Dactylorhiza sect. Maculatae (Parl.) Smoljaninova (1976: 54)

Efimov, Petr, 2025, An update of the taxonomic system of Dactylorhiza (Orchidaceae, Orchideae), Phytotaxa 691 (3), pp. 260-270 : 265

5. Dactylorhiza sect. Maculatae (Parl.) Smoljaninova (1976: 54) ; Soó (1960: 337), comb. inval. (Art. 41.5).

Type:— Orchis maculata L.

≡ Orchis [stat. indef.] Maculatae Parlatore (1858: 516). ≡ O. [subgen. Dactylorchis ] subsect. Maculatae (Parl.) Camus, Bergon & Camus (1908: 188). ≡ Dactylorchis sect. Maculatae (Parl.) Vermeulen (1947: 65) . ≡ Dactylorhiza [sect. Dactylorhiza ] subsect. Maculatae (Parl.) Averyanov (1983b: 1160).

– Dactylorchis [sect. Maculatae ] subsect. Eu-maculatae Vermeulen (1947: 68), nom. inval. (Art. 21.3, prefix ‘ Eu -’ is not allowed); (Verm.) Soó (1960: 348), comb. inval. (Art. 21.3 and Art. 41.5).

= Dactylorhiza sect. Fuchsiae Eccarius (2016: 128) . Type: D. fuchsii (Druce) Soó.

= Dactylorhiza [sect.?] subsect. Foliosae Landwehr (1977: 556) , n.v. Type: D. foliosa . Although the type was not indicated in the protologue, the name is valid and its type is D. foliosa according to Art. 10.8 and Art. 40.3.

This group was already established in its current sense by Vermeulen (1947), as Dactylorchis sect. Eu-maculatae, and it did not receive substantial changes after that, except for Eccarius (2016), who split it into two sections, possibly following ploidy (diploids/autopolyploids) but neglecting widely discussed phylogenetic data, such as the similarity of D. maculata with D. foliosa , not D. fuchsii . A close relationship between D. maculata and D. foliosa also emphasises why D. fuchsii should not be regarded an infraspecific taxon of D. maculata , as accepted by Kühn et al. (2019, 2025) and some other authors. Those issues have already reviewed in detail by Bateman (2021); the paper by Bateman represents an overwhelming review of this group, and it is followed here as concerns species composition, with one exception: it is supplemented by one more species, D. psychrophila , following Shipunov & Efimov (2015).

Ca.6 species: Dactylorhiza fuchsii (Druce)Soó , D. foliosa (Soland. ex Lowe) Soó , D.gervasiana (Tod.) H.Baumann & Künkele , D. maculata (L.) Soó (many authors distinguished separate species or subdivide it into subspecies (Tyteca & Gathoye 2003, Eccarius 2016, Taraška et al. 2024)), D. psychrophila (Schltr.) Aver. , D. saccifera (Brongn.) Soó.