(2781) Stipa ucrainica P.A. Smirn. in Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. 22: 374. 15 Jul 1926 [Angiosp.: Gram.], nom. cons. prop. Typus: Ukraine, former Ekaterinoslav Governorate/Province, near Mirgorodovka, steppe slope of Ternovaya Ravine [now in Zaporizhzhya Region, Vilnyansk District; original label in Russian], Alekhin 209 (MW barcode MW0591234; isotypi: MW barcodes MW0591232, MW0591233, MW0591235 & MW0591236). (H) Stipa ucranica Roem. & Schult., Syst. Veg. 2: 340. Nov 1817, nom. rej. prop. Typus: non designatus. In the course of updating the information on selected species for the forthcoming fourth edition of the Red Data Book of Ukraine, we discovered that the currently accepted name Stipa ucrainica P.A. Smirn. (in Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. 22: 374. 1926; see comments on typification below) is in fact a later homonym. That necessitated further investigation of the nomenclatural problem reported here and resulted in the present proposal. Stipa ukranensis Lam. (Tabl. Encycl. 1: 157. 1791) was validated by Lamarck with a brief description (“S. aristis nudis rectis, calycibus subrufis semine longioribus”). The geographic provenance (“Ex Ukrania”), a local vernacular name (“Tirsa”) and a reference to an earlier publication by Guettard were provided as well. An amended and expanded description was provided later by Poiret (in Lamarck, Encycl. 7: 454. 1806), who also more precisely cited the second natural history memoir (entitled “Sur le Tirsa des Cosaques de l'Ukraine”) in the first volume of Guettard's Mémoires sur différentes parties des sciences et arts (Mém. Sci. Arts 1: 19–28, t. 1, 2. 1768). IPNI (https://www.ipni.org/n/423847-1) currently lists the name Stipa ucranica as authored by Steudel (Nomencl. Bot. 1: 816. 1821). However, Roemer & Schultes (Syst. Veg. 2: 340. 1817) accepted the name S. ucranica (with the authorship attributed to Lamarck) before 1821 and cited the earlier descriptions of S. ukranensis (“Lam. Illustr. n 785. Poir. Enc. meth. VII. p. 454”). In fact, their new “corrected” spelling, S. ucranica Roem. & Schult. (l.c.), must be considered an illegitimate replacement name for the earlier-described S. ukranensis. However, although illegitimate, the new name was validly published. Trinius (Gram. Unifl. Sesquifl.: 187. 1824) mentioned S. ucranica in a note at the end of his treatment of Stipa and commented that that name was probably a synonym of S. capillata L. (Sp. Pl., ed. 2: 116. 1762): “Stipa ucranica Guett., quam nemo Botanicorum nostratium novit, fortasse St. capillata est.” Later, Trinius & Ruprecht (Sp. Gram. Stipac.: 75. 1842; preprint from: Mém. Acad. Imp. Sci. St.-Pétersbourg, Sér. 6, Sci. Math., Seconde Pt. Sci. Nat. 7(2, Bot.): 1–189. Mar 1843) commented that “Stipa ucranica l. [abbr. for vel, or] ucranensis [sic!] Lamarck” was a very obscure name (“planta admodum dubia”) and noted that its description mainly matched that of S. capillata but that “S. ucranensis” from the herbarium of Desfontaines was either S. pennata L. (Sp. Pl.: 78. 1753) or a similar species. Ledebour (Fl. Ross. 4: 451. 1853) mentioned S. ukranensis Lam., with a question mark, in the synonymy of S. pennata. Tzvelev (in Fedorov, Fl. Evrop. Chasti SSSR 1: 327. 1974) cited “S. ucranensis Lam.” in the synonymy of S. capillata. In our opinion, the two illustrations in Guettard (l.c.), which are parts of original material of S. ukranensis, despite being not particularly diagnostic, evidently show a plant either identical with S. capillata or at least very similar to it. Since there is only one widespread species of Stipa sect. Leiostipa Dumort. (Observ. Gramin. Belg.: 134. 1824) with such characters occurring in Ukraine, we assume that the species discussed by Guettard (l.c.) and described and validated by Lamarck (l.c. 1791) is indeed conspecific with S. capillata. We are aware of at least one case of a pre-1926 spelling (orthographic variant; see Art. 61.5 of the ICN: Turland & al. in Regnum Veg. 159. 2018) “S. ucrainica Gesett [sic! meaning “Guett.”, Guettard – S.M.]” used by Montresor (in Bull. Soc. Imp. Naturalistes Moscou, n.s., 7: 475. 1894 [‘1893']) in his bibliographic comment on Trinius (l.c.); that spelling of the epithet is exactly the same as the one used later by Smirnov. The name Stipa ucranica (or its orthographic variant S. ucrainica) was accepted or mentioned (in most cases with the authorship of Lamarck) in just a few publications prior to the description of a different species named S. ucrainica by Smirnov (l.c.). The latter belongs to Stipa sect. Stipa ser. Dasyphyllae Martinovský (in Preslia 47: 260. 1975; Vázques & Gutiérres in Telopea 13: 163–164. 2011), otherwise treated as the Stipa dasyphylla group (Martinovský in Tutin & al., Fl. Europ. 5: 250. 1980), and is not related to S. capillata. Smirnov (l.c.) in designating the type of his S. ucrainica wrote “Leg. prof. B. Alechin (Herb. Univ. Mosq.).” There are, however, five Alekhin specimens in MW from this locality, one of which (MW0591234, image available from https://plant.depo.msu.ru/open/public/ru/item/MW0591234; all online resources accessed 20 Sep 2020) is the only one bearing an identification label by Smirnov and the pencil note “Stipa ucrainica P. Smirn. (typus speciei!)”. It is formally designated here as lectotype (see recommendations by McNeill in Taxon 63: 1112–1113. 2014), but it was indirectly assumed to be the holotype in several earlier publications, e.g., Tzvelev (Zlaki SSSR: 588. 1976); Gubanov (Cat. Authent. Specim. Vasc. Pl. Herb. MW: 24. 1993; l.c., ed. 2: 33. 2002); Nobis & al. (in Ann. Missouri Bot. Gard. 105: 51. 2020). According to Art. 53.2 of the ICN, the epithets ucranica and ucrainica should be treated as homonyms, by analogy with other toponymic epithets (ceylanicus and zeylanicus; chinensis and sinensis; thibeticus and tibeticus, etc.) listed in the voted Example 11 of Art. 53.2. Also, as explained in Art. 51.3 Note 2, a validly published earlier homonym (in our case, Stipa ucranica Roem. & Schult. and its orthographic variant S. ucrainica used by Montresor, see above), even if illegitimate, causes rejection of any later homonym (in our case, S. ucrainica P.A. Smirn.) that is not conserved. Thus, the currently widely accepted name S. ucrainica P.A. Smirn. is an illegitimate later homonym and because of that this name, if not conserved, should be replaced by another name referable to the same species, most probably S. krascheninnikowii Roshev. (in Mat. Komiss. Eksped. Issl. Akad. Nauk, Ser. Kazakhst. 5: 253. 1928; see also Roshevitz in Komarov, Fl. SSSR [Fl. URSS] 2: 98. 1934) described from northwestern Kazakhstan, or S. dobrogensis (Prodan) Prodan (Fl. Român., ed. 2: 64. 1939 ≡ S. joannis Čelak. var. dobrogensis Prodan in Bul. Acad. Stud. Agron. Cluj 5(1) [Consp. Fl. Dobrog. 1]: 9. 1935 [‘1934']) described from Romania. Both these names have been accepted or even just mentioned in only a few publications; moreover, it is not evident that they indeed belong to the same narrowly circumscribed species. The name S. ucrainica P.A. Smirn. was and is widely accepted in many floras, taxonomic treatments, and various other publications for the species occurring in the steppe zone from Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Romania through Moldova, southern Ukraine, southern European Russia to the Caucasus and western Kazakhstan (e.g., Grossheim, Fl. Kavkaza 1: 151. 1939; Roshevitz, l.c. 1934: 97; Lavrenko in Fl. URSR [Fl. Ukr. SSR] 2: 124. 1940; Morariu in Săvulescu, Fl. Republ. Socialist. Romania 12: 204. 1972; Tzvelev, l.c. 1974: 329; Klokov & Ossycznjuk in Novosti Sist. Vyssh. Nizsh. Rast. 1975: 82. 1976; Slyusarenko in Prokudin & al., Zlaki Ukr.: 415. 1977; Martinovský, l.c. 1980; Tzvelev in Takhtajan, Konsp. Fl. Kavkaza [Consp. Fl. Cauc.]: 352. 2006; Apostolova & al. in Phytol. Balcan. 14: 257–262. 2008; Ştefănuţ in Roman. J. Biol. – Pl. Biol. 54: 149–156. 2009; Vázques & Gutiérres, l.c.; Nobis & al., l.c., etc.). Stipa ucrainica is also currently accepted in online databases, such as Plants of the World Online (http://www.plantsoftheworldonline.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:423846-1), The World Checklist of Vascular Plants (https://wcvp.science.kew.org/taxon/423846-1), and The Euro+Med PlantBase (http://ww2.bgbm.org/EuroPlusMed/PTaxonDetail.asp?NameId=7710029&PTRefFk=7100000). Stipa ucrainica has sometimes (e.g., in World Flora Online: http://www.worldfloraonline.org/taxon/wfo-0000902984) been synonymized under S. zalesskii Wilensky (in Isachenko, Dnevn. 1-go Vserossiysk. Syezda Russk. Bot.: 41. 1921; later also accepted as S. ‘zalesskyi' by Grossheim in Trav. Mus. Georgie 3 [Grossh. & al., Fl. Tiflis. 1]: 36. 1925), probably because it was incorrectly assumed that Smirnov, being unaware of the valid publication of the name S. zalesskii before 1926, cited that name (incorrectly as “nom. nud.”) in synonymy of his new species, thus supposedly making S. ucrainica an illegitimate name. However, Smirnov (l.c.) added to the name S. zalesskii the words “pro parte” and thus clearly distinguished these two taxa by narrowing Wilensky's circumscription of S. zalesskii (see Art. 52.2 of the ICN). Also, sometimes S. ucrainica has been treated as S. zalesskii subsp. ucrainica (P.A. Smirn.) Tzvelev (in Novosti Sist. Vyssh. Rast. 11: 17. 1974; see also Tzvelev, l.c. 1976: 588), but most authors treat these two as distinct species (see references above). Moreover, it was recently convincingly confirmed that S. zalesskii and S. ucrainica are well distinguished both morphologically and genetically (Kopylov-Guskov in Vestn. Moskovsk. Univ., Ser. Biol. No. 3: 49–52. 2012 [Engl. transl. in Moscow Univ. Biol. Sci. Bull. 67: 130–133. 2012]; Kopylov-Guskov & Kramina in Byull. Moskovsk. Obshch. Isp. Prir., Otd. Biol. 119: 46–53. 2014). The flowering time periods of these two species also differ considerably (Kopylov-Guskov in Nauka Yuga Ross. [Sci. South Russia] 13(2): 91–93. 2017). Ecological and preliminary molecular data also favor a rather narrow circumscription of taxa in Eurasian Stipa (see Romaschenko in Ukrayins'k. Bot. Zhurn. 63: 480–494. 2006; Didukh & al. in Ukrayins'k. Bot. Zhurn. 73: 21–32. 2016). Stipa ucrainica P.A. Smirn. is considered to be a threatened and/or rare species in need of conservation within its range in Ukraine (Tkachenko in Didukh, Chervona Knyha Ukrayiny: Rosl. Svit [Red Data Book of Ukraine: Pl.]: 263. 2009), Bulgaria (Petrova & Vladimirov in Phytol. Balcan. 15: 71. 2009; Petrova & al. in Peev, Red Data Book Rep. Bulg., digital ed. 2011–: http://e-ecodb.bas.bg/rdb/en/vol1/Stiucrai.html), North Macedonia (Kabaš & al. in Phyton (Horn) 57: 37–45. 2018), Romania (Dihoru & Negrean, Cartea Roşie Pl. Vasc. România [Red Data Book Vasc. Pl. Romania]: 528–529. 2009), Moldova (Ghendov & al. in Conserv. Pl. Divers. (Chişinău) 2: 161–167. 2012), and several administrative units of Russia (Astrakhan, Rostov, Kursk regions, Kalmyk Republic; summary information in http://oopt.aari.ru/bio/45745). Stipa ucrainica is a characteristic species of communities of the European Union habitat “62C0 Ponto-Sarmatic steppes” (Eur. Commission, Interpr. Manual EU Habitats: 75. 2013) and of at least two main steppe habitats in Ukraine: “Т1.4 True forb-bunchgrass and bunchgrass steppes” and “T6.1 Salt steppes” (Kuzemko & al., Natl. Habit. Cat. Ukraine: 133, 180. 2018). In Romania, S. ucrainica is a diagnostic species of the habitat “R3419 West Pontic steppes with Stipa ucrainica and Stipa dasyphylla” (Doniţã & al., Habit. România: 128. 2005). It is also a diagnostic species of several syntaxa of steppe vegetation (Dubyna & al., Prodr. Roslynn. Ukrayiny [Prodr. Veg. Ukraine]: 267, 270, 328. 2019). Plant communities of the Stipeta ucrainicae formation are listed as rare and protected in the Green Data Book of Ukraine (Tkachenko in Didukh, Zelena Knyha Ukrayiny, ed. 2: 220–222. 2009). We think that changing the widely accepted name Stipa ucrainica P.A. Smirn., applied at present to a species of conservation concern that forms rare and threatened plant communities in the steppe zone of southeastern Europe and western Asia, will not serve nomenclatural stability and would be very inconvenient for botanists and confusing for other users of botanical information, especially those working in agriculture, nature and land management and conservation, etc. Because of this, we propose to conserve the name S. ucrainica P.A. Smirn. against its earlier homonym S. ucranica Roem. & Schult. (including its orthographic variant S. ucrainica used by Montresor, l.c.) under Art. 14 of the ICN. SLM, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3570-3190 GVB, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6327-1794 IAK, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4752-1412 We are grateful to John McNeill (Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, Scotland, U.K. & Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Ontario, Canada) for his valuable advice on nomenclature and for his editorial comments. Several editorial improvements made by John Wiersema (Department of Botany, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., U.S.A.) are also greatly appreciated.