Mucuna pruriens var. hirsuta (Wight & Arn.) Wilmot-Dear (1987: 44)

Krishnaraj, Moothedathu Venugopalan Nair & Mohanan, Narayanan Nair, 2012, Notes on the identity and status of two Legumes (Fabaceae: Papilionoideae) from India, Phytotaxa 66 (1), pp. 13-20 : 17-19

Mucuna pruriens var. hirsuta (Wight & Arn.) Wilmot-Dear (1987: 44)

Mucuna hirsuta Wight & Arnott (1834: 254) .

Type :— INDIA. ' Peninsular India', without date, Wight 750 (lectotype K; isolectotypes E! MH!), designated by Wilmot- Dear 1987; see figure 3 .

Mucuna pruriens var. thekkadiensis Thothathri & Ravi Kumar (1997: 703) , syn. nov. Type:— INDIA. Kerala: Thekkady forest, Periyar Tiger Reserve , 23 February 1996, Ravikumar & Muralidharan 535 A (holotype MH! isotypes MUH, CAL); see figure 4 .

Distribution: —Endemic to Western Peninsular India (compare also the note given below).

Specimens examined: — INDIA. Kerala: Palakkadu, Parambikulam , 14 December 2007, Krishnaraj 61938 ( TBGT) ; Idukki, Ramakkalmedu , 31 January 2012, Krishnaraj 71523 ( TBGT) ; Kottayam, Melukavu , 850 m, 11 December 1985, Luckose 1680 B ( RHK) ; Kannur, Nedumpoil , 550 m, 27 February 1979, Ramachandran 61964 ( MH) ; Idukki, Vallakkadavu , 4 th mile, 29 October 2009, Renjith & Haridas 60974 ( TBGT) ; Idukki, Thekkady , 850 m, 16 November 1975, Vivekanandan 46680 ( MH) .

Note:—Wilmot–Dear (1987: 44) designated a lectotype for M. hirsuta from the duplicates of Wight’s collections at the Kew herbarium, however published it as holotype. The Wight material at K falls into two major groups. The Wight specimens with Kew distribution numbers (KD) have been remounted, are poorly annotated and often represent post-1834 collections. The second collection is Wight’s own “top set” (Herb. Robert Wight Prop.), given to Kew just before his death, and including the duplicates of the ‘Prodromus ’ species. This top set at Kew is not as complete as Arnott's set at the Edinburgh herbarium (E). The “top set” at Kew is rather scrappily annotated, usually in pencil, often with minimal localities and few numbers. Some annotations are erased and substituted by Wight or later workers with similar handwriting. Therefore it is difficult to identify which are Wight’s Prodromus specimens at Kew ( Noltie 2005: 133). However, according to Noltie (2005: 131), ‘there has been a presumption against the use of the word ‘holotype’, but in some of Wight’s solo works, it seems reasonable to identify a specimen as the single one used by Wight in describing a new species. Knowingly or unknowingly, this is the reason why Wilmot-Dear designated WC 750 at K as holotype of M. hirsuta , which qualifies as syntype (original material) following Art. 9.10 ICBN ( McNeill et al. 2006). So there is no case to reject the choice made by Wilmot-Dear.

Figures

FIGURE 3. Isolectotype of Mucuna pruriens var. hirsuta (Wight & Arn.) Wilmot-Dear, Wight 750 (E, Barcode no. E00174529) © Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

FIGURE 4. Holotype of Mucuna pruriens var. thekkadiensis Thothathri & Ravikumar, Ravikumar & Muralidharan 535 A (MH). © Botanical Survey of India, Southern Circle, Coimbatore.