Journal of Threatened
Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 March 2025 | 17(3): 26744–26746
ISSN 0974-7907 (Online)
| ISSN 0974-7893 (Print)
https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.9443.17.3.26744-26746
#9443 | Received 06
October 2024 | Final received 07 February 2025 | Finally accepted 01 March 2025
Clarifying the
nomenclature of Roxburgh’s pivotal name Holigarna racemosa Roxb. (Anacardiaceae)
Shruti Kasana
Department of Botany,
University of Delhi, Delhi 110007, India.
Editor: A.J. Solomon Raju, Andhra University,
Visakhapatnam, India. Date of publication: 26 March 2025
(online & print)
Citation: Kasana, S. (2025). Clarifying the nomenclature of Roxburgh’s
pivotal name Holigarna racemosa
Roxb. (Anacardiaceae). Journal of Threatened Taxa 17(3): 26744–26746. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.9443.17.3.26744-26746
Copyright: © Kasana 2025. Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License. JoTT allows
unrestricted use, reproduction, and distribution of this article in any medium
by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publication.
Funding: The Institution of Eminence (IoE), University of Delhi through FRP (Ref. No./IoE/2021/12/FRP, dated 31.08.2022).
Competing interests: The author declares no competing interests.
Acknowledgements: Thanks are due to the directors/curators of the K, PH, and CAL for making the specimen
images accessible for study. SK is thankful to IoE, University of Delhi for FRP (Ref. No./IoE/2021/12/FRP, dated 31.08.2022).
Drimycarpus Hook.f. (Anacardiaceae) is a southeastern Asian genus comprising
four species (Murugan et al. 2015). It can be
differentiated from other members of the tribe Semecarpeae
by its imbricate petals, single style, and inferior ovary. In India, the genus
is represented by only one species D. racemosus
(Roxb.) Hook.f. ex Marchand
(basionym: Holigarna
racemosa), which is the type species of the genus
Drimycarpus. It is distributed in northeastern
states and Andaman & Nicobar Islands (Mukherjee & Chandra 1983, 2000).
It is an economically important tree being widely used as a source of timber
and the leaves as well as bark are used for treating skin diseases (De 2016;
Sarkar & Devi 2017).
During the ongoing
work on the systematics of Indian Semecarpeae,
it has been found that the name Holigarna racemosa was erroneously typified. The relevant
literature (including protologues) was analyzed in detail and herbarium
specimens (original and non-original materials) were critically examined.
Reasons for considering the earlier typification to
be incorrect are discussed in detail and lectotype is designated. In addition
to this, epitype has also been designated. All the
specimens were scrutinized following the description in the protologue and
comparison of the voucher details.
Taxonomic treatment
Drimycarpus racemosus
(Roxb.) Hook.f. ex
March and, Rév. Anacardiac.
172. 1869. Holigarna racemosa
Roxb., Fl. Ind. (Roxburgh)
2: 82. 1832.
Type: Roxburgh’s Icon 7: t. 2213 (Lecto,
CAL; https://archive.bsi.gov.in/botanical-details?link=631A7335B59546KL, image!, designated here). Epitype
(designated here): Bangladesh, Sylhet, N. Wallich
1006 (K001110590, http://specimens.kew.org/herbarium/K001110590).
Notes: William Roxburgh (1751–1815) was a British botanist and physician,
who worked as Superintendent at the Calcutta Botanical Garden from 1793 to
1813. He catalogued the plants growing in the East India Company’s Botanical
Garden at Calcutta and it included several new taxa. One significant plant
named by Roxburgh in this publication, the Hortus bengalensis (1814) was Holigarna
racemosa. This was based on the specimens given
to him by Mathew Richard Smith in 1812 from Sylhet (either from Khasia Hills, Assam, or Bangladesh).
Roxburgh’s Holigarna racemosa like most of the names in the ‘Hortus Bengalensis’ was a nomen nudum being published neither with a description nor with a
reference to any earlier description and hence, not validly published as per
Art. 38.1, ICN (Turland et al. 2018). Hooker (1862)
transferred this invalid name to the genus Drimycarpus,
however, this did not constitute a new combination as Hooker failed to
associate the final epithet with the generic name as D. racemosus
and hence this name also became invalid following Art. 35.2, ICN (Turland et al. 2018).
William Caregy (1761–1834) published manuscripts left by Roxburgh (1832) in ‘The Flora Indica’ wherein he validated Roxburgh’s Holigarna racemosa. This included a description of the plant H.
racemosa with a reference to the collection site
as Sylhet but no further information about the collector or the collection
date. We tried to locate Roxburgh’s collection of H.
racemosa from Sylhet or Smith’s collections at
CAL and K but no specimen was found.
Erroneous Lectotypification of Holigarna
racemosa Roxb.
Mukherjee &
Chandra (1988) revised the Indian Anacardiaceae and
designated Wallich’s specimens at K as lectotype of Holigarna racemosa.
This was probably due to Hooker’s inclusion of Wallich’s
specimen (Catalogue No. 1006) under H. racemosa
in the ‘Flora of British India’ (1988). This specimen of Wallich
was collected from the type locality as mentioned in the protologue, i.e., from
Sylhet but the collector was H. Bruce and not Roxburgh
or Smith. Since Roxburgh died in 1815, he could not
see the herbarium specimens distributed by Wallich
during 1829–1847. Further, Roxburgh did not keep
herbarium specimens in his personal herbarium. Some of Roxburgh’s
specimens were also given to Wallich and due to this,
the Wallich specimen might have been considered as
the original material for H. racemosa.
However, Wallich noted in his Catalogue about the
specimens received from Roxburgh but no such
information was mentioned against the collection number 1006. Also, in the Wallich Catalogue, Roxburgh’s
entries were after the number 2158 which was far ahead of the specimen
considered the original material for H. racemosa (Forman
1997). Thus, Wallich’s collection cannot be the
original material for H. racemosa, and designating
it as the lectotype is incorrect.
Another problem with
the lectotype designated by Mukherjee & Chandra is that they designated Wallich’s specimen no. 1006 at K as the lectotype but there
are five specimens at K (barcodes K001110589, K001110590, K001110591,
K001110592 and K001110593). This indicates that if the specimens collected by Wallich or Bruce had been the original material, a
second-step lectotype was required to stabilize the application of the name.
However, as it is not an original gathering, this possibility is already ruled
out.
Lectotypification of Holigarna racemosa Roxb.
Considering that no
specimen can be equivocally linked to Roxburgh’s
name, we searched for Roxburgh’s drawings. Roxburgh used to have life-size drawings while describing
the plants indicating the direct relevance of these drawings in establishing
the identity of Roxburgh’s names (Sealy 1956). A
detailed drawing of H. racemosa was also
traced at CAL that bears Roxburgh’s number 2213
(Figure 1A) and hence designated here as the lectotype following Article 9.17
of ICN (Turland et al. 2018).
Epitypification of Holigarna racemosa Roxb.
Additionally, as the
specimens collected by Wallich are from the same
locality and match the description in the protologue, we designate here the
specimen with barcode K001110590 (Figure 1B) as the epitype
for H. racemosa.
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