Louichea cervina L’Hér.

Lack, Hans Walter, Böhme, Katrin & Callmander, Martin W., 2021, Augustin-Pyramus de Candolle’s L’Heritier Reliquiae: A volume of miscellaneous prints kept in Geneva, Candollea 76 (1), pp. 145-165 : 162-163

Louichea cervina L’Hér. , Louichea [unpaginated]. I.1788.

Lectotypus (designated here by Callmander & Lack): ALGERIA or TUNISIA: “Propre Cafsam et Mascar in arvis argillosis et arenosis”, s.d., Desfontaines s.n. ( P-Desf [ P00667259 ] image! ; isolecto-: FI-W [ FI018933 ] image!, G [ G00341949 ]!) .

= Pteranthus dichotomus Forssk., Fl. Aegypt.-Arab.: LXII, 36. 1775.

Notes. – Louichea (Caryophyllaceae) was published in January 1788 ( STAFLEU, 1963a) ahead of its inclusion in Stirpes novae ( L’HÉRITIER DE BRUTELLE, 1785 – 1791: 135). In 1791, L’Héritier recognised that his new genus represented the same genus as Pteranthus Forssk. validated posthumously by Pehr Forsskål (1732–1763) in 1775 and published the new combination Louichea pteranthus (L.) L’Hér. (see IAMONICO et al., 2015), a later synonym of Pteranthus dichotomus Forssk.

Louichea cervina is based on a Desfontaines collection that the latter botanist redescribed in his Flora Atlantica with the superfluous and illegitimate name Pteranthus echinatus Desf. ( DESFONTAINES, 1798: 145). Original material has been located in P-Desf., FI-W and G. The P-Desf collections is designated here as the lectotype because it is a more complete specimen and it is complemented by two separate little notes in Desfontaines’s handwritting.

An interesting sheet in P-JU [P00663078] includes (1) a specimen cultivated in the garden of Jacques-Martin Cels (1740–1806) in Montrouge given to Jussieu by Étienne-Pierre Ventenat (1757–1808) in 1792 (see CALLMANDER et al., 2017) and (2) a packet with seeds sent by Forsskål to Bernard de Jussieu (1699–1777).

Louichea cervina is not cited in the Prodromus .