used generic name Ouratea, of which Aublet is the author.