Recognition of Eugenia macrosepala as a distinct species

Eugenia macrosepala Duthie (1879: 501), non Mattos (1989: 1), nom. illeg.

Type citation in protologue:—“N. KANARA, Stocks”.

Holotype:— INDIA. Karnataka: North Canara, s.d., J.E. Stocks 20 (K000821512 [digital image!]).

Notes:— Govaerts et al. (2008), POWO (2023), and WCSP (2023) treated Eugenia macrosepala Duthie as a synonym of E. roxburghii DC., but in Indian floras E. macrosepala is treated as an accepted species (Saldanha 1996, Kulkarni 2001, Rathakrishnan 2020, Shareef & Kumar 2020). After studies of type specimens, other herbarium specimens and fresh collections from northern Western Ghats, it is found that E. macrosepala (Figure 4) differs from E. roxburghii in having bigger leaves, 6−15 × 2.5−6.0 cm, chartaceous or subcoriaceous, lateral nerves 10−15 pairs (vs. 2.5−7.0 × 1−3 cm, coriaceous, 7−10 pairs in E. roxburghii), flowers axillary and lateral from the leafless axils, solitary or in pairs, sessile (vs. axillary and terminal, 2−4 together or fascicled cymes, pedicels 0.7−1.5 cm long), bracteoles longer than the calyx lobes (vs. shorter), calyx lobes longer than the petals, lanceolate (vs. shorter, ovate), petals ovate-oblong, pubescent (vs. elliptic, glabrous), drupes 2.5−3.0 cm across, subglobose, pubescent (vs. 1.1−1.4 cm, globose, glabrous), and seeds 1−2 (vs. seeds 2−3). These morphological differences are taxonomically very important to distinguish E. macrosepala as a distinct species.