(996) Proposal to Reject elatior L. with Comments on the Typification of F. pratensis and F. arundinacea ()

James L. Reveal; Edward E. Terrell; John H. Wiersema; Hildemar Scholz

Taxon, Vol. 40, No. 1. (Feb., 1991), pp. 135-137.

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(996) Proposal to reject Festuca elatior L. with comments on the typification of R pratensis and R arundinacea (Poaceae)

Festuca elatior Linnaeus, Sp. P1. 75. 1753, nom. rej. prop. LT.: Linnaean Herbarium no. 92.17 (LINN) (vide Linder, Bothalia 16: 59. 1986). Festuca elatior L. (Poaceae) has long been regarded as a nomen ambiguum or a con- fused name because the Linnaean nomen specificum legitimum was established on two discordant elements. This matter has been repeatedly discussed (Hylander, 1945; Dandy, 1958a; Terrell, 1967; Linder, 1986; Scholz, 1987) and most authors have con- curred that F: elatior should be abandoned. Typification of F: elatior was indirectly accomplished by Terrell (1967: 131) who executed an effective Art. 8.3 (Greuter & al., 1988) lectotypification of the name on a specimen in the Linnaean Herbarium (92.17, LINN!). Although the validity of such post-1953 lecto- and neotypifications might be challenged, Linder (1986: 59) explicitly lectotypified the name on the same specimen so that the type is now fixed. The specimen in the Linnaean Herbarium is represen- tative of what is now routinely called Schreber (1771: 57). The Linnaean name, Festuca elatior, has been variously interpreted (Terrell, 1967), with its application by some authors to the tall fescue, E arundinacea, and by others to the meadow fescue, F: pratensis Hudson (1762: 37). In North America, for example, F: elatior was applied to the meadow fescue, but in Europe and Asia F: pratensis has been applied. Most, if not all of the recent European literature has consistently used F: pratensis for the meadow fescue (e.g., Clapham & al., 1987) and maintained F: arun- dinacea for the tall fescue without adopting the earlier Linnaean epithet as typified. Given the long tradition of Festuca elatior as an ambiguous name (Hylander, 1945; Dandy, 1958a), which the present Code (Greuter & a]., 1988) does not permit and previous codes have not since the Leningrad Code (Stafleu & a]., 1978), little would be gained and much lost in terms of nomenclatural stability if F: elatior was allowed to assert its rightful priority over F: arundinacea. Accordingly, we urge that our proposal to reject F: elatior L. be accepted.

Typification of Hudson When Hudson (1762) proposed Festuca pratensis he cited a polynomial, 'Gramen paniculatum elatius, spicis longis muticis et squamosis', that appeared in the third edi- tion of Ray's 'Synopsis' (Ray, 1724) edited by Dillenius. According to Dandy (1958b: 103), Hudson used the folio volumes of dried arranged by Adam Buddle now in the Sloane Herbarium to ascertain the identity of British plants named in the 'Synopsis'. Stafleu & Cowan (1979: 354) indicated that the extant specimens "collected by or identified by Hudson now in various herbaria (BM, CGE, E, K, LINN, UPS, in herb. Thunberg) are probably not those on which Hudson's original descriptions were based:' Although no specific specimens were cited by Hudson, there are conceivably a number of dried specimens that can be termed 'authentic material'. Accordingly, we lectotypify F: pratensis on the Buddle specimen seen by Hudson in the Sloane Her- barium and annotated with the Ray polynomial: Festuca pratensis Hudson, F1. Anglica 37. 1762. LT.: H.S. 125.16 (BM-SL).

Typification of Festuca arundinacea Schreber In describing Festuca arundinacea, Schreber (1771: 57) took his polynomial directly from Gmelin (1747: 111) and cited Scheuchzer (1719: 266) in synonymy. We have not 136 TAXON VOLUME 40 been able to locate any authentic material at Munich where Schreber's herbarium is now maintained (or at BM, K, ER or PH) nor have we located any authentic Gmelin material among the items acquired by him. When Gmelin proposed 'Poa panicula spicata, stricta, spicis oblongis, erectis, paucifloris, saepe aristatis', he cited as his synonym Scheuchzer's 'Gramen arundinaceum, locustis viridi-spadiceis, loliaceis, brevius aristatis'. Fortunately, the latter is illustrated. This illustration is remarkably good as it even shows the short awns that distinguish E arundinacea from the typically muticous E pratensis. We hereby typify Schreber's name accordingly:

Festuca arundinacea Schreber, Spic. F1. Lips. 57. 1771. LT.: Scheuchzer, Agrostographia, tab. V, fig. 18. 1719.

We have been unable to locate a "typotype" (Stearn, 1957). As here typified, Festuca arundinacea is taxonomically identical to the earlier E elatior, and if the latter name is not rejected as proposed here, the Linnaean binomial would have priority over Schreber's name.

Acknowledgements We thank S. J. Darbyshire (DAO) for pointing out this problem and calling for a solution and F. R. Barrie (BM/MO) for assisting us in obtaining a photograph of the Hudson lectotype. D. H. Nicolson and J. H. Kirkbride kindly reviewed and commented on the manuscript. The study of early temperate North American types of vascular plants by Reveal is part of the Linnaean Plant Name Typification Project and is supported by National Science Foundation Grani BSR-8812816. This is Scientific Article A-6034, Contribution No. 8195, of the Maryland Agricultural Experiment Station.

Literature cited Clapham, A. R., Tutin, T. G. & Moore, D. M. 1987. Flora of the British Isles, ed. 3. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Dandy, J. E. 1958a. List of British vascularplants. British Museum (Natural History), London. - 1958b. The Sloane herbarium. Balding & Mansell, London. Gmelin, J. G. 1747. Florasibirica, I. Academia Scientiarium, St. Petersburg. Greuter, W., Burdet, H. M., Chaloner, W. G., Demoulin, V., Grolle, R., Hawksworth, D. L., Nicolson, D. H., Silva, P. C., Stafleu, F. A., Voss, E. G. & McNeill, J. 1988. International code of botanical nomenclature, adopted by the Fourteenth International Botanical Con- gress, Berlin, July-August 1987. Regnum kg. 118. Hudson, W. 1762. Flora anglica. J. Nourse & C. Moran, London. Hylander, N. 1945. Nomenklatorische und systematische Studien uber nordische Gefafipflanzen. Uppsala Univ. ~rsskr.7: 326. Linder, H. P. 1986. Poaceae. Diverse notes on southern African pooids. Bothalia 16: 59-61. Linnaeus, C. 1753. Speciesplantarum. L. Salvius, Stockholm. Ray, J. 1724. Synopsis methodicastirpium britannicarum, ed. 3. W.& J. Innys, London. Scheuchzer, J. 1719. Agrostographia. Bodmer, Zurich. Scholz, H. 1987. Neue Synonyme der Festuca arundinacea (Poaceae). Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 108: 293-299. Schreber, J. C. D. von, 1771. Spicilegiumflorae lipsicae. Dyke, Leipzig. Stafleu, F. A., Demoulin, V., Greuter, W., Hiepko, P., Linczevski, I. A., McVaugh, R., Meikle, R. D., Rollins, R. C., Ross, R., Schopf, J. M. & Voss, E. G. 1978. International code of botanical nomenclature, adopted by the Twelfth International Botanical Congress, Len- ingrad, July 1975. Regnum Veg. 97. - & Cowan, R. S. 1979. Taxonomic literature, 2: H-Le. Regnum Veg. 98. FEBRUARY 1991 137

Stearn, W. T. 1957. An introduction to the Speciesplantarum and cognate botanical works of Carl Linnaeus. Pp. xi-xiv, 1-136 in: Linnaeus, C., Speciesplantarum: A facsimile of the first edition 1753. Ray Society, London. Terrell, E. E. 1967. Meadow fescue: Festuca elatior L. or I? pratensis? Brittonia 19: 129-132.

Proposed by: James L. Reveal and Edward E. Terrell, Department of Botany, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-5815, USA; John H. Wiersema, Systematic Botany and Mycology Laboratory, USDA/ARS, Bldg. 265, BARC-East, Beltsville, MD 20705, USA; and Hildemar Scholz, Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Berlin-Dahlem, Konigin- Luise-Strasse 6-8, W-1000 Berlin 33, Germany.

(997) Proposal to conserve the spelling of 4618 Euonymus (Celastraceae).

Euonymus Linnaeus, Sp. P1. 197. 1753 ("Evonymus"); Linnaeus, Gen. P1. ed. 5, 91. 1754, nom. et orth. cons. prop. T.: E. europaeus Linnaeus. Linnaeus sometimes used different spellings of generic names. Before the Sydney Congress, the correct spelling was determined by Art. 74 of the Code (Stafleu, 1978). In Sydney, a proposal by Demoulin (1981) was accepted, to delete Art. 74 and to include a new rule in Art. 13. Demoulin's aim was a simplification of the orthographic section of the Code, and he qualified Art. 74 as "a cumbersome and subjective pro- cedure". He assessed the impact of his proposal and found nine cases in which it would imply a change of spelling. Each of these cases was discussed briefly, and Euonymus fell in the category of names for which, in Demoulin's opinion, the ' plan- tarum' spelling is preferable: Evonymus. The spelling Euonymus remains almost universally accepted. Therefore we do not agree with Demoulin and are proposing conservation of the 'Genera plantarum' spell- ing: Euonymus. Demoulin argued there is no obligation to transcribe Greek E u as "eu". On the other hand, Euonymus was one of the examples of Art. 74, which ruled that if Linnaeus subsequently to 1753-1754 did not consistently adopt one of the spellings, "the spell- ing which is more correct philologically is accepted, e.g. Agrostemma (not Agrostema), Euonymus (not Evonymus)". We do not wish to enter into the philological discussion, nor do we think Demoulin's plea that Evonymus is more euphonic is relevant. Our only aim is stability. Only one of Demoulin's arguments remains to be discussed: his statement that Evonymus is widely used. Euonymus is a genus of about 175 species, mainly occurring in temperate and tropical Asia. Four species are indigenous in Europe, several in North and Central America, a few in Africa and two in Australia. The most recent monograph (Blakelock, 1951) treated 176 species and listed 15 more names as incertae sedis. Since then, several new species have been described. It is probable that a modern revision would reduce the number of species. We checked 131 post-1945 floras and checklists, comparing the pre- and post- Sydney (Voss & al., 1983) spellings. When available, we checked two editions of the same flora, to see if the spelling changed. From Table 1 it can be seen that, even in Europe, most floras before Sydney used the spelling (Euonymus) that was then in accordance with the rules. Since Sydney, the Evonymus-spelling has not yet extensively http://www.jstor.org

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Literature cited

Meadow Fescue: Festuca Elatior L. or F. Pratensis Hudson? Edward E. Terrell Brittonia, Vol. 19, No. 2. (Apr. - Jun., 1967), pp. 129-132. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0007-196X%28196704%2F06%2919%3A2%3C129%3AMFFELO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-U