Pterospermum obtusifolium Wight, Ill. Ind. Bot.

Pterospermum obtusifolium Wight, Ill. Ind. Bot. View in CoL 1: 78. 1838. Lectotype (designated here): INDIA, Tamil Nadu, Tirunelveli, Courtallum, s.d., Wight 227 (K [K000671799 digital image!]). Fig. 1 View Fig

Notes: While describing P. obtusifolium, Wight (1838) cited ‘ habo Courtallum in dense forest ’ without specifying any other collection details. The search of original materials in various herbaria (CAL, DD, E, K, MH, NY) resulted in finding six specimens collected by Wight from Courtallum during August 1835 ( Wight 227 [K000671799], Wight 67 [E00179745], Wight 168 [E00179046], Wight s.n. [E00179047] and Wight 66 [E00533322,

Received: 19.10.2019; Revised & Accepted: 31.12.2019 Published Online: 30.06.2020

rubiginosum View in CoL , and the name got enlisted in Wallich’s Numerical List (or Catalogue) ( Wallich, 1829). This name was later validated by Don (1831) by providing a description based on Heyne’s manuscript at LINN, without providing any specimen details. A thorough search for Heyne’s collection in various herbaria including LINN resulted in tracing seven specimens (with Wall. Numer. List No. 1168): E (E00273765, E00273766), G (G00358521, G00358522) and K (K001112279, K001112280, K000671803). Although, there is no specimen of this species by Heyne from East Indies ( India) annotated by Don available at LINN, the other specimens at different herbaria (E, G, K) have been considered here as the original materials according to article 9.4 of ICN ( Turland et al., 2018). Among them, the sheet K001112280 is here designated as the lectotype (or perhaps the neotype), since the annotation by B. Heyne is pasted on the top left side of the sheet and also fits well with the description provided in the protologue.