Mezzettia curtisii King

Bera, Sukdeb & Karthigeyan, Kaliyamurthy, 2025, Typification of the names Goniothalamus macranthus (Kurz) Boerl. and Mezzettia curtisii King (Annonaceae), Adansonia (3) 47 (19), pp. 327-331 : 328-331

Mezzettia curtisii King

( Fig. 2)

Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Part II (Natural History & c.) 61: 129 ( King 1892).

TYPE SPECIMENS. — Malaysia • Penang, Government Hill; 1200 ft. alt.; III.1890; C. Curtis 2266; lectotype: CAL[ CAL 0000025019!], first-step lectotype designated by Van der Heijden & Kessler, Blumea 35: 223 ( Van der Heijden & Kessler 1990); second-step lectotype here designated ( Fig. 2); isolectotypes: BM [ BM 000546402, digital image!, BM 000546403, digital image!]; CAL[ CAL 0000025017!]; K [ K 000574883, digital image!, K 000574884, digital image!, K 000574885, digital image!], SING.

TYPIFICATION REMARKS

According to POWO (2025), Mezzettia curtisii King is a heterotypic synonym of M. herveyeana Oliv. ( Hooker 1887). George King validly published M. curtisii ( King 1892: 129) based on Curtis’s collections and indicated the type as ‘ Penang, on Government Hill at 1200 feet; Curtis, No. 2266 .’ Van der Heijden & Kessler (1990) in their revision of the genus Mezzettia , expected the holotype to be housed at CAL and cited type as ‘ Curtis 2266, Malaysia, Penang, Government hill, 360 m alt., March 1890 ( holo-, CAL, n.v.; iso-, BM, K).’ Turner (2011) also considered CAL specimen as holotype. Later, Turner (2015) felt that the CAL specimen is a syntype rather than holotype and he chose one syntype at K and designated it as ‘ Lectotype: Malaysia, Peninsula Malaysia, Penang, Government Hill, Mar 1890, C. Curtis 2266 ( lecto-, K (barcode no. K 000574885); isolecto-, BM [×2], CAL [×2] (barcodes no. CAL 0000025017 and CAL 0000025019), K [×2] (barcodes no. K 000574883. K 000574884), SING.’ It is quite sure that Turner (2015) overlooked the earlier type designation byVan der Heijden & Kessler (1990) and he changed his decision in his next publication ( Turner 2018) where he considered the type designation byVan der Heijden & Kessler (1990) as effective lectotypification and cited ‘TYPE: Malay Peninsula, Penang, Government Hill, March 1890, C. Curtis 2266 ( lecto-, CAL, designated by Van der Heijden & Kessler, Blumea 35: 223 (1990); isolecto-, BM, K, SING).’

Type designation by Van der Heijden & Kessler (1990) must be accepted as lectotypification because it was effectively published prior to 1st January 2001 and it followed the Art. 7.11 of the ICN ( Turland et al. 2018). Therefore, the lectotypification ofTurner (2015) is ‘Superfluous’. Van der Heijden & Kessler did not see the type material at CAL and did not annotate any specimen as a lectotype. In CAL, we found two original materials (CAL0000025017 and CAL 0000025019) bearing the same data with original label that was mentioned by Van der Heijden & Kessler (1990) in their publication. According to Art. 9.17 of the ICN ( Turland et al. 2018), it was found that a second-step lectotypification is required. After considering Van der Heijden & Kessler (1990) as first-step lectotypification, the specimen CAL0000025019 ( Fig. 2) is designated here as the second-step lectotype of M. curtisii King.

While searching for images of original materials of M. curtisii King on the Global Plants website, we found two type specimens K 000574884 and K 000574885, which perfectly matches with L.0197402 and L.0197403, respectively (https:// plants.jstor.org/search?filter=name&so=ps_group_by_genus_sp ecies+asc&Query= Mezzettia+curtisii ). Upon close examination of the images, we noticed a scale with the printed text ‘Royal Botanic Garden – Kew’ and ‘ILFORD, CIBACROME COPY’ on both images of L. Additionally, type annotations are present on both images. The images at L are colour copies of the original specimens deposited at K.