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(1467) Proposal to conserve the name Wulffia against Tilesia (Asteraceae)
Author(s) -
Robinson Harold,
Funk Vicki
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
taxon
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.819
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1996-8175
pISSN - 0040-0262
DOI - 10.2307/1224361
Subject(s) - funk , citation , library science , art history , computer science , classics , history
The present proposal is an attempt to conserve a long established usage of the generic name Wulffia, especially as regards W. baccata, one of its three species that is widely distributed in tropical America from Panama and the Lesser Antilles to southern Brazil. The name Wulffia is used in almost all floristic treatments from that of Baker (in Martius, Fl. Bras. 6: 173-174. 1884) to the present-day, including Aristeguieta (Fl. de Venezuela 10: 531-534. 1964), Funk (in Rhodora 93: 256-267. 1991) and Boggan & al. (Checkl. PI. Guianas: 60. 1997) for the Guianas, Robinson & Funk (Comp. Ecuador, 1: 65-78. 1997), D'Arcy (Ann. Missouri Bot. Gard. 62: 1169-1172. 1975) for Panama, and O. Schulz (in Urban, Symb. Antill. 7: 95. 1911) and Nicolson (Smithsonian Contr. Bot. 77: 47. 1991) for the Lesser Antilles. The name has also been consistently used in all general treatments and discussions of the Tribe Heliantheae, e.g., by Bentham (in Benth. & Hook, f., Gen. PI. 2: 163-533. 1873), Stuessy (Biol. Chem. Comp. 2: 621-671. 1977) and Robinson (Smithsonian Contr. Bot. 51: 1-102. 1981), and is the name under which innumerable specimens are placed in the herbaria of the world. A small usage of the name Tilesia has begun to build since the paper by Pruski (in Novon 6: 404-418. 1996) preliminary to Pruski (Guayana Highland Fl. 1997) and in the DNA study of Panero (in Amer. J. Bot. 413-427. 1999). This recent usage could never be meaningfully applied without reference to the long established use of the name Wulffia for this concept. Nevertheless, the usage of Tilesia is at present nomenclaturally correct, although it is deemed by us to be extremely undesirable, and this proposal is being made to avoid its use in works in the future such as the Heliantheae for the Flora of Ecuador (Robinson, in prep.). The facts of the case have been well treated by both Cassini (I.e.) in his entry on Melanthera, and by Pruski (I.e. 1996). Both authors were correct for their time. Cassini chose the oldest name for the concept that was available at that time, there being no ban on the use of names from Necker in Elementa Botanica (1790-1791). In the Montreal Code (Regnum Veg. 23. 1961) these Necker names were exemplified as "unitary designations of species" and, as such, "not to be regarded as