Pinguicula chuquisacensis - a new species

[ICPS-bob]

Beck, S. G., Fleischmann, A., Huaylla, H., Müller, K. F. & Borsch, T. (2008) Pinguicula chuquisacensis (Lentibulariaceae), a new species from the Bolivian Andes, and first insights on phylogenetic relationships among South American Pinguicula. Willdenowia 38: 201-212.

www.bgbm.org/willdenowia/w-pdf/wi38-1Beck+al.pdf
www.bgbm.org/willdenowia/willd38/beck+al.htm

[Brian Barnes]

Great article and photos Bob!
Thanks for sharing that....Hmmm...looks like some sort of Utricularia growing amongst them in the photograph as well.
Wonder if Barry will spot that and let us know what it is? ...

Happy Growing,
Brian.

[andreasfleischmann]

Hi Brian,

No, that's no Utricularia, but a liverwort. But I'm glad that there are some other people who try to find bladderworts almost everywhere, haha

All the best,

Andreas

[PingKing]

great find.

cheers

xavier

[BarryRice]

Hey Folks,

The inestimable Bob Ziemer pointed out to me that this plant may be familiar to us by the (slightly) older name, Pinguicula jarmilae. It turns out that, much to my surprise, the name "Pinguicula jarmilae " might not have been properly published, and so may be invalid...

Interesting.

[BarryRice]

Hey Folks,

OK, it seems that things are a bit more complicated than I thought.

There is no doubt that the names P. jarmilae and P. chuquisacensis apply to the same plant. But the question is, what name should be used? The rule of priority says that the first name that is validly published must be use. So, you might infer that the name P. jarmilae is the correct name, and that P. chuquisacensis is merely a synonym.

However, things are a bit trickier than that. Apparently, there is some question if P. jarmilae was properly published. The journal describing it, Acta Musei Richnoviensis, is a somewhat obscure journal. I understand that it produces electronic copies of its journal, but that paper copies are available to the public on demand.

Jan Schlauer tells me that, in his opinion, the P. jarmilae name was properly published, but I hear dissenting perspectives on the web. I don't really know what to make of it at this point. However, for now I'll just note that both names apply to the same critter.

I ran into a similar situation when I was writing the Pinguicula treatment for the new Flora of California. The editors decided that the International Pinguicula Studies Group was too obscure, and so would not accept Pinguicula macroceras subsp. nortensis as a valid name.

Cheers

Barry

[andreasfleischmann]

Hi Barry,

This is indeed a complicated story! And my Bolivian colleagues are quite angry that Halda collected this Pinguicula (and several other Bolivian plants) without having any permits. The regard him as a "criminal", and want to do everything possible to make his description invalid. I'm more patient, let's see what happens. (There are already some precendences of orchid publications based on stolen material - however those new species had been stolen out of a greenhouse, not a country ). So far, a species publication is valid if correctly published following the rules of ICBN, no matter how or where the type material was collected.

Halda's description of P. jarmilae entered the Index Kewensis at the 16th of April 2008, thus it seems like there was indeed at least on printed issue of that Acta Musei Richnov.? However, I'm still not able to find any printed matter other than Halda's personally distributed pdf-files of that article (which would not be a valid publication according to ICBN).

And there's still no holotype of P. jarmilae, the one cited in the protologue (Halda 07112001; should be filed as PR 11972 in Prague Herbarium) is not available on demand.

I'll keep you updated, but it seems like we have indeed just produced a later synonym of P. jarmilae (however still the better description, haha! )

Andreas

[BarryRice]

Hi Andreas,

It is frustrating when plant descriptions are based upon illegally collected material! On the other hand, as you have noted elsewhere, illegally collected material does not invalidate the ICBN description.

If it turns out that there really is no holotype available for P. jarmilae, and if Acta Musei Richnoviensis is considered an adequate publication venue, would it be more appropriate to accept a new neotype for P. jarmilae, instead of adopting the newer name P. chuquisacensis ?

REGARDLESS of whether P. chuquisacensis is ultimately adopted, I think that your findings regarding P. elongata 's placement in the genus to be extremely interesting and important.

Cheers

Barry

[rsivertsen]

Barry, Andreas,

This is an interesting thread! Although it would be ideal to have collected herbarium specimens with all the required permits and paperwork, sometimes these things can set a dangerous precedent, especially when you consider all the various levels of permissions that are now required to collect Heliamphora; even at a local level, someone may contest the rightful ownership of the land on which the specimen was collected, and throw out previous years of hard and honest work!
Sometimes we have to chose the lesser of evils in life.

Politics and all aside, the science must take precedence.

just my $0.02 worth. - Rich

[BarryRice]

Aug 26, 2008 22:09:39 GMT rsivertsen said:

Politics and all aside, the science must take precedence.

Hey Rich,

I agree with the spirit of what you have to say. But a frustrating consequence of illegally collected material, even if it produces new science, is that those field workers who are operating within the law, have a harder time getting permits etc.

This is exactly parallel to how poachers make things harder for those of us engaged in legal horticulture.

I'd also add that science should not take precedence over the safe conservation of the organism.

[rsivertsen]

Hey Barry,

Being a field botanist, (as you well know) can be a frustrating and thankless job at times! In a perfect world, ... (like so many other things in real life!). Unforeseen things just happen, despite the best laid plans, and all. Frustrations of the field botanist can cause him to document plants from totally different sites, just in order to comply with his paperwork, or even cause him to be deliberately misleading in order to prevent poaching or having discovered plants that may in fact actually occur on lands outside his permit documentation. Like I said earlier, sometimes life hands us the uncomfortable choices of the lesser of evils.

Over the years, I've heard accounts from other botanic field trips and field botanists, who have confided in me that they have actually documented plants that were originally found on nearby private property, but they only had permission to collect specimens from an adjacent public land, and so in order to comply with their permission documents, recorded the plants within the wrong geological area.

It seems harmless, at first, but in one case, the real site was destroyed when the property was sold, and developed, and the entire population of these plants were gone. They were rare fern hybrids with the walking fern (Camptosorus rhizophyllus) which also had some unique Botrichium ferns.

- Rich