Solanum betaceum Cav.

Knapp, Sandra, 2013, Typification of Solanum species (Solanaceae) described by Casimiro Gómez Ortega, Anales del Jardín Botánico de Madrid 70 (1), pp. 56-61 : 57

Solanum crassifolium Ortega , Nov. Pl. Descr. Dec. 117. 1800, nom. superfl. illeg., non Solanum crassifolium Lam., 1794

Ind. loc.: “ Habitat … Floret in Hort. R. Matr. Mensibus Julio, Augusto, & Septembri è seminibus communicatus a D.D. praelaudato Pourret ”.

Neotype, designated here: MA308535 ; isoneotype (fragment) F.

Current accepted name: Solanum betaceum Cav.

In her monograph of Cyphomandra (now recognised as the Pachyphyllum clade of Solanum ) Bohs (1994) suggested there was no type material extant for Gómez Ortega’s S. crassifolium , which is a later homonym of a name coined by Lamarck now considered a synonym of S. africanum Mill. (an unrelated member of the African Non-Spiny clade of Bohs, 2005). Ortega describes the seeds as coming from Pierre André Pourret (1754-1818), a French botanist who was exiled to Spain during the French Revolution (1789). I found no material in the general herbarium at MA that satisified any of my criteria; the lectotype specimen I previously chose ( Knapp, 2007: 196) for S. betaceum is the only possible candidate too have come from plants Gómez Ortega would have seen (see Fig. 1A in Knapp, 2007). Cavanilles’ description of S. betaceum ( Cavanilles, 1799) is not at all similar to Ortega’s, suggesting the two botanists examined the living material at different times. Although Cavanilles does not mention the source of the material it is likely that the plant both men described was originally given to the Jardín by Pierre André Pourret, who worked in Madrid for a time during his exile from France.

Figures

Fig. 1. a, neotype of Solanum cymosum Ortega (=Solanum lanceolatum Cav.) (MA 476353); b, neotype of Solanum ficifolium Ortega (= Solanum ferrugineum Jacq.) (MA 334586); c, neotype of Solanum leprosum Ortega (=Solanum elaeagnifolium Cav.) (MA 334600); d, neotype of Solanum subbiflorum Ortega (=Solanum capense L.) (MA308482).