Caamembeca oxyphylla (DC.) Pastore (2012: 441)

Pastore, José Floriano B., 2013, A review of Vellozo’s names for Polygalaceae in his Flora Fluminensis, Phytotaxa 108 (1), pp. 41-48 : 44

5. Caamembeca oxyphylla (DC.) Pastore (2012: 441) . Polygala oxyphylla De Candolle (1824: 331) . Type: —

BRAZIL. without locality, no date, Anonymous s.n. (holotype P 303402 !) .

Polygala aculeata Vellozo (1829: 291) . Lectotype (designated by Pastore 2012): — BRAZIL. Rio de Janeiro, 1783– 1790. Iconograph: Vellozo (1831: tab. 62).

Taxonomic notes:— Vellozo's plate for P. aculeata (1831) shows a spiny plant not identifiable with any known species of Polygalaceae , and the spines are not consistent with the short spines found in his description (1829). However, the details of flower morphology (Vellozo 1831, v. 7, tab. 63) and the morphological description (Vellozo 1829) consistently allow P. aculeata be linked with Caamembeca oxyphylla . Probably, the spines described by Vellozo (1829) are two extra-floral stipitate glands at the leaf base.

As it happens, the holotype of C. oxyphylla is also one of the specimens brought to Paris from Lisbon in 1808, during the Napoleonic Wars ( Wurdack 1971). Frequently, those specimens are attributed to A.R. Ferreira ( Pastore 2012). However, this specimen, i.e., the holotype of C. oxyphylla , is morphologically characteristic of specimens collected in Rio de Janeiro, an area where Ferreira never collected, so it must have a different origin. It is possible that the holotype of C. oxyphylla could be one of the specimens collected by Vellozo himself.