Pre-Linnaean illustrations as original material of Linnaean Chara names (Characeae)

Abstract

Wood (1960) investigated about the types of the four names of Characeae published by Linnaeus (1753) in his Species Plantarum. He focussed on the herbarium specimens forgetting the images mentioned in the protologues. Here we list and present the pre-Linnaean illustrations that have to be considered “original material” (according to the International Code of Nomenclature) for the mentioned names. Chara tomentosa L. - Wood (1960) defined the specimen 1088.1 in the herbarium LINN as “holotype”, actually it is a lectotype (as well reported in The Linnaean Plant Name Typification Project, http://www.nhm.ac.uk/ our-science/data/linnaean-typification) because of the two different figures cited in the protologue: Plukenet (1691) and Morison (1699). Chara vulgaris L. - Wood (1960) defined the specimen 1088.3 in LINN as lectotype; the following illustrations are original material: Bauhin & Cherler (1651), Bauhin (1658) (reported also in Bauhin 1671), and Vaillant (1719). Chara hispida L. - Spencer et al. (2009) noted that the type (Herb. Linn. No. 1088.4, LINN) designated by Wood (1960) is identifiable as C. aspera Willd.; a proposal for the conservation of C. hispida with a conserved type was subsequently made by Gregor et al. (2014). The figures in Plukenet (1692) and Vaillant (1719) are original material of C. hispida. Chara flexilis L. (= Nitella flexilis (L.) C. Agardh) - Neotype: England. Suffolk, Henly, near Ipswich, Buddle in Herb. Sloane 117: 10 (BM-SL) (Wood 1960). In this case, no images are cited in the protologue. Bauhin C. 1658. Theatri botanici 1(2): 251. Bauhin C. 1671. Prodromus theathri botanici... editio altera, 1: 25. Bauhin J & Cherler JH. 1651. Historia Plantarum [...] Tomus III: 731. Gregor T, Blindow I, Raabe U, Schubert H, Stewart N. 2014. Taxon 63 (4): 933–934. Linnaeus C. 1753. Species Plantarum. Morison R. 1699. Plantarum Historiae Universalis Oxoniensis p3: sect. 15 tab. 4 fig. 9. Plukenet L. 1691. Phytographia pars 1: tab. XXIX, fig. 4. Plukenet L. 1692. Phytographia pars 3: tab. CXCIII, fig. 6. Spencer MA, Irvine LM & Jarvis CE. 2009. Taxon 58: 237-260. Vaillant S. 1719. Memoires de l’Academie des Sciences de Paris 1719: 9-48. Wood RD. 1960. Transactions of the American Microscopical Society 79: 219-226.