> Now I'm wondering if he really did travel to all those places or
>if he just sat around in Rio de Janeiro (or maybe even back in Paris)
As at least some of St.HILAIRE's specimen citations read "inveni" (I have
found), I assume that he has seen and collected all or most of his
gatherings himself.
> So did Saint Hilaire really go to the TYPE
>locations of the CPs and other plants he described??
I would think he did go there. He was certainly not a poor guy and
guides/porters were cheaper in his times.
> I forgot to look if there were collection dates on the TYPE
>material I saw, but I know from Jan Schlauer's CP nomenclatural synopsis
>(which is always sitting on the table next to the keyboard!) that there
>are no collection numbers and the only date listed is the date of
>publication for the species.
There are no dates on most labels except the month. It would probably be
useful to consult a biography of St.HILAIRE (if such exists) in order to
find out the routes he took on his expeditions.
> For example, the TYPE location for D.villosa is "Serra Negra
>(Black Mountains), Minas Gerais". The problem is that I know of 2 Serra
>Negras in the state of Minas Gerais (one in the SE part of the state and
>the other near Diamantina, in the central part of the state) and I know
>St.Hilaire's expeditions passed at least close to both. So which of the 2
>is the true TYPE location for this species?
Is it of any help that the TYPE citation reads:
"Crescit in sabuletis humidis montis dicti Serra-Negra in provincia
Minas-Geraes, haud longe a finibus provinciae Rio-de-Janeiro. Floret
Januario, Februario" (Grows in wet sands of the mountain called Serra-Negra
in the province of Minas Gerais, not far from the borders of the province
Rio de Janeiro. Flowers in January, February.)
Perhaps the hint to the bordering province may facilitate a decision?
> There is also a problem with the TYPE D.tomentosa (=D.montana
>var.tomentosa), which is supposedly from "Itambe, Minas Gerais". I
>thought this could be the Itambe Peak, just south of Diamantina, yet the
>D.montana I found growing there had much less hairy peduncles than the
>ones in the TYPE D.tomentosa material. Are there other places called
>Itambe, or is the TYPE location wrong?
Here, the respective citation reads:
"Crescit in paludosis montium prope Itambe in provincia Minas-Geraes alt.
circiter 2015 ped." (Grows in swamps of the mountains near Itambe in the
province Minas Gerais at an altitude of approximately 2015 feet). Well,
Frenchmen talking about feet in the 19th century may mean something rather
different from what we would assume nowadays (around 600 m). But the fact
that an altitude is mentioned could mean that the plant was collected in a
montane habitat. St.HILAIRE writes "mountains *near* Itambe" so I think he
means mountains *near* a village/city called Itambe or a mountain range
*neighbouring* the Itambe peak rather than this mountain itself.
> I don't doubt that collections
>could've gotten accidentally mixed up somewhere along the way. Not to
>mention that that particular collection seemed, to me, to be a mixed
>collection. Who knows who did the actual collections and how scrupulous
>or careful they were?
I simply cannot judge this.
> For G.aurea, the TYPE location is listed as "Serra de Caraca (the
>last "c" having that little 'leg' below and sounding like "ss") & Serra de
>Ibitipoca, Minas Gerais". I don't doubt that this species could occur at
>these 2 distant mountain ranges, but I've been to both and have never seen
>any trace of this species. I doubt they've gone extinct in these 2
>well-preserved areas, so were the location names messed up?
Again, no idea.
> By the way, Jan, I thought it was no longer allowed by modern
>taxonomy for a species to have more than one TYPE locality? So what's
>the deal with this species?
I have not seen this material (in P), so I do not know if there are
different specimens or just mixed collections on one sheet. If there are
indeed several separate specimens (SYNTYPES), one of these should be
selected as a LECTOTYPE.
Kind regards
Jan