Syzygium wightianum Wallich ex Wight & Arnott (1834: 330)

Byng, James W., Wilson, Peter G. & Snow, Neil, 2015, Typifications and nomenclatural notes on Indian Myrtaceae, Phytotaxa 217 (2), pp. 101-116 : 112

36. Syzygium wightianum Wallich ex Wight & Arnott (1834: 330) .

= Eugenia wightiana ( Wall. ex Wight & Arn.) Wight (1842: 2 , t. 529). Type citation: ‘Wall.! L. n. 3577; Wight ! cat. n. 1073.— Dindygul hills’. Lectotype (designated here):— INDIA. Dindygul Hills, 3000 ft., Wallich Catalogue Number 3577 (K! [barcode K000821328 ]; isolectypes A! [barcode A00071341], CAL!, E! [barcode E00174628], BM!, K! [barcode K000821330 ]). Remaining syntype:— Wight 1073 (E! [barcode E00174627]).

Distribution:— India [Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu] and Sri Lanka; 600–1200 m.

Notes:—This species has often been treated as a synonym of Syzygium lanceolatum (Lam.) Wight & Arnott , but Kostermans (1981) accepted S. wightianum Wall. ex Wight & Arnott as distinct and suggested that all Sri Lankan specimens available to him had five pseudo-calyptrate petals (although he never stated explicitly how many specimens he had seen). In contrast, mainland specimens have multiple petals. He clearly believed that Syzygium lanceolatum is a different species, possibly S. cumini (Linnaeus) Skeels ( Linnaeus 1753: 471; Skeels 1912: 248), as suggested by Wight & Arnott. It appears that Kostermans (1981) based his view of two distinct species on the differences between the two Wight Icons (1842: t. 529, t. 530), but both of these appear to represent the same species in different stages of flowering. The specimen of Eugenia lanceolata in Lamarck’s herbarium in Paris (barcode P00297768) is clearly different from S. wightianum , based on the shorter petioles and the larger and broader pyriform hypanthium, and is here considered a separate species. Of the two collections cited in the protologue for S. wightianum , the specimen Wallich Catalogue Number 3577 is chosen as lectotype because it is present in several herbaria.