Heracleum grandiflorum, Dalzell & Gibson, 1861

Nandikar, Mayur D. & Sardesai, Milind M., 2021, Vicoa sahyadrica (Asteraceae), a new species from Western India with a note on Dalzell’s Vicoa cernua and Heracleum grandiflorum, Phytotaxa 514 (3), pp. 275-286 : 276-277

Heracleum grandiflorum , a synonym of Pinda shrirangii

Heracleum grandiflorum Dalzell & Gibson was reduced to the synonymy under Heracleum concanensis Dalzell (1850: 260) by Clarke (1879: 716) who was followed by Cooke (1903: 572) and Mukharjee & Constance (1986). The latter authors treated this taxon as a monotypic genus, Pinda concanensis (Dalzell) P.K. Mukharjee & Constance (1986: 226) . The ongoing project on ‘Botany of N.A. Dalzell’ culminated in physical consultation of Dalzell’s collection housed at K by first author where he had an opportunity to examine the specimen (K000685748) of H. grandiflorum preserved with Dalzell’s own label with an annotation in pencil and detached flowering material in a pouch. This collection clearly differs from all the other gatherings of H. concanensis at K, due to sheathing leaf bases, long petiolate, trifoliate leaves, deeply trilobed (almost ternate), acuminate, abaxially strigose leaflets, terminal umbels with 12 rays, 1- to many-nerved, leafy involucres, and rhomboid to ovate, acuminate involucels. This specimen does not bear any fruits which agrees with Dalzell’s comment in the protologue of H. grandiflorum .

In recent months, the hitherto unknown fruits of H. grandiflorum were detailed by Gosavi et al. (2020a) from their collection from ‘Harishchandragad’ (the same place as the type locality for H. grandiflorum ), which was described as a new species, Pinda shrirangii Gosavi & Chandore (2020a: 2) . They, however, did not realize that their new species was previously described as H. grandiflorum whose name they misapplied to H. concanensis . Although they claimed to virtually consult the type material of H. grandiflorum , it appears to be inaccurate, as often virtual specimen images do not reveal flower characters such as deliquescent petals. Our critical examination and comparisons of the type material and protologues of both species revealed that the characters used by these authors to distinguish P. shrirangii in fact overlap with the characters of H. grandiflorum (see Fig. 1 and Table 1).

However, H. grandiflorum Dalzell & Gibson (1861) is an illegitimate (Art. 6.4 of ICN, Turland et al. 2018) later homonym (Art. 53.1 of ICN) of Caucasian H. grandiflorum Steven ex Bieberstein (1819) . Although there was no obstacle to use the final epithet ‘ grandiflorum ’ in Pinda (Art. 58.1 of ICN), Pinda shrirangii is nevertheless a legitimate and available name, hence H. grandiflorum is proposed here as a new synonym. The original material for H. grandiflorum housed at K (barcode K000685748) can be safely interpreted, unequivocally agrees with the protologue and is selected here as lectotype (Art. 9.3 of ICN). The synonymy and nomenclature are as follows.

Figures

FIGURE 1. Comparison of acuminate leaflets from the types. A. Heracleum grandiflorum Dalzell (NA. Dalzell s.n. K, barcode K000685748); B. Pinda shrirangii Gosavi & Chandore, (KVC. Gosavi 5070, SUK).