Miconia capillaris (Swartz) Gómez (1894: 68)

Valente, Beatriz Do Nascimento, Baumgratz, José Fernando A. & Maia, Vitor Hugo, 2020, Nomenclatural novelties in Miconieae (Melastomataceae): new synonym and typifications, Phytotaxa 443 (2), pp. 179-188 : 184

2. Miconia capillaris (Swartz) Gómez (1894: 68)

≡ Melastoma capillaris Swartz (1788: 71)

≡ Sagraea capillaris (Swartz) Candolle (1828: 170)

≡ Leandra capillaris (Sw.) Raddi (1829: 153) .

≡ Clidemia capillaris (Swartz) Grisebach (1860: 184) , nom. illeg., non C. capillaris Don

≡ Ossaea capillaris (Swartz) Wright (1868: 435)

≡ Clidemia insularis Domin (1930: 43) .

Type :— JAMAICA. Habitat in montibus Jamaicae australis , Swartz s.n. (lectotype S-R-3455 ! designated here ; isolectotypes BM-001008291 ! , C-10014543 ! , SBT-12614 !).— Fig. 3 .

In describing Melastoma capillaris, Swartz (1788: 71) cited only the location “ Jamaica ” and even in his later amended description, he only cited “habitat in montibus Jamaicae australis ” ( Swartz 1797: 808), with no mention of any specimen or repository herbarium. Candolle (1828: 170) transferred this species to Sagraea , probably because of the tetramerous flowers; he presented a short description, and as a specimen examined Bertero s.n., collected in Jamaica.

Raddi (1829: 141), while establishing the genus Leandra , associated to it all the species belonging to Melastoma L. that consistently present the calyx divided into lobes, and with dorsal teeth. In that work, he proposed L. capillaris (Swartz) Raddi , a name based on Melastoma capillaris Swartz (1788: 71) , and validly published ( Turland et al. 2018: Art. 7.3).

Gómez de la Maza (1894) provided a plant list for Cuba based on specimens collected by C. Wright and on data from the works of Grisebach (1868) and Sauvalle (1873).Among several species of Melastomataceae he listed “ Miconia (Oxymeris) capillaris [ Melastoma Sw. ; Sagraea Cand., Gray Cl. ; Ossaea, Sauval., Nome ]”, indirectly proposing a new combination for Melastoma capillaris Sw. He did not provide any description, comments, or specimens examined.

Domin (1930: 43) established Clidemia insularis as a new name for C. capillaris Griseb. , and cited in the synonymy “ Melastoma capillaris Sw. , C. capillaris Gris. , non Don 1823, Sagraea capillaris DC. , Ossaea capillaris Wright ”. Domin (1930) proposed this new name because the epithet capillaris was already occupied in the genus Clidemia . Since none of these authors explicitly mentioned the repository herbarium of the respective collections studied, and since Swartz’s collections were housed at the Regnellian herbarium, which was eventually merged with the herbarium S, we indicate the specimen Swartz s.n. (S R-3455) as the lectotype of Melastoma capillaris . This specimen was identified by the collector himself; it is fertile and morphologically representative of the circumscription of the species. Another three specimens of M. capillaris belonging to the Swartz s.n. collection are in the herbaria BM (BM-001008291), C (C-100145543) and SBT (SBT-12614); this last was identified by J.J. Wurdack as C. capillaris , in 1969. All these specimens are here recognized as isolectotypes.

Miconia capillaris and M. capilliflora share some morphological characters (e.g., tetramerous flowers) that have contributed to their misidentification, but in fact they are distinct species based on both the description and geography. The latter is endemic to the Brazilian coast, whereas M. capillaris occurs in Cuba, Dominica and Jamaica ( Domin 1930). Miconia capillaris is distinguished from M. capilliflora by chartaceous leaves (vs. membranaceous), narrowly lanceolate leaf blades (vs. widely elliptic to obovate), attenuate apex (vs. acuminate), revolute margins (vs. plain), 3 basal acrodromous veins (vs. 3–5 basal or suprabasal) and ovate-lanceolate anthers (vs. linear-subulate).

Figures

FIGURE 3. Lectotype of Melastoma capillaris Sw. (Swartz s.n. S R-3455), collected in Jamaica.