Cineraria incisa Thunb. ex Houtt.,

Wijnands, Dirk Onno, Heniger, Johannes, Veldkamp, Jan Frederik, Fumeaux, Nicolas & Callmander, Martin W., 2017, The botanical legacy of Martinus Houttuyn (1720 - 1798) in Geneva, Candollea 72 (1), pp. 155-198 : 172

28. Cineraria incisa Thunb. ex Houtt.,

Nat. Hist. II(10): 693. 1779.

Lectotypus (designated here by Wijnands): SOUTH AFRICA: Cape, Thunberg s.n. ( G-DC [ G00204742 ]!); isolecto-: UPS-THUNB n° 19830 image seen).

= Senecio erosus L. f., Suppl. Pl.: 370. 1782.

Notes. – Houttuyn wrote in Nat. Hist. II(10): 693. 1779 that “Mr. Thunberg recently has found yet a new one ... in my collections and had named it Cineraria incisa ”, followed by a brief diagnosis. Buried in the text, it is no wonder that even MERRILL (1938) overlooked this name in his survey of Houttuyn’s novelties. It is not mentioned in the survey by ARNOLD & DE WET either (1993: 759).

Although Cineraria incisa was named by Thunberg when he visited Amsterdam in 1778, he did not publish it. Instead, he described the species as Doria incisa Thunb. based on Thunberg s.n. (UPS-THUNB n° 19830) ( THUNBERG, 1800a: 156) and presumably again a little later ( THUNBERG, 1800b: 167). WILLDENOW (1803: 2074), citing these two references, made the “new” combination Cineraria incisa (Thunb.) Willd. , which is a later homonym, or perhaps even an isonym.

CANDOLLE (1838: 438) based Brachyrhynchos trachycarpus DC. on a Houttuyn sheet in the Delessert herbarium, presumably the type material of Cineraria incisa Houtt. , but did not mention that name. With a question mark he added Doria incisa and without any remark Cineraria incisa Willd. The only sheet in G-DC [G00204742] annotated as such (“ Senecio trachycarpus / Cap / M. Delessert 1833”) is a fragment bearing none of the characteristics of a Houttuyn sheet, but de Candolle cited it as “ Cineraria incisa Houtt. ! in h. Deless.”, so we must assume that this remounted fragment is part of a specimen from Houttuyn’s herbarium that remains untraceable to date (no further specimen has been located). For this reason, the fragment is therefore designated here as the lectotype. Regardless of whether this argument is accepted or not, Brachyrhynchos trachycarpus is in any case a superfluous name for either Cineraria incisa Houtt. or Doria incisa Thunb.

Brachyrhynchos trachycarpus was not mentioned by ARNOLD & DE WET (1993: 769), but they did mention Doria incisa as a synonym of the earlier name Senecio erosus L. f. (LINNAEUS f., 1782: 370). The name S. erosus is not threatened by Cineraria incisa because of Senecio incisus Thunb. ( THUNBERG, 1800a: 158) .