Pauridia aquatica, Snijman & Kocyan, 2013

Snijman, Deirdre A. & Kocyan, Alexander, 2013, The genus Pauridia (Hypoxidaceae) amplified to include Hypoxis sect. Ianthe, Saniella and Spiloxene, with revised nomenclature and typification, Phytotaxa 116 (1), pp. 19-33 : 25

Pauridia aquatica (L.f.) Snijman & Kocyan, comb. nov.

Ξ Spiloxene aquatica (L.f.) Salisb. ex Fourcade (1932: 76)

Bas.:— Hypoxis aquatica Linnaeus f. (1782: 197) Ξ Ianthe aquatica (L.f.) Williams (1901: 292). Type (lectotype designated here):— SOUTH AFRICA. in humidis argillosus, Sp[arrman] 124 (LINN! No. 1238.3, [under Chrysitrix Linnaeus (1771: 165) , with a note by J.E.Smith ‘found in Restio’], umbellate plant without flowers on right hand side of sheet [image]). Type (epitype designated here):— SOUTH AFRICA. [Western Cape], ad rivulos tum in stagnis prope Cape Town, Julio 1877, H. Bolus 2814 (BOL!)

Typification:—Because the lectotype of Hypoxis aquatica is inadequate for critical study we designate an epitype to support the lectotypification (McNeil et al. 2012: Art. 9.8). H. Bolus 2814 shows the characteristic inflorescence and slender leaves, as recognized in recent accounts of the species ( Garside 1950, Manning et al. 2002).

Note: — Pauridia aquatica , well known as Spiloxene aquatica , is widespread in the Greater Cape Floristic Region, South Africa. The protologue of Hypoxis aquatica indicates that the younger Linnaeus (1782) was unable to find the type specimen of this species in his father’s herbarium: “ Hanc ego non vidi, mirror itaque unde descriptio facta fuit, cum nondum in Herbario eam reperire potui. ” A study of manuscript material in possession of the Linnean Society, London ( Barnard 1970), has revealed that the type specimen of Hypoxis aquatica is Sparrman 124 (LINN 1238.3), filed under Chrysitrix . The original details of Sparrman’s collection ‘Sp. 124’ appear in the list compiled by Linnaeus which is referred to by Savage (1945) as the ‘Sparrmanni Capenses Ms. list ca. 1772’. Sparrman’s number 124 appears in the third part of this list against the words ‘Dioecia hexandria’, the Class to which the plant might belong, following Sparrman’s opinion that the plants’ solitary flowers are hermaphrodite but the umbellate flowers (on the right hand side of the sheet and now missing) were male. Thus in this list, Linnaeus placed No. 124 between Viscum Linnaeus (1753: 1023) (Dioecia tetrandria) and Arctopus Linnaeus (1753: 1058) (Polygamia dioecia). He also gave the plant a new name, Hydrophylax (Linnaeus f. 1782: 126), for which the flowers are described as ‘ in aliis solitarii hermaphroditi in aliis umbellate mares ’. The original generic and specific descriptions are given on two slips in the Slip Index in the Linnean Society’s Library. These descriptions were later transcribed into the Amannensis Draft for Mantissa 3: the generic description of Hydrophylax on page 16 and the species description, still without a specific name, on page 124. Only later did Linnaeus add, in his own hand, the specific epithet ‘ natans ’. Among the many alterations that Linnaeus subsequently made to the Draft, two relate to Hydrophylax . The two entries for Hydrophylax and natans were crossed out and inserted on the interleaf opposite Hypoxis (page 49). Here Linnaeus has rewritten the description of Hydrophylax natans under the name Hypoxis aquatica , but in so doing he omitted the reference to Sparrman as the collector. Having used the Amannensis Draft of Mantissa 3 as the basis of his own work, this is the entry that the younger Linnaeus would have found and published in the Supplementum (Linnaeus f. 1782) as Hypoxis aquatica .

James Edward Smith, who was in possession of Linnaeus’s collections for several years, may have been responsible for having placed the type sheet, which is devoid of a name, under Chrysitrix . His handwriting on a note attached to the specimen suggests that he found it incorrectly placed, having been ‘found in Restio ’. It is likely that he then checked Sparrman’s number with the Sparrmanni Capenses list. Finding it cited next to Arctopus (Polygamia dioecia), it is probable that he assigned the sheet to Chrysitrix , the only genus in that class to which it could possibly belong.

Since no flowers remain in the four-pedicellate umbel of the plant on the right hand side of the sheet, it can never be known why Sparrman and Linnaeus thought these flowers were male. Field studies have shown, however, that the flowers of this and other species of Pauridia are frequently visited by beetles which feed on the floral parts ( Kocyan et al. 2011: as Spiloxene ). Hence it is probable that Sparrman’s ‘male flowers’ in Pauridia aquatica were beetle-induced.

The fruiting plant on the left hand side of the sheet of Sparrman’s collection is typical of Spiloxene capensis ( Linnaeus 1760: 10) Garside (1936: 74) or Spiloxene canaliculata Garside (1942: 249) in having a long, solitary sheathing bract inserted at the articulation between the scape and pedicel. The identity of the detached flower mounted on the top left hand corner of the sheet, however, remains uncertain.