Passiflora gossypiifolia Hamilton (1825: 48)

Svoboda, Harlan T., Macdougal, John M. & Ballard, Harvey E., 2016, Typifications and nomenclatural notes in Passiflora section Dysosmia (Passifloraceae), Phytotaxa 288 (2), pp. 101-119 : 105-107

7. Passiflora gossypiifolia Hamilton (1825: 48) , as ‘ gossypifolia ’

≡ Dysosmia gossypiifolia (Hamilton) M. Roemer (1846: 149) .

≡ Passiflora foetida Linnaeus var. gossypiifolia (Hamilton) Masters (1871: 631) .

Lectotype (here designated):—Without locality, no date, collector and collection unknown ( P00605797 !) ( Fig. 3 ).

Notes: —William Hamilton (1825) indicated in the protologue that the specimen used to describe P. gossypiifolia was from N.A. Desvaux’s herbarium, by the notation “Herb. Prof. Desv.”, but did not indicate a collector, collection number, or locality. Specimens examined for the Prodromus can be easily distinguished by their labels which bear a scientific name, Desvaux’s name, and reference to its corresponding page in the Prodromus , all in Desvaux’s handwriting (Howard et al. 1981).

Only one specimen originally from the Desvaux herbarium, now in the general collection at P (P00605797), has all of these properties and matches well with the description. This sheet bears the notation “ Passiflora gossypifolia Desv. prod. p. 48.” but also has an additional slip of paper that reads “ Pérou [ Peru]”, which is perhaps in conflict with the title of the work. However, because the slip is separate from and has different handwriting than Desvaux’s label, it is unclear if it actually belongs with the specimen. Another Desvaux herbarium specimen (P00605798) likely also bears Desvaux’s handwriting, but differs in the typical label information (i.e., two scientific names are listed, there is no mention of the Prodromus , etc.).

Killip (1938: 468) listed the type as a P specimen collected by “Poiteau in 1802” from the Dominican Republic , despite the fact that nearly all of the sheets in Desvaux’s herbarium were from various correspondents and lacked any collection information. Such a Poiteau specimen could not be located at P. Because of these facts, the most suitable specimen ( P00605797 ; Fig. 3 ) is here chosen as the lectotype in place of the erroneous type proposed by Killip .

The name “ gossypiifolia ” has suffered from a multitude of misspellings and incorrect author citations since its publication. Although it is clear that N.A. Desvaux participated in writing the Prodromus, Howard et al. (1981) assert that “all of the taxa described in the Prodromus should be attributed to Hamilton alone.” Another common mistake is the misspelling of the epithet. Originally published as “ gossypifolia ,” the correct spelling of this epithet should in fact be “ gossypiifolia ” in compliance with Art. 60.8 (see also Recommendation 60G.1) of the ICN (McNeill et al. 2012).

Figures

FIGURE 3. Designated lectotype of Passiflora gossypiifolia. Image provided by the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris.