Frullania auriculata S. Hatt.

Zheng, Tian-Xiong, 2024, Nomenclatural notes of Frullania auriculata (Frullaniaceae) and lectotypification of Porella takakii (Porellaceae), PhytoKeys 241, pp. 215-220 : 215-220

1. Frullania auriculata S. Hatt. , Bull. Natl. Sci. Mus. Tokyo, B 11: 11 (1985).

Original material citation.

Type. Fiji. Mt. Victoria , 700–980 m alt. On tree trunk. 27 Aug. 1982. . 23435 (holotype: NICH 389176 ) .

Note.

Frullania auriculata was described based on a specimen collected from Fiji (N. Kitagawa 23455; Hattori 1985). The protologue states, the holotype and isotype of F. auriculata were deposited in NICH and TNS, respectively. However, these types are not included in the catalogue of type specimens ( Inoue 1987; Mizutani et al. 2009) or registered in the online databases of either herbarium (https: // hattorilab. org / database /; https://type.kahaku.go.jp/TypeDB/search?cls=bryophyta).

Recently, I reorganized the bryological collection of NICH and found a suspected type of Frullania auriculata (N. Kitagawa 23435; Fig. 1 ). This specimen fits all the information provided in the protologue of F. auriculata (e. g., collection site, altitude, substrate, and collector) expect for the collecting number, which is “ 23435 ” rather than “ 23455 ” as in the protologue ( Hattori 1985). However, several lines of evidence suggest “ N. Kitagawa 23435 ” is the type of F. auriculata .

First, there are Hattori’s handwritten contents (species name, “ type ”, and “ fig. ”) on the label of “ N. Kitagawa 23435 ”, which indicate that this specimen was examined, regarded as type, and used for drawing the illustration by Hattori himself (Fig. 1 ). Second, in the protologue of F. auriculata, Hattori (1985) cited only one specimen (N. Kitagawa 23455) and noted that this species was “ known only from the type collection ”. Hattori annotated the upper right corner of the specimen label “ この 1 点のみ ” (= Only this one specimen) (Fig. 1 ), which corresponds with the distributional statement provided in the protologue ( Hattori 1985).

The innermost female bracteole of “ N. Kitagawa 23435 ” perfectly matches the original illustration (Fig. 2 ). It should be noted that other parts of plants illustrated in the protologue were not located. These evidences seem to support that this newly located specimen (N. Kitagawa 23435) is the one used by Hattori himself to prepare the protologue of F. auriculata ( Hattori 1985) . Therefore, the type citation of F. auriculata should be corrected in accordance with Art. 9.2 of the International Code of Nomenclature ( Turland et al. 2018), which is provided in the above section.

The misspelling of specimen numbers is not unique to Frullania auriculata , also occurring in the type citation for Frullania epiphylla subsp. fijiensis S. Hatt. , described in the same study as F. auriculata ( Hattori 1985) , see Zheng (2024).

Figures

Figure 1. Specimen label of N. Kitagawa 23435 (NICH 389176). Arrow, arrow head and asterisk indicate “ Types ”, “ fig ” and “ この 1 点のみ ” (= Only this one specimen), respectively, handwritten by Hattori.

Figure 2. Innermost female bracteole of Frullania auriculata S. Hatt. A from the original illustration (Hattori 1985) B from N. Kitagawa 23435 (NICH 389176). Arrows, arrow heads, asterisks and circles indicate the morphological similarities between A & B.