Miconia rubescens Gamba & Almeda 2018, comb. nov.
Creators: name: Gamba, Diana
name: Almeda, Frank
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2018
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Plantae
Tracheophyta
Magnoliopsida
Myrtales
Melastomataceae
Miconia
Miconia rubescens

description: Miconia rubescens (Triana 1872: 146) Gamba & Almeda, comb. nov.
Basionym: Octopleura rubescens Triana (1872: 146). Ossaea rubescens (Triana 1872: 146) Cogniaux (1891a: 1067).
Type: COLOMBIA.Prov. Barbacoas: Arrastradero, 10 m, April 1853, Triana 6258/73 (holotype: BM-000603938, online image!; isotypes: BR-564004, online image!, COL-000003408, online image!). Non Miconia rubescens D. Don (1830: 174), invalid: nomen nudum.
Melastoma micranthum Swartz (1788: 71). Octopleura micrantha (Sw.) Grisebach (1860 b: 260). Ossaea micrantha (Sw.) Macfadyen ex Cogniaux (1891a: 1066). Miconia neomicrantha Judd & Skean (1991: 62). Type: JAMAICA. Swartz s.n. (holotype: S-3473, online image!; isotypes: C-10014953, online image!, LD-1258637, online image!). Non Miconia micrantha Cogniaux (1896: 12); nec M. micrantha Pilger (1905: 173), nomen illegit. = M. wittii Ule (1915: 367); nec M. micrantha Pittier (1947: 27), nom. illegit. = M. tabayensis Wurdack (1971: 359).
Sagraea neurocarpa Naudin (1852: 94). Type: syntypes not found among digital images online but probably at P for the Colombian syntypes and probably BM for the Jamaican syntype. In the protologue, Naudin cited Goudot s.n. and Bonpland s.n. from Colombia and Swartz s.n. from Jamaica. This species was not listed among the American species of Melastomataceae described by Naudin (Martin & Cremers 2007).
Ossaea caudata Cogniaux (1891a: 1066). Type: ECUADOR. Prope Quito, September, Jameson 390 (lectotype, here designated: G-DC-00328268, online image!; isolectotypes: BM-000603937, online image!, BR-564059, online image!, E-00285791, online image!, FI-004726, online image!)
Ossaea tetragona Cogniaux (1891b: 265). Type: COSTA RICA. Chemin de Carrillo, versant Atlantique, 300 m, 25 November 1890, Biolley 3148 (holotype: BR-519067!; isotypes: BR-519133!, BR-519100!).
This species, which was long known as Ossaea micrantha, was correctly deemed to be a Miconia by Judd & Skean (1991). Because the epithet “ micrantha ” was pre-empted in Miconia (see enumerated names above), Judd and Skean created the new name Miconia neomicrantha. They cited the basionym and replaced synonym but they did not cite any other synonyms. In our monograph (Gamba & Almeda 2014: 97) we accepted Miconia neomicrantha under which we included four other heterotypic synonyms. The epithets “ neurocarpa ”, “ caudata ”, and “ tetragona ” are pre-empted in Miconia (Goldenberg et al. 2013). At the time we also assumed that the epithet “ rubescens ” was also pre-empted by Miconia rubescens D. Don (1830: 124). We have since learned that this latter epithet and some others were published without a description or a diagnosis, or a reference to a former one. Don (1830) included Miconia rubescens in a table of species names with an English translation of specific epithets and symbols indicating habit, height of plant, flower color, date of introduction, and country of origin. This information is identical for several of the Miconia species on Don’s list and clearly is not intended as a validating description or diagnosis.A nearly identical example of nude names in another British catalogue is given in Article 38.2, Ex. 3 of the ICN (McNeill et al. 2012) for the third edition of Sweet’s Hortus britannicus (1839). According to the ICN, “names of new taxa appearing in that work are not therefore validly published, except in some cases where reference is made to earlier descriptions or diagnoses.” Thus, according to Article 38.1 of the ICN, M. rubescens D. Don is a nomen nudum and not validly published. This makes “ rubescens ” the only epithet for a heterotypic synonym available for a transfer to Miconia. The new combination provided here must replace Miconia neomicrantha, which according to our taxonomy is nomenclaturally superfluous because it included the type of a heterotypic synonym whose epithet was available and not already pre-empted in Miconia.
description: Published as part of Gamba, Diana & Almeda, Frank, 2018, New combinations in the Neotropical genus Miconia (Melastomataceae: Miconieae), pp. 298-300 in Phytotaxa 357 (4) on pages 298-299, DOI: 10.11646/phytotaxa.357.4.6, http://zenodo.org/record/13705758