Haplanthus laxiflorus (Blume) Gnanasek., G.V.S.Murthy & Y.F.Deng, 2016

2. Haplanthus laxiflorus (Blume) Gnanasek., G.V.S.Murthy & Y.F.Deng View in CoL , comb. nov.

Haplanthus laxiflorus (Blume) Gnanasek.,G.V.S.Murthy & Y.F.Deng. View in CoL — Justicia laxiflora Blume, Bijdr. (1826) View in CoL 789. — Andrographis laxiflora (Blume) Lindau (1895) View in CoL 323. — Type: Blume s.n. (holo L0003148), s.loc., s.dat.

Haplanthus tener Nees (1832) View in CoL 115. — Andrographis tenuiflora T. Anderson (1867) View in CoL 502, nom. illeg. — Type: Wallich Numer. List No. 7185a (holo K000014471), Myanmar, Tanintharyi, Tavoy, 2 Oct. 1827.

Haplanthus tener Nees var. elongatus Nees (1832) View in CoL 116, syn. nov. — Type: Wallich Numer. List No. 7185b (lecto K000014473 , here designated), Myanmar, Tanintharyi, Taong Dong , 24 Nov. 1826.

Gymnostachyum andrographioides T. Anderson (1867) View in CoL 504,syn.nov. — Type: Griffith s.n. (lecto CAL, here designated), Myanmar, s.dat.

Distribution — Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India,

Malesia, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam.

Notes — The present study corroborates the views of Hansen (1985) and Hu et al. (2011) that this species is highly variable in habit, leaf shape and size, and structure of inflorescence. The indumentum pattern on the leaves, inflorescence rachises, pedicels, bracts, bracteoles, calyces and capsule also varies considerably. Clarke (1884) recognised two varieties in this species, var. tenuiflora and var. recedens C.B.Clarke. He fur- ther distinguished var. tenuiflora into three distinct variations: tenuiflora , parishii and andrographioides . Here, we recognise var. parishii and var. recedens as varieties distinct from var. laxiflorus .

The name Haplanthus tener var. elongatus is lectotypified here. Nees (1832) described this taxon based on the collections of Wallich Numer. List No. 7185 b & c. An examination of these specimens shows that the specimen ‘ 7185b ’ has two gatherings collected from Prome marked as ‘ 7185b 1 ’ ( K000014474 ) and Taong Dong marked as ‘ 7185b 2 ’ ( K000014473 ) and specimen ‘ 7185c ’ collected from Tavoy ( K000014472 ). Of these, the specimen ‘ 7185b 2 ’ is selected here as the lectotype for this name since it is complete with flowers and also matches with the description provided in the protologue .

Similarly, the name Gymnostachyum andrographioides is also lectotypified here. Anderson (1867) cited ‘Hab. Assam, Masters!; Burmah, Griffith ! ’ in the protologue without stating any other details such as field numbers and place of herbarium. A thorough search of these specimens at different herbaria resulted in locating only the Griffith s.n. collected from Burma at CAL (Acc. No.: 341233) with the name of this species annotated by the original author. Therefore, this specimen is chosen here as the lectotype of this name.