Sempervivum brassaii Schur (1866: 229)

Nikolić, Danijela, Kuzmanović, Nevena, Walter, Johannes, Lakušić, Dmitar, Ranđelović, Vladimir & Letz, Dominik Roman, 2014, Lectotypification of some names in the Jovibarba heuffelii group (Crassulaceae), Phytotaxa 174 (4), pp. 206-222 : 219

Sempervivum brassaii Schur (1866: 229) , nom. inval. (pro syn.), nom. nud.

This name is incorrectly stated as a valid synonym of J. heuffelii by Jalas et al. (1999) and Hart et al. (2003 as “ brassai ”). It probably appeared in a garden collection in Vienna for the first time, since Schur (1866: 229) cited it as “ S. brassaii Vindobonens. ” in the synonymy of S. heuffelii Schott. This name was used also by Czetz (1873: 21) for the plants from the Rodna Mts (part of the Romanian Eastern Carpathians), but he ascribed it to “Sch. K.” [Schott and Kotschy] and not to Schur. Similar to S. hirtellum Schott ex Fuss (1857: 171) , nom. nud., the name S. brassaii was most likely to have been introduced as a provisional name by Schott in his rock-garden of Vienna and remained undescribed. It is reffers to the plants of the J. globifera group (not of J. heuffelii ) occurring in the Rodna Mts, validly described as Sempervivum hirtum var. transsylvanicum Andrae (1853: 472) . The name S. brassai does not belong to the J. heuffelii group and is invalid.

According to the localities given by Schur (1866: 229), the plants of the J. globifera group were also included by him in S. heuffelii , for example plants from Mt. Ecem (Hăşmaş Mts in the Romanian Eastern Carpathians), where only J. globifera s.l. occurs. The occurrence of J. heuffelii in the Eastern Carpathians is based on incorrect literature data. There is no herbarium specimen of J. heuffelii collected in the Eastern Carpathians nor is there one from the Apuseni Mts, and the northern border of the distribution of J. heuffelii passes through the Southern Carpathians (Letz, unpublished data). Published distribution maps ( Jalas et al. 1999: 65, Meusel et al. 1965: 199) should be therefore corrected. Information on distribution of J. heuffelii in the Carpathians stated as “E Carpathians” in Hart et al. (2003: 342) is erroneous.