Veronica nitida Poir.

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 : 53

Veronica nitida Poir.

Encyclopédie Méthodique, Supplement 5: 467 ( Poiret 1817), nom. illeg. (Art. 53.1; non V. nitida (Schrad.) Hoffm. ). — V. lutetiana Schult. , Mantissa 1: 109 ( Schultes 1822).

TYPE CITATION. — Cultivated: “Hort. Paris”.

NEOTYPE (designated here). — P[ P04219332* ].

Nomenclatural note. Veronica nitida Poir. is a name of unclear taxonomic identity. Poiret mentioned the origin from the Jardin des Plantes Paris and the long inflorescences, the lanceolate, subdentate, and glabrous leaves. Schultes (1822) was the first to recognize the homonymy with V. nitida Ehrh. and renamed Poiret’s plant V. lutetiana , linking it with V. teucrium . Desfontaines (1829) mentioned the name V. nitida with a more elaborate description, neither mentioning Poiret nor Schultes. Walpers (1844 -45), separating V. lutetiana from V. teucrium and V. satureiifolia , ascribed the name to Desfontaines (“in mss.”), likely referring to the catalog of garden plants from Paris, of which Desfontaines was director, or to some unpublished manuscript elaborating on the plants described in the catalog from the Botanical Garden. Given the origin from the Botanical Garden, it is possible that Desfontaines is actually the original source for the name, even though not mentioned by Poiret, and communicated the name and specimens of the plant to his friend Poiret, with whom he travelled in 1783-1785 in North Africa (de Candolle 1834). In the herbarium Poiret in P, there is one specimen labelled “ V. nitida h.p.” with a later addition “Desfont. Catl. Descrip.” fitting the description of Poiret (1817) and Desfontaines (1829) perfectly and appearing closer to V. satureiifolia . Still, since the specimen does not have a date, we cannot be sure that it is original material and we follow others (e.g., Giacò et al. 2021) in calling the specimen a neotype.