Lectotypification of the name Carex ledebouriana (Cyperaceae)

Abstract: In this article I reconsider the lectotypification of the name Carex ledebouriana C. A. Mey. ex Trevir. (Cyperaceae). In 1833, Meyer described an unnamed variety of C. capillaris L. based on the gatherings of Ledebour from two localities (river Koksun and near Riddersk) in what is today the Kazakhstan Altai. In 1863, Treviranus validly published the name C. ledebouriana, referring to Meyer's unnamed variety and erroneously citing a gathering by Bunge “in summis alpibus Kuraicis”. A herbarium sheet at LE with barcode LE 01006839 was proposed as the (lecto)type of C. ledebouriana by Egorova in 1999 and this was confirmed by Grabovskaya-Borodina in 2012. In studying the original material, I found that sheet LE 01006839 in fact consists of three fragments belonging to two different gatherings and has an incorrect label. These two gatherings are further represented at LE by sheets LE 01006840 and LE 01006841, respectively. I argue that sheet LE 01006839 is not eligible as a type specimen because it consists of two gatherings. Instead, I designate here as the lectotype sheet LE 01006841, which contains well-preserved plants collected by Ledebour with mature utricles. Citation: Shekhovtsova I. N. 2018: Lectotypification of the name Carex ledebouriana (Cyperaceae). – Willdenowia 48: 383 – 389. doi: https://doi.org/10.3372/wi.48.48307 Version of record first published online on 7 November 2018 ahead of inclusion in December 2018 issue.


Introduction
Typification is one of the pillars of plant systematics. In this study I revise the lectotypification of the name Carex ledebouriana C. A. Mey. ex Trevir. (Cyperaceae), an arctic-alpine species widespread in the north of European Russia, as well as in Siberia, the Russian Far East, E Kazakhstan, and N Mongolia. Carex ledebouriana was described from collections of C. F. Ledebour from what is today the Kazakhstan Altai.

Material and methods
The holdings of the Herbarium of the Komarov Botanical Institute of RAS (LE), which maintains the collections of C. F. Ledebour, were studied. Relevant literature was examined, including the published diaries of the members of the 1826 Altai expedition (Ledebour 1829(Ledebour , 1830 for information on the collections mentioned by Meyer.

Lectotypification of Carex ledebouriana
From material collected during the 1826 Altai and East Kazakhstan expeditions of C. F. Ledebour, C. A. Meyer described an unnamed variety of Carex capillaris L. in the Flora altaica (Fig. 1). The variety was collected by Ledebour from the highlands near the source of the Koksun river (currently the Koksa river, Koksui ridge), and from the Krestovaya mountain near Riddersk (currently In Flora rossica, L. C. Treviranus mentioned this variety as Carex capillaris "β. spicula mascula subovata, feminarum squamis utriculum aequantibus. Fl. Alt. l.c. p. 228." He provided no specific information on its distribution in Siberia, citing only "Hab. in … Sibiria altaica! (Fl. Alt.)" within the range statement for the species (Treviranus 1852: 295).
Later, Treviranus (1863) validly published the name Carex ledebouriana (Fig. 3). In noting that C. ledebourii Boiss. & Buhse (close to C. frigida All.) should not be confused with C. ledebouriana, he cited from Meyer's label (on sheet LE 01006839, see Fig. 2): "C. ledebouriana Mey. quae est C. capillaris varietas spica mascula clavata (Fl. Alt. IV. 228)", provided some further description of the female spikes, and remarked that this species was collected by Bunge in the uppermost belt of the Kuray ridge. In citing Meyer's herbarium label ( Fig. 2), Treviranus added Bunge's name as the collector, presumably because Bunge was the only one of the three members of the expedition who visited the Kuray mountains.
Since that time, all botanical studies have repeated the statement that Carex ledebouriana was published based on the collections of Bunge from the Kuray ridge of the Altai Mountains.
I thoroughly studied the original material of Carex ledebouriana on three herbarium sheets (LE 01006839, LE 01006840 and LE 01006841) in the Herbarium of the Komarov Botanical Institute of RAS (LE). I found that the material on sheet LE 01006839 appears to be of mixed origin. Based on the habit of the plants and their life stage (flower-or fruit-bearing) it is obvious that sheet LE 01006839 (Fig. 2) contains two specimens from two different gatherings. If one compares these specimens with two other Ledebour specimens at LE, it is evident that the small plant on the left in the flowering stage is a duplicate of the specimen on sheet LE 01006840 (Fig. 4) and was collected on 10 June on the Koksui ridge, whereas the two plant fragments on the right with mature utricles are a duplicate of the specimen on sheet LE 01006841 (Fig. 5) and were collected on 8 July on the Krestovaya mountain.  (Fig. 4); B: two plant fragments of the right, duplicate specimen (isolectotype) of LE 01006841 (Fig. 5).

Shekhovtsova: Lectotypification of Carex ledebouriana
The sheet LE 01006839 (Fig. 2) cited as the type of Carex ledebouriana by Egorova and Grabovskaya-Borodina has neither an original collector's label nor location data. The label written by Meyer (Fig. 6A) cites his original publication of the unnamed variety of C. capillaris, as noted above. The remark on the label "in summis alpibus Kuraicis" is erroneous and does not apply to this material. Meyer did not mention Bunge in his treatment of the unnamed variety of C. capil laris in Flora altaica (Fig. 1). Bunge's gatherings were, however, listed under the distribution of C. capillaris, as "in insulis Kuraicis (B[unge].)". From Bunge's diary (Ledebour 1830: 77) it is clear that this referred to islands on the Chuya river, where he collected specimens on 26 May 1826: "Die Tschuja, die in diesem weitem Thal einen freiern Spielraum gewinnt, theilt sich hier in mehrere Arme, wodurch Inseln gebildet werden, die ich zum Unterschiede von den höher liegenden, die Kuraischen nennen will." (The Chuya, which gains a freer scope in this wide valley, divides here into several arms, whereby islands are formed, which, to distinguish them from those upstream, I want to call the Kuraic [islands].) It is clear that Meyer indicated two particular collection points for his unnamed variety: (1) high mountains near the source of the Koksun river and (2) the Krestovaya mountain near Riddersk, and gatherings from these two localities are what appears on the sheet that bears Meyer's original label. Carex ledebouriana was described by Treviranus based on Ledebour's collections from what is currently the Kazakhstan Altai, not those of Bunge from the Russian Altai. The citation of Bunge's gatherings for C. ledebouriana is thus erroneous.
We can conclude that the three abovementioned sheets (LE 01006839, LE 01006840 and LE 01006841) contain four specimens, i.e. two duplicate specimens each of two gatherings, which can be treated as original material for the name Carex ledebouriana. We should note that both gatherings belong to the species as it is currently understood. However, the type designation of sheet LE 01006839 proposed by Egorova and cited by Grabovskaya-Borodina is unacceptable: because this sheet contains more than one gathering, it is not a specimen (Turland & al. 2018: Art. 8.2) and cannot be a lectotype (Turland & al. 2018: Art. 9.3, 9.17) and, as mentioned above, neither Egorova nor Grabovskaya-Borodina specified a particular part of the material on the sheet as the lectotype or mentioned Kreczetowicz's annotation. Because of their fragmentary nature and the incorrect label, neither of the specimens on the sheet LE 01006839 would be a desirable choice anyway. I therefore designate as the lectotype the Ledebour specimen from Krestovaya mountain (sheet LE 01006841), which contains well-preserved plants with mature utricles. The current application of the name C. ledebouriana is not changed by this nomenclatural act.  Fig. 2]).
The label of sheet LE 01006840 (Fig. 6B) was also written by Ledebour, and it additionally bears a pencil note in Meyer's handwriting: "capillaris varietas". In his diary, Ledebour (1829)