Ixora tomentosa

Turner, Ian M., 2015, The botanical legacy of Thomas Hardwicke’s journey to Srinagar in 1796, European Journal of Taxonomy 108, pp. 1-25 : 5

Ixora tomentosa

Hardwicke’s entry for this species is very brief:

“ Ixora tomentosa of Doctor Roxburgh. — Found in the neighbourhood of Ghinouly near the Koanullah, acquires the size of a pretty large tree, though of deformed growth, now in flower. Flowers white, numerous.”

It is questionable whether this description is sufficiently detailed to consider the name validly published here and as little would be gained from doing so, I will not take up the name from this source. There are drawings in the British Library (Vol. VII nos. 32–34) that show the plant is Pavetta tomentosa as validated by Sir J.E. Smith in Rees’s Cyclopaedia ( Rees 1814). Madden (1849) opined that the reference to deformed growth was the result of goat browsing. Roxburgh described Ixora tomentosa in the first edition of Flora Indica ( Roxburgh 1820). He did not refer to Smith or Pavetta tomentosa but it seems simpler to invoke ICN ( McNeill et al. 2012) Art. 41.4 and treat Ixora tomentosa as a new combination based on Pavetta tomentosa .