Solanum bahamense L. var. rugelii D’Arcy, Ann. Missouri Bot. Gard. 61: 839. 1974

Type: USA. Florida: Monroe Co., Key West, F. Rugel s.n. (holotype, MO).

Distribution. Widespread in the West Indies in coastal forests, forest margins and on beach margins, often on coral or calcareous soils, from 0-100 m. Absent from Hispaniola, but found on Ile la Tortue and Ile la Navasse off the NW coast of Haiti.

Representative specimen. Bahamas, Bimini, Cat Cay, Correll & Correll 45600 (F, NY).

In describing Solanum fruticosum, Miller (1768) cited “ Solanum fruticosum bacciferum, spinosum, flore caeruleo Sl. C. 108 ” and made reference to the collector William Houstoun. The specimen selected here as the lectotype for this name in BM is annotated with the same reference to Sloane, and bears a label in Houstoun’s hand (Fig. 1a). It is also a good match for the description.

Solanum varginstonicum was named by Buc’hoz in honour of George Washington, with a spectacular misspelling of the name. No specimens have been traced for Buc’hoz’s names, so the plate (Fig. 1b) is selected here as the lectotype.

In his description of Solanum persicifolium, Dunal (1813) cites two pre-Linnean sources; Plumier’s (1703) catalogue (“Plumier cat. 4”) bound with the Nova Plantarum Americanarum (Plumier, 1703) and the larger compilation of Plumier’s American plants illustrated by Johannes Burman from tracings of Plumier’s originals held in Paris (“Burm., Plant. Amer. p. 240, t. 244, fig. 2”; Plumier, 1755-1760, see Jarvis, 2007 for a discussion of Plumier’s plates). On page 4 in Plumier’s 1703 catalogue is the polynomial “ Solanum fruticosum, persicae foliis, aculeatum ”; this same polynomial is associated with plate 244 in the illustrated edition (Plumier, 1757). In the Prodromus (Dunal, 1852), Dunal cites several specimens, stating that the Burman plate was “mala”. The Burman plate, however, is the only verifiable element associated with the original description (although Dunal may have seen the originals in Paris) and is thus here selected as the lectotype (Fig. 1c).

Solanum igneum var. inerme was described by Dunal using two sheets in G-DC (Dunal, 1852), one without a collector from Cuba and the other a cultivated specimen from seeds send by Wydler from St. Thomas. He speculates that the un-armed nature of the plant is due to it being cultivated (Dunal, 1852), and places S. subarmatum tentatively in synonymy. The only unambiguously identifiable sheet cited is Wydler 90 from St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands; it is here selected as the lectotype (not illustrated).

In describing Solanum bahamense var. lanceolatum, Grisebach unambiguously cites a plate from Sloane as part of the diagnosis, and additionally assigned some of the specimens cited (without herbarium attribution) to this variety. I feel that he is specifically referring to the Sloane plate as the element on which he is basing his name, and merely identifying the other collections as belonging to one or the other variety, thus these specimens are probably not type material. Two specimens at GOET annotated “? lanceolatum” in Grisebach’s hand are potential original material, but the Sloane plate is the only element unambiguously linked to the variety. I therefore have chosen the plate in Sloane’s A voyage to the islands Madera … Jamaica (1707-1725) labelled Solanum fruticosum bacciferum spinosum, flore caeruleo” as the lectotype of the variety (Fig. 1d). The epitype of this name with the same polynomial designation is found in the Sloane herbarium at BM (BM000589942, Fig. 1e).

Five collections were cited in the protologue of Solanum persicifolium var. belloi; Heller 4605, Sintenis 1260, Sintenis 1919 p.p., Eggers 35 and Benzoin s.n. Of these, Heller 4605 is the most widely distributed and has several sheets in very good condition and the sheet at F (Fig. 1f) is here selected as the lectotype.