Fosterella elata H.Luther
Taxonomic Change:
Literature references:
Comments:
- When Mez (1901) described Lindmania rusbyi, he refered just to one specimen, Rusby 2571, but did not choose a holotype from among the rather many duplicates. Smith & Downs (1974) designated the specimen Rusby 2571 (B) as holotype; however, following the ICBN (2005) it appears more appropriate to consider it as lectotype. Fosterella rusbyi was only known from a few collections made in the first half of the last century. In 1981, Harry Luther described F. elata, which he compared to F. penduliflora but not to F. rusbyi. Perhaps Luther did not take into account F. rusbyi as a similar species, because Smith & Downs (1974) stated that it had greenish petals, shortening the original description by Mez (1901) who wrote: ‘‘Petala sepalis duplo longiora, ut videtur virentia,’’ which means: petals twice as long as the sepals, apparently greenish. Since its original description, F. elata has frequently been collected and has turned out to be a rather common species in the understory of the Yungas rain forests of the La Paz department. After careful revision of the type material of F. rusbyi we came to the conclusion that it is impossible to detect any differences between F. rusbyi and F. elata. The latter name therefore is reduced to synonymy. —See Peters 2009 p. 29(2): 193
