FERN GAZ. 20(1):15-18. 2015 15

NOTE ON THE REDISCOVERED TYPE SPECIMEN OF ANGIOPTERIS INDICA DESV. (MARATTIACEAE)

J. MAZUMDAR

Department of Biological Sciences, Burdwan Town School, Burdwan-713101, India Email: [email protected]

Key words: Angiopteris indica , Herb. Desvaux, India, Marattiaceae, type.

ABSTRACT The type of the tree fern Angiopteris indica Desv. (Marattiaceae) was rediscovered in Herb. Desvaux at P and its status is discussed.

INTRODUCTION Three species of the marattioid fern genus Angiopteris Hoffm. (Marattiaceae) are generally accepted to occur in India (Fraser-Jenkins, 2008; Fraser-Jenkins & Benniamin 2010), namely Angiopteris indica Desv., A. helferiana C.Presl, and A. palmiformis (Cav.) C.Chr. Fraser-Jenkins (2008) accepted A. indica as the oldest available name for plants characterized by the combination of the following characters: the soral lines are located close or at the margin, the lamina segments possess prominent teeth near their tips, the lamina colour is darker than in other Indian species, and with the false (recurrent) veins reaching the soral line or just passing beyond it. In contrast, A. helferiana is distinguishable from A. indica by its inframarginal sori, whereas A. palmiformis has long false veins extended up to the pinnule-midrib. Angiopteris indica was described by Desvaux in 1813 (Desvaux 1813: 267) and not in 1811 (Desvaux 1811: 207), as misquoted by Moore (1857: 75) and Christensen (1906: 57), but see Hooker & Greville (1831) for the correct citation of the name. In the protologue, Desvaux (1813: 267) described the plants as “frondibus pinnatis, pinnis lanceolatis utrinque attenuates” and mentioned the area of origin as “Habitat in India orientali”. He further considered the non-cordiform base on the segments as the main feature distinguishing this species from previously described taxa. Desvaux in his protologue mentioned that he saw a specimen of the species at Herb. de Jussieu. Later authors (Vriese & Harting, 1853; Fraser-Jenkins, 2008) concluded that no specimens of this species were found in the Herb. de Jussieu, which is located in the herbarium at the “Museum national d’Histoire naturelle” at Paris (P). Subsequently, Fraser-Jenkins (2008) designated a neotype: Herb. Wight e Nilghiry [“S. India”], alt. 5000 ped. Wallich List No. 187.8. (K-W). This designation is based on the crucial assumption that no specimen seen by Desvaux can be found.

RESULTS Here, I present the discovery of a single specimen located at “Herbier de A.N. Desvaux Donné par Mme Vve Lavallée en 1896” in the herbarium P (Fig. 1A) with the barcode P01646217 (http://sonneratphoto.mnhn.fr/2010/08/09/4/P01646217.jpg). The specimen carries two labels on the left side that were interpreted as written by Desvaux showing the name “ Angiopteris indica Desv., journ. bot. appl, p. 267, Habitat in India orientali” (Fig. 1D). The second label mentions (in French) “was not described in my memoir given at Berlin” (Fig. 1D). By this annotation Desvaux indicated that the name A. indica was 16 FERN GAZ. 20(1):15-18. 2015 not published in “Berlin Magazine” in 1811 along with many new taxa he described there. A third label below the pinna fragment shows the name “ Angiopteris glauca Desv.” (Fig. 1B). This name does not correspond to Angiopteris glauca Alderw. Mal. Ferns, Suppl. I, Corr. 61 (1917) and it is interpreted here as an unpublished name considered by Desvaux.

Figure 1. Specimens of Angiopteris indica Desv. A. Herbarium sheet (P01646217) with two pinnule-segments, B. fragmented pinnule (Type), C. second pinnule with long false veins, D. labels written by Desvaux. Images © Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris Herbarium (P), reproduced with permission. MAZUMDAR : THE REDISCOVERY OF ANGIOPTERIS INDICA 17

The putative type is a fragment of pinnule showing prominent marginal teeth, inconspicuous false veins and sori inframarginal (Fig. 1B). A morphologically distinct second pinnule pasted above it (see Fig. 1A) has long false veins extended up to pinnule- midrib, rounded base and nearly median sori (Fig. 1C).

DISCUSSION One of these pinnules should be considered as type of A. indica as it was definitely studied by Desvaux, supported by the evidence of his own handwritten labels, and which can be assumed to be the lost type of A. indica from Herb. de Jussieu.. The second pinnule (Fig. 1C) is not a separate portion of the same plant but was pasted from a different specimen (pinna): Java, Leschenault 642 (barcode P01646218, http://sonneratphoto.mnhn.fr/2010/08/09/4/P01646218.jpg); Jean-Baptiste Leschenault was a French botanist and his plant collections from Java were subsequently used by A.L. de Jussieu and others. But there is no evidence to support the view that Desvaux selected this second pinnule (Fig. 1C) as type and pasted it himself. Actually the second pinnule was originally cut and pasted in an inverted position in P01646218. As a result it was easily detached and later erroneously pasted in P01646217. Desvaux coined the name A. glauca Desv. probably due to glaucous lamina of the pinnule (Fig. 1B), but later revised it as A. indica considering the distribution “India Orientali,” which includes modern India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Philippines and Marianas (Cook 2009).

CONCLUSION The fragment of pinnule (Fig. 1B) is chosen here as the type of A. indica from the two pinnules in Figure 1A. This type, actually lectotype (designated here), refutes the application of the name A. indica to plants from India with marginal sori by Fraser- Jenkins (2008) in displaying inframarginal sori (Fig. 1B), similar to A. helferiana (having sori about 1 mm distant from margin). But due to wide range of morphological variability of species of Angiopteris further additional data are required to confirm the identity and correct number of species of Angiopteris in India.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank Mr C.R. Fraser-Jenkins, Nepal for discussing the present topic and translation of Desvaux’s French annotation; Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (MNHN), Paris Herbarium (P) and Dr G. Rouhan, Curator of Ferns & Lycophytes, MNHN for granting permission for publication of the image; and an anonymous reviewer for improving the manuscript.

REFERENCES CHRISTENSEN, C. 1906. Index Filicum. H. Hagerup, Copenhagen. 744 pp. (http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/9241) COOK, A. 2009. Linnaeus and Chinese plants: A test of the linguistic imperialism thesis. Notes Rec. R. Soc. (doi:10.1098/rsnr.2009.0051) DESVAUX, N.A. 1811. Observations sur quelques nouveaux generes de fougères et sur plusieures espéces nouvelles de la meme famille. Berl. Mag. 5: 297-330. (http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044106317993;view=1up;seq=218) DESVAUX, N.A. 1813. Description de Fougères nouvelles. J. Bot. Agric. 1: 266-273. (http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k96848g) 18 FERN GAZ. 20(1):15-18. 2015

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