Kalanchoe angolensis Brown (1905a: 370)

Smith, Gideon F., 2023, A nomenclatural and taxonomic review of the names and new combination published between 1886 and 1931 in Kalanchoe (Crassulaceae subfam. Kalanchooideae) by British botanist Nicholas Edward Brown (1849 - 1934), Phytotaxa 630 (4), pp. 266-280 : 272-273

8. Kalanchoe angolensis Brown (1905a: 370) .

Type:— ANGOLA, without more precise locality information, raised from seed sent to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, by Mr John Gosweiler [sic, Gossweiler], the curator of the Botanical Garden at Loanda [Luanda], in 1903, flowered at Kew and specimen prepared on 16 February 1905, as N.E. Brown s.n. (lectotype, K barcode K000232895 [image available at http://specimens.kew.org/herbarium/K000232895]!), here designated.

Taxonomic notes:—The name K. angolensis is of unresolved application (see for example Fernandes 1982: 31 and Descoings 2003: 144). The material described was introduced to Kew in 1903 from Angola by Swiss-born John Gossweiler (1873–1952), four years after he was contracted, in 1899, to develop a botanical garden in Angola ( Figueiredo & Smith 2021: 40, Figueiredo & Smith in press).

Fernandes (1980: 326, 1982: 31) further speculates that K. angolensis could be a hybrid between the two very widespread species, K. crenata ( Andrews 1798: t. 21) Haworth (1812: 109) and K. lanceolata , as they are currently understood. Note though that very few natural hybrids between kalanchoes have been recorded to date, with the tendency being for species to preferentially self-pollinate and -fertilise, rather than to accept foreign pollen, even from related species (Smith et al. 2021: 3–6, Smith 2022c: 171–172).

Nomenclatural notes:— Fernandes (1982: 31) referred to a “ holótipo ” of the name K. angolensis being kept at Herb. K. However, Brown (1905a: 370) did not refer to any material in the protologue of the name K. angolensis and there is also no evidence that he only had material of N.E. Brown s.n., with barcode K000232895, which is here designated as lectotype, at his disposal when he described the species. The name K. angolensis therefore does not have a holotype.