Eugenia veillonii N. Snow & Callm.

Neil Snow, John W. Dawson, Martin W. Callmander, Kanchi Gandhi & Jérôme Munzinge, 2016, New Species, New Combinations, and Lectotypifications in New Caledonian Eugenia L. (Myrtaceae), Candollea 71 (1), pp. 67-81 : 79

Eugenia veillonii N. Snow & Callm. , nom. nov.

( Fig. 7 ).

≡ Spermolepis rubiginosa Brongn. & Gris in Bull. Soc. Bot. France 10: 577. 1863 [non Eugenia rubiginosa Cambess. in A. St.-Hil., Fl. Bras. Merid. 2: 338. 1832].

≡ Schizocalyx rubiginosa (Brongn. & Gris) Brongn. & Gris in Ann. Sci. Nat., Bot., sér. 5, 13: 380. 1871.

≡ Calycorectes rubiginosus (Brongn. & Gris) Guillaumin in Not. Syst. (Paris) 2: 131. 1911.

≡ Stereocaryum rubiginosum (Brongn. & Gris) Burret in Notizbl. Bot. Gart. Mus. Berlin-Dahlem 15: 546. 1941.

≡ Myrtomera rubiginosa (Brongn. & Gris) B. C. Stone in Pacific Sci. 16: 241. 1962.

Lectotypus (here designated): New Caledonia: sine loc., 1862, Pancher s.n. ( P [ P00637569 ]!).

Notes. ‒ The only gathering mentioned within the protologue for Spermolepis rubiginosa is: “hab. in collibus ferrugineis Novae Caledoniae (Pancher, 1862)” (Brongnart & Gris, 1863: 577). Even though several collections by Pancher are deposited at P, only two of them are dated 1862 [P00402683, P00637569]. Of these two specimens, the latter [P00637569] shows the habitat as “coteaux ferrugineux”, which closely matches the prologue information, and thus can reasonably be considered as the holotype. This assessment is strengthened by the fact that Brongniart and Gris were working in P. However, some authors might consider the protologue citation as insufficient to consider this specimen [P00637569] as the holotype as discussed below.

Within the protologue, Brongniart and Gris did not mention “Pancher, 1862” at P as being most representative. Since two Pancher specimens at P show the date 1862, one may argue that there is no evidence that the two specimens belong to two gatherings, that it is uncertain that Brongniart and Gris based their new species only on P00637569 specimen alone, and that therefore, a lectotype designation is needed ( McNeill et al. 2014). Because of the uncertainty, we designate the P00637569 specimen as the lectotype, and at the same time we do not rule out the possibility that it could be a holotype.

Eugenia veillonii was described by Brongniart & Gris in what they believed was a new genus: Spermolepis Brongn. & Gris 1864 (non Raf. 1825). Later, they transferred the preceding species to Schizocalyx O. Berg 1856 (non Scheele 1843). Subsequently Guillaumin transferred the species into the neotropical genus Calycorectes O. Berg because of the fused calyx lobes associated with that genus (see Lannrum & Kawasaki, 1997).

No preliminary molecular data are available for species of Eugenia in New Caledonia that have the splitting calyx lobes typical of E. vieillonii ( Fig. 7 ). However, preliminary phylogenetic studies show Calycorectes to be nested within Eugenia s.l. ( Lucas et al., 2007; Mazine et al., 2014), the members of which also have fused calyx lobes that split during anthesis. This character likely has arisen in parallel, given that it recurs in the Malagasy E. ambanizanensis N. Snow (Snow, 2008) , another undescribed species from Madagascar (Snow, ined.), several in the Mascarenes described initially in Monimiastrum J. Guého & A.J. Scott by Scott (1980) but transferred later into Eugenia ( Snow, 2008) , and the recently described Eugenia rara Rigueira & Sobral from Brazil ( Sobral et al., 2015).

A new name is needed because the epithet rubiginosa is unavailable in Eugenia . The new epithet “ vieillonii ” honours our colleague Jean-Marie Veillon (b. 1939). Jean-Marie is an expert on the flora of New Caledonia and has made over 8000 collections from the Island. His numerous works, including two volumes of the “Flore de Nouvelle-Calédonie et Dépendances”, have contributed significantly towards overall progress on the knowledge of New Caledonia’s flora.

Figures

Fig. 7. – Fruiting plant of Eugenia veillonii N. Snow & Callm. [Callmander et al. 1241] [Photo: P. Lowry]