Cyperus mapanioides C.B.Clarke

Cyperus mapanioides C.B.Clarke View in CoL

Flora of Tropical Africa 8: 340 ( Clarke 1901).

REMARKS

This name was lectotypified by Griffiths et al. (2022) based on the specimen Hens 69 from L with an isolectotype at BR.

Clarke (1894: 568) came up with the new name Cyperus mapanioides but without a proper description ( nomen nudum). The name was later validated by Clarke himself (1901-1902: 340). He merely cited two collections: “Afr. occ.: Congo, Hens 7, 69”. Frans Hens (1856-1928) was a painter, who was the first Belgian to collect plant samples in Congo (in 1887 and 1888). His name was not mentioned by Stafleu & Cowan (1976 -1988), from which it can be deduced that he was a rather unimportant collector. However, several hundred Hens specimens are kept in BR, including both specimens cited by Clarke. Duplicates of both are preserved at K and L, with Hens 7 moreover also located at BM. The Hens 69 gathering (both the BR, K and L accessions) shows very young specimens with an inflorescence that is hardly exserted from the upper leaf sheath. Hens 7 from BR (the source herbarium), in turn, shows a complete specimen (in the K collection the roots are missing) with a mature inflorescence. The collection was annotated by Clarke on 11 December 1894.

It is clear that this latter collection, Hens 7, which is also kept in several large public herbaria, would have served better for a possible lectotypification. This collection was already (ineffectively) referred to as such in our monographic study ( Mesterházy et al. 2022).