Cytisus hirsutus L., Sp. Pl. 2: 739 (1753)

Sennikov, Alexander N. & Tikhomirov, Valery N., 2024, Atlas Florae Europaeae notes, 35. Further critical notes on Cytisus sect. Tubocytisus (Fabaceae) in Europe, PhytoKeys 238, pp. 199-230 : 199

1. Cytisus hirsutus L., Sp. Pl. 2: 739 (1753)

= Cytisus supinus L., Sp. Pl. 2: 740 (1753). Type. [icon] Cytisus VII in Clusius, Rar. Pl. Hist.: 96 (1601) (lectotype designated by Cristofolini and Jarvis (1991: 498)).

= Cytisus triflorus Lam., Encycl. 2(1): 250. 1786, syn. nov. - Chamaecytisus triflorus (Lam.) Skalická in Preslia 58: 23 (1986). Type. Italy. "Des environs de Naple", [1785], M. Vahl in Herb. Lamarck (holotype P). Fig. 1 .

= Cytisus pubescens Gilib. in Usteri, Del. Opusc. Bot. 2: 365 (1793), syn. nov. Type. [icon] Cytisus VII in Clusius, Rar. Pl. Hist.: 96 (1601) (lectotype designated here).

= Cytisus falcatus Waldst. & Kit., Descr. Icon. Pl. Hung. 3: 264, t. 238 (1812) - Chamaecytisus falcatus (Waldst. & Kit.) Holub in Folia Geobot. Phytotax. 18(2): 204 (1983) - Chamaecytisus triflorus subsp. falcatus (Waldst. & Kit.) Pifkó in Stud. Bot. Hung. 38: 13 (2007). Type. Croatia. "In alpe Plissivicza et in monte Merszin", P. Kitaibel in Herb. Kitaibel XXIV: 170 (lectotype BP, designated by Kováts (1992: 40)).

= Cytisus hirsutissimus K.Koch, Linnaea 19(1): 62 (1846) - Cytisus hirsutus var. hirsutissimus (K.Koch) Boiss., Fl. Orient. 2: 51 (1872) - Chamaecytisus hirsutus subsp. hirsutissimus (K.Koch) Ponert in Feddes Repert. 83(9-10): 619 (1973) - Chamaecytisus hirsutissimus (K.Koch) Czerep., Sosud. Rast. SSSR: 229 (1981). Type. Turkey. Trabzon Province: "Litus australis Pontus Euxini", [1843], Thirke (lectotype LE 00013762, designated here; isolectotype LE). Fig. 2 .

= Cytisus lasiosemius Boiss. in Tchihatcheff, Asie Min., Bot. 1: 12 (1860), syn. nov. - Chamaecytisus lasiosemius (Boiss.) Pifkó in Barina, Distrib. Atlas Vasc. Pl. Albania: 466 (2017) - Chamaecytisus heuffelii subsp. lasiosemius (Velen.) Niketić in Bull. Nat. Hist. Mus. Belgrade 14: 84 (2021). Type. Turkey. "Asia Minor, OEst, 1858" [= between Samsun and Tekkeköy], 1858, P.A. Tchihatcheff 629 (lectotype P 02952886, designated here). Fig. 3 .

= Cytisus falcatus subsp. albanicus Degen & Dörfl. in Denkschr. Kaiserl. Akad. Wiss., Wien. Math.-Naturwiss. Kl. 64: 717 (1897), syn. nov. - Chamaecytisus triflorus var. albanicus (Degen & Dörfl.) Micevski, Fl. Republ. Makedonija 1(5): 1135 (2001). Type. North Macedonia. "In locis humosis ad Neresi prope Üsküb [Skopje]", 02.05.1893, I. Dörfler 126 (syntype WU 068283).

Type.

Italy. Sassari: Olbia (" Prope Olbyam in Galloprovincia "), Herb. Burser XXII: 5 (lectotype UPS, designated by Cristofolini and Jarvis (1991: 498)) .

Taxonomy.

This species has dimorphic inflorescences ( Cristofolini 1991) and leaves densely hairy above. Cristofolini (1991) included various glabrescent forms into this species, which we prefer to exclude because such forms are not parts of the infraspecific variability in the material that we have examined.

Distribution.

Europe: mountain areas from western France to the Eastern Carpathians longitudinally, from southern Poland to southern Italy latitudinally ( Cristofolini 1991; Cristofolini and Troía 2017).

Notes on nomenclature.

In the protologue of Cytisus supinus , Linnaeus (1753) cited three synonyms borrowed from Clusius (1601), of which one synonym (" Cytisus VII. species altera Clus. hist. 1. p. 96") was cited twice. This erratic way of citation evokes the idea of corrupted references. We checked these double-cited references against the relevant synonyms in Bauhin (1671), which were linked with Clusius (1601) by Linnaeus (1753) and in the earlier treatments of Clusius (1583). The first instance of this reference, cited by Linnaeus (1753), belongs to Cytisi VII. species altera ( Clusius 1601: 97), which is not accompanied by any illustration. The second citation actually refers to Cytisus VII ( Clusius 1601: 96) with an illustration, which was designated by Cristofolini and Jarvis (1991: 498) as a lectotype of C. supinus . Although Cristofolini and Jarvis (1991) cited Cytisus VII. species altera as the lectotype, they unambiguously referred to the same illustration as Linnaeus, thus making the same technical citation error. We provide a correct citation here.

The protologue of Cytisus triflorus was based on the only cited specimen collected by Martin Vahl in Naples in 1785 (collection date from Lanzoni (1930)). This specimen was designated as a lectotype by Skalická (1986), but is most likely the holotype.

The species name Cytisus triflorus was misfortunately resurrected from oblivion by Skalická (1986) and accepted by Cristofolini (1991) for a segregate of C. ratisbonensis s.l., which is superficially similar to and often confused with C. hirsutus . Skalická (1986) examined the type specimen of this species name on the basis of a photograph which apparently did not show its features of pubescence. We requested a high-quality scanned image of the type from P-Lam; its examination revealed that the calyces, pedicels and petioles of this plant are covered by long upright setose hairs, which do not cover the plant tissues. These hairs are clearly distinct from the subappressed pubescence of dense thin hairs in the C. ratisbonensis group, which completely covers the plant parts, and correspond to the characters of C. hirsutus . Since the usage of this plant name after Skalická (1986) is relatively new and unstable (e.g. in Eastern Europe, the name C. lindemannii is still used for this species: Czerepanov (1995), Fedoronchuk (2019)) and the taxonomy of the C. ratisbonensis group has been in flux, the disappearance of this species name will not be of principal inconvenience for the users of plant nomenclature.

Cytisus pubescens Gilib. was originally introduced in Gilibert (1782), which is included in the list of suppressed works, thus disavowing valid publication of all new names of species and infraspecific taxa published in this book. This species name was validly published in a revised version of the same book ( Gilibert 1793) which was reprinted from its original, also suppressed edition ( Gilibert 1785). Since the reprint was not explicitly suppressed, its species plant names are considered validly published and may compete for priority (e.g. Ardenghi (2015)).

There are no extant herbarium specimens associated with the protologue of C. pubescens ( Shiyan et al. 2013). The only element of its original material in existence is an illustration cited in the protologue, Cytisus VII ( Clusius 1601: 96). This illustration is drawn from plants occurring in Spain ("praesertim Baetica"; this Roman Province largely corresponds to Andalucia) and represents C. hirsutus ( Cristofolini and Jarvis 1991). Although Gilibert (1793) clearly described a plant of the C. ratisbonensis group under his C. pubescens , the illustration cited in the protologue mandates the reduction of this species name to a synonym of C. hirsutus , which is formally effected here by lectotypification.

Cytisus falcatus was described as a relative of C. hitsutus (Waldstein & Kitaibel, 1812). Its pods are hairy and leaflets are sparsely hairy above, thus indicating the synonymy with C. hirsutus rather than C. ciliatus as treated by Micevski (2001) and Pifkó (2005). Cristofolini (1991) erroneously added C. falcatus to the synonymy of C. triflorus (which was a member of the C. ratisbonensis group in his sense).

The main collection of K.Koch was acquired to B in 1913 ( Ulbrich 1917) and subsequently destroyed with few exceptions ( Lack 1978). The specimens of Cytisus described by Koch survived at LE only ( Edmondson and Lack 1977), and this material is designated as a lectotype of C. hirsutissimus here. Thirke labelled his collections with very generic designations. but Koch (1846) recorded that Thirke’s collecting activities took place around Trabzon and, to a lesser extent, Samsun in 1843.

We traced two specimens from the original collection of C. hirsutissimus at LE. As the protologue states that calyces of this species are covered by horizontally spreading hairs ( Koch 1846), thus corresponding to the diagnostic characters of C. hirsutus , we designate a specimen (LE 00013762) whose characters are in complete agreement with the protologue.

Some authors ( Kreczetowicz 1940; Grossheim 1952; Portenier and Solodko 2002) treated C. hirsutissimus as endemic to the Caucasus, which reportedly differed from the East European C. lindemannii (= C. elongatus ) in longer pedicels and a patent (vs. subappressed) pubescence of the whole plant. These minor and variable characters cannot be considered species-specific, and C. hirsutissimus of these authors was correctly identified with C. triflorus ( Cristofolini 1991). Gibbs (1970) placed C. hirsutissimus in the synonymy of C. hirsutus on account of its lateral inflorescences (his treatment maintained the difference between C. hirsutus and C. supinus , thus artificially dividing a single species with dimorphic inflorescences, whereas C. triflorus is a species with monomorphic lateral inflorescences). Our designated lectotype confirms the latter synonymisation.

Cytisus lasiosemius Boiss. was described from Asiatic Turkey ("inter Samsun et Tekekoi [ Tekkeköy]”, now Bayraktepe National Park, Samsun Province). In the protologue, Boissier ( Tchihatcheff 1860) compared the new species with C. supinus (= C. hirsutus ), and distinguished it from the latter by acute leaflets and hairy standard. These characters are variable within C. hirsutus , and Gibbs (1970) rightly placed C. lasiosemius to the synonymy of his C. supinus . On the contrary, Cristofolini (1991) accepted C. lasiosemius as a priority name for C. frivaldszkyanus Degen, which also has rather patent hairs. This treatment cannot be accepted because the pubescence of C. lasiosemius is composed of long, sparsely situated horizontal hairs on its stems, petioles and pedicels, typical of C. hirsutus , whereas the pubescence of C. frivaldszkyanus is very densely covering the stems, petioles and pedicels and consists of both long and short curved hairs, like in the C. ratisbonensis group ( Sennikov and Tikhomirov 2024a). We confirm the opinion of Gibbs (1970) and add C. lasiosemius to the synonymy of C. hirsutus .

The original material of C. lasiosemius consists of a few specimens collected by P.A. Tchihatcheff in Turkey during 1858 ( Tchihatcheff 1860). These specimens are accompanied by tiny field tickets with different field numbers, thus indicating that they are different gatherings. Niketić (2021) designated a complete herbarium sheet at P with three gatherings as a lectotype, which is inadmissible. We restrict this choice to a single gathering numbered 629.

Figures

Figure 1. Holotype of Cytisus triflorus Lam.

Figure 2. Lectotype of Cytisus hirsutissimus K. Koch.

Figure 3. Lectotype of Cytisus lasiosemius Boiss (Tchihatcheff 629).