Veronica surculosa Boiss. ex Balansa var. macedonica Adamovic

Albach, Dirk C., 2025, From just a few to the most type-rich herbarium for Veronica L. (Plantaginaceae) - The effect of digitization of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle herbarium in Paris, Adansonia (3) 47 (7), pp. 47-130 : 97

Veronica surculosa Boiss. ex Balansa var. macedonica Adamovic

Allgemeine Botanische Zeitschrift für Systematik 11: 2 ( Adamovic 1905).

TYPE CITATION. — Greece / Macedonia: “Auf Alpenmatten der Nidze Planina (Kajmakcalan)”, Kindl.

LECTOTYPE (designated here). — “ O. Bierbach, Jul. 1904 ”, P[ P03838967 *, Fig. 9 ].

Nomenclatural note. Adamovic (1905) published the name V. surculosa var. macedonica based on a collection of Kindl from Nidze Planina. Bornmüller (1927) remarked that the specimen is in B, but this specimen was likely destroyed in World War II. In this respect, the finding of a specimen in P ( Fig. 5 ) is significant. Although contrary to the protologue, the specimen was not written to be collected by Kindl but by Bierbach, I believe that the attribution in the protologue is more honoring Adamovic’s beneficiary than the truth and Bierbach stamped appropriately his own collection, which he may have collected together with Kindl. Therefore, I believe that the specimen in P, belonging to the herbarium of Giraudias, is original material of V. surculosa var. macedonica .

Comparing the protologues of the two taxa, a great resemblance is apparent but also significant differences ( Table 2 ). However, looking at these differences in more detail, the lectotype and the specimen in P are more similar than the comparison of the protologues. Using the identification key of Rojas-Andrés & Martinez-Ortega (2016), the specimen of V. surculosa var. macedonica is V. teucrioides due to the solitary inflorescences. Comparing the descriptions of V. teucrioides and V. kindlii in Rojas-Andrés & Martinez-Ortega (2016), there are few differences between the two species other than V. teucrioides consistently having single inflorescences, whereas V. kindlii has alternate and rarely solitary inflorescences. Additionally, medium leaves are all glabrous or subglabrous in V. teucrioides but sparsely pubescent in V. kindlii . These characters need to be investigated in the actual specimen in P. Both species are sister in the cpDNA analysis of Rojas-Andrés et al. (2015) but slightly differ in their ITS-sequence. The distinction between the two species requires further investigation of herbarium material and in the field. Up until that time, two hypotheses remain: 1) Adamovic rightfully distinguished V. kindlii and V. teucrioides , which he named V. surculosa var. macedonica , co-occurring on Nidze Planina and both collected by Bierbach and Kindl in 1904; or 2) the variation on Nidze Planina belongs to one species and V. kindlii and V. teucrioides are conspecific but polyphyletic when analyzing their nuclear ribosomal DNA.

Figures

FIG. 9. — Lectotype of V. surculosa var. macedonica Adamovic (P03838967).

FIG. 5. — Epitype of Veronica abyssinica Fresen. (P00541529).