Notes on the Status and Typification of Some Names of Lichens Described from Greece

Opuscula Philolichenum, 18: 1-10. 2019. *pdf effectively published online 29January2019 via (http://sweetgum.nybg.org/philolichenum/) Notes on the status and typification of some names of lichens described from Greece LINDA IN ARCADIA1 ABSTRACT. – The names Borrera ciliaris var. glabrissima Bory, B. ciliaris var. nigrescens Bory, B. ciliaris var. tomentella Bory, Collema sublimosum J. Steiner and Verrucaria pinguis J. Steiner, all described from Greece, are discussed and lectotypified. A previous "lectotypification" of Verrucaria pinguis f. alocizoides is in fact a neotypification, but that is regarded as a correctable error. The names Parmelia conspersa var. complicata Bory and Ramalina farinacea var. nuda Bory are discussed but not typified. KEYWORDS. – Anaptychia, Europe, historical botany, nomenclature, taxonomy, Xanthoparmelia. INTRODUCTION The lichen biota of Greece is very rich, a consequence of the great topographic and climatic variety present within the country (Grove & Rackham 2001, Strid & Tan 1997), together with a varied geology (Higgins & Higgins 1996, Mountrakis 1995, Papanikolaou 2015). Human exploitation of the land for many millennia (e.g. Renfrew 1972) has certainly modified the biota, probably by reducing forest cover, especially in the lowlands, but most of the country is still covered by natural or at least semi-natural vegetation. Over 1420 species of lichens, lichenicolous and allied fungi have been reported from Greece (http://www.lichensofgreece.com/checklist), and hundreds more probably are present but not yet reported. However, as in much of southeastern Europe and the eastern Mediterranean, the lichens have received little serious study. Much of our knowledge comes from reports that are over a century old. A further difficulty is taxonomic in nature. It is not uncommon in Greece to collect material that seems close to a species that is well known elsewhere, such as in western Europe, but which differs slightly from published descriptions of that species. In such cases it may be far from clear whether the Greek material belongs to an undescribed species, or whether the well known species has not been studied over a sufficiently wide geographical area to reveal the full extent of its variability. Taxonomic problems of this kind can only be solved by careful monographic studies that incorporate ample material from southeastern Europe and the eastern Mediterranean. Unfortunately, those areas have been severely under-represented in many monographs published in the past. While compiling the Greek lichen checklist (Abbott 2009) it became clear to me that many taxa had been described from Greece, and that the status of a significant proportion of them was unclear. As a first step in bringing some order to this chaos, I recently compiled a list of all taxa described from Greece and the current state of our knowledge concerning them (available at http://www.lichensofgreece .com/flora). The list contains 191 taxa, and the status of at least 107 of them requires clarification. In addition to those 107 taxa, a few more can confidently be assigned to broad complexes (e.g. Diplotomma alboatrum s. lat., Lecidella elaeochroma s. lat.), but those complexes are themselves in need of further study. Clarification of the status of all these names will not be an easy task. Many of the original collections have not yet been located. Those that have been located are held by many different herbaria, none of them in Greece itself. For many names, study of the original Greek material in isolation would not be constructive: because of the taxonomic problems referred to above, a broader perspective is essential and the material will best be dealt with as part of monographic revisions of the genera concerned. However, a few names can safely be dealt with now, and those few form the subject of this paper. 1 LINDA IN ARCADIA – Kastri, 22013, Arkadias, Greece. – e-mail: [email protected] 1 Figure 1. Type specimen of Borrera ciliaris δ [= var.] glabrissima (PC-0012470), the bottom thallus is selected as the lectotype. 2 MATERIALS AND METHODS The original collection of Collema sublimosum was located, obtained on loan, and examined using an MBS-9 stereo microscope, mostly at 32× magnification. No thin sections were made, as the material was scanty and such examination would have resulted in substantial damage to the specimen. No chemical tests were made, as both Collema and Leptogium lack lichen substances (Smith et al. 2009). Photographs of the type material of Borrera ciliaris var. glabrissima, B. ciliaris var. nigrescens, B. ciliaris var. tomentella and Verrucaria pinguis were obtained from PC and W and studied. For the other taxa discussed, only online resources were used, principally the indices to the herbarium at PC and G, other virtual herbaria, and Google. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION One would not normally wish to lectotypify names without having seen the original material, as is done here in four cases out of five. However, these few names were selected for typification precisely because they could reasonably be treated in this manner. For the three varieties of Borrera ciliaris the application of the name is clear from the protologue alone; photographs confirmed this, and also indicated which of the extant collections are well developed. For Verrucaria pinguis, the collection here designated as lectotype had been studied by J. Halda, a specialist in Verrucaria: he determined the material and considered that collection to be the type, but he never published a lectotypification. I. LECTOTYPIFICATION OF BORRERA CILIARIS VAR. GLABRISSIMA Anaptychia ciliaris (L.) Flot., Jahresber. Schles. Ges. vaterl. Kultur 28: 119. 1850; ≡ Lichen ciliaris L., Sp. pl. 1144. 1753. ≡ Lichenoides ciliaris (L.) Hoffm., Descr. pl. cl. crypt. 1(1) :16. 1789; ≡ Lobaria ciliaris (L.) Hoffm., Deutschl. Fl. 2: 144. 1796; ≡ Parmelia ciliaris (L.) Ach., Methodus 255. 1803; ≡ Physcia ciliaris (L.) DC., in Lamarck & de Candolle, Flore Française, Ed. III, 2: 396. 1805; ≡ Borrera ciliaris (L.) Ach., Lichenogr. universalis 496. 1810; ≡ Hagenia ciliaris (L.) W. Mann, Lich. Bohemia 81. 1825; ≡ Physcia obscura var. ciliaris (L.) Fürnr., Naturhist. Topogr. Regensburg 2: 249. 1839; ≡ Anaptychia ciliaris (L.) Flot., Jahresber. Schles. Ges. vaterl. Kultur 28: 119. 1850; ≡ Dimelaena ciliaris (L.) Norman, Conat. praem. gen. lich. 19. 1852. TYPE: Tab. XX, Fig. 45 in Dillenius, Hist. Musc. 150. 1742 (lectotype designated by Kurokawa 1962: 11). Borrera ciliaris δ [= var.] glabrissima Bory, Exp. Sci. Morée Bot. 308. 1832. TYPE: GREECE: Island of Naxos, Mont Dia, 11 Sept. 1829, Bory (lectotype designated here! [Mycobank-MBT385501], PC-0012470, bottom thallus [digital image!]). Discussion. – The protologue listed the provenance of this taxon as “Sur les troncs, et parmi les branchages des chênes verts du mont Dia, dans l’île de Naxie” (i.e. Mount Dia on the island of Naxos). There are four known extant collections that constitute original material of this name: PC-0012470 with the locality given as “Mont Dia,” PC-0068885 with the locality given as “Naxos,” G-00290102 with the locality given as “Naxos, Mont Dia,” and H-NYL-32588 with the locality given as “Mont Dia, Naxos”. In his monograph of Anaptychia, Kurokawa (1962: 14) stated “Type: Mt. Dia, Naxos, isotypes at G and H (Nyl. Herb. 32588)”. He did not clearly indicate which, if any, collections he had seen. Kurokawa’s citation is not a lectotypification, as he cited multiple collections but did not indicate which collection he considered to be the type. His use of the word isotypes to denote the collections in G and H seems to imply that he considered material elsewhere (presumably the material in PC, though he did not explicitly mention PC) to include the holotype, but there are two collections in PC and again this does not amount to a lectotypification of the name on material in PC. Although the available digital photograph of G-00290102 is of low resolution, the material clearly belongs to Anaptychia ciliaris (L.) Flot. as presently delimited. The large foliose thallus, formed of long, narrow, grey to brown lobes can not be confused with any other species present in Greece, though the resolution of the image is too poor to show any cilia. High resolution photographs of the collections in H- NYL and PC were reviewed for this study. All of that material also belongs to A. ciliaris based on the above characters plus abundant cilia on the lobes. H-NYL-32588 is fertile but scanty. PC-0068885 is a small specimen that lacks visible apothecia in the photograph, though for some lobes the photograph shows 3 Figure 2. Type specimen of Borrera ciliaris β [= var.] nigrescens (PC-0012471), the thallus at the top center is selected as lectotype. 4 only the lower surface. PC-0012470 (Figure 1) consists of four pieces; judging from their shapes, those pieces may not all be parts of the same thallus. The bottom thallus on PC-0012470 has numerous apothecia, whereas the other three have few or none, and that thallus is here selected as the lectotype. The name was regarded by Kurokawa (1962) as a synonym of Anaptychia ciliaris f. nigrescens (Bory) Zahlbr. I consider it to be a synonym of A. ciliaris, without taxonomic value. See additional discussion below. II. LECTOTYPIFICATION OF BORRERA CILIARIS VAR. NIGRESCENS Borrera ciliaris β [= var.] nigrescens Bory, Exp. Sci. Morée Bot. 307. 1832. TYPE: GREECE: Island of Tinos, Aug. 1829, Bory (lectotype designated here! [Mycobank-MBT385521], PC-0012471, specimen at top centre [digital image!]. Discussion. – In the protologue the provenance of this taxon was cited as “Croît en touffes plus ou moins étendues et appliquées contre le rochers des montagnes de i’île de Tine, notamment sur celles du Bourgo et Sikina” (i.e., various upland localities on the island of Tinos). There are two known extant collections that constitute original material of this name: PC-0012471 with the locality given as “Tinos,” and PC-0012472 with the locality given as “Greece”.

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