NOMENCLATURE OF THE NARROW-LEAVED FRINGED GENTIAN OF THE GREAT LAKES REGION, GENTIANOPSIS VIRGATA (RAF.) HOLUB (GENTIANACEAE)

摘要

Many readers will be familiar with the spectacular displays of the narrow-leaved fringed gentian in flower that appear each fall at such popular naturalists' destinations as Waugoshance Point and Grass Bay in Michigan and Dorcas Bay, Petrel Point, and St. Jean Point on the Bruce Peninsula in Ontario. With this species being so well known and so much admired, it is unfortunate that its correct specific epithet has long been in question. Historically, this species was known as Gentiana procera Holm. Now it is generally placed in Gentianopsis Y.C. Ma, as substantial morphological and molecular evidence indicates that the fringed gentians are more closely related to certain other, widely accepted genera than to Gentiana in a stricter sense. As a species of Gentianopsis, it was initially called G. procera (Holm) Y.C. Ma. More recently, it has sometimes been designated G. virgata (Raf.) Holub. Gillett (1982) was apparently the first definitely to associate this name with the species hitherto called G. procera, as consultant on Gentianopsis for the United States Department of Agriculture National List of Scientific Plant Names, and in annotations of specimens at DBN in 1986 (Nelson & Dore 1987). This name was also adopted in the second edition (1984) of Morton & Venn's Flora of Manitoulin Island, in the Ontario floristic lists by Morton & Venn (1990) and Newmaster et al. (1998), in the Checklist of vascular plants of Bruce and Grey counties, Ontario (Bruce-Grey Plant Committee 1995), and in other Ontario checklists in which those references were followed. The epithet virgata dates from late 1837, and thus has 64 years' priority over procera, if these epithets are considered to be applicable to the same species.