The Latin name for Assam tea revisited and the further nomenclatural significance of the three editions of Julius Bosse's Vollständiges Handbuch der Blumengärtnerei – and contemporary compendia

Abstract

Two early validly published names for Assam tea (Camellia sinensis var. assamica "(Choisy) Kitam.)") are identified: Thea assamica Royle ex Hook. 1847 and T. assamica Hort. Belg. ex Bosse 1854; an amended synonymy and a neotypification (with D.-W. Zhao) for the name of Assam tea, C. sinensis var. assamica (Hook.) Steenis, are provided. The three editions (1829-1861) of Bosse's Vollständiges Handbuch der Blumengärtnerei are also the neglected places of publication of some plant-names (or their basionyms) in current use; Grevillea lawrenceana Bosse (neotype designated here by P.M. Olde) is an earlier name for G. curviloba McGill. (Proteaceae); Hedera algeriensis (Araliaceae), the name used by Bosse for a now much-cultivated ivy, was first published by Morren in 1853; an early valid, available name for the florist's cineraria (Senecio hybridus Bosse) is Cineraria ×kewensis Rob. (Compositae), here neotypified (with D.J.N. Hind); the basionym for the well-known garden plant-name, "Erysimum ×kewense" (Cruciferae) is identified and neotypified (with D.J.N. Hind), the accepted binomial validated. The currently accepted name for commercial fustic, Maclura tinctoria (Moraceae), was first validly published in Loudon's Hortus Britannicus (1830).

Taxonomic revision of Camellia (Theaceae) in Thailand

“…1847. Neotype (designated by Mabberley [2021 : 1354]): India. Assam, January–February 1836, W. Griffith s.n.…”

“…The nomenclature of C. sinensis var. assamica has been clarified in recent studies ( Zhao et al 2017b ; Mabberley 2021 ; a review in Chinese see Zhao 2022a ). Thea assamica was not validly published in Masters (1844) but later validated in Hooker (1847) .…”