Cactaceae Systematics Initiatives

Bulletin oltke International Cactaceae Systematics Group

Edited by David Hunt September 2001

ICSG Conference 4-7 June 2001 Our focus on problematic groups in a geographical area where many of the participants had had field experience produced perhaps our most enjoyable and thought-provoking meeting to date. Nevertheless, after some 500 slides and some fifteen hours of "round table" discussions, continued with varying degrees of coherence in various country pubs* and late into the night, James Iliff(p. 19) was not the only one "bemused" by all he had seen and heard. Mter all the talk in darkened rooms, were we still in the dark? Perhaps, but a report of the proceedings, which all present at the conference have had a chance to amend before publication, follows on pp. 3-13 and this is followed by several postscripts stimulated by the discussions (pp. 14-21, 25-27).

The Cactus Family In his review ofTed Anderson's book, The Cactus Family, Myron Kimnach (Cact. Succ. J. 73(2): 71-72. 2001) confesses that two of the species he (Myron) published turn out to have had false locality data - and he "should have notified Anderson earlier of their now doubtful status". The species concerned are Epiphyllum floribundum and Selenicereus innesii, both of them garden hybrids masquerading as introduced species as a result of muddled labels.

For my part, I have already confessed (CSI 10: 24. 2000) to the initial error which doubtless led Ted to treat Trichocereus tenuispinus Ritter as a synonym of Echinopsis bridgesii (though I disclaim responsibility for his inclusion of Trichocereus bridgesii, which belongs under E. lageniformis - where he cites it again! - and his mis-spelling "bridgesi"). Some of the incorrect or questionable picture captions in the book may also stem from incorrect synonymy in CCC2 which Ted generally used as his benchmark. His application ofthe common name Peanut Cactus to Echinopsis silvestrii rather than E. chamaecereus seems to me no more nutty than my statement (CSI 10: 28) that Cintia knizei was "Described from Peru, not Bolivia". Alas, the nonsense one publishes accumulates over the years, but it does make one more sympathetic to the gaffes of other authors!

*No names, no pack drill: On the last evening, a usually abstemious participant ordered a bottle of Chilean Sauvignon and found it much to his taste, "Have another glass, * * * ''', suggested another diner at his table, " - at last you're beginning to make sense'"

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and M. crassispina above I'd be happier if a typical specimen of the supposed subspecies had been identified for comparison. I don't remember his photos of this taxon being very out of the ordinary.

It didn't seem that Tunilla soehrensii, O. sphaerica and 0. miquelii presented any special problems.

On the nomenclature of the genus Cylindropuntia

Alexander B. Doweld National Institute of Carpology (Gaertnerian Institution), P.O. Box 72, RUS-119517, Moscow, Russian Federation e-mail: nicaT<lPaha.ru

During the revision of subfam. Opuntioideae Burnett, a new tribe Cylindro­puntieae Doweld has been recently established (Doweld 1999) to accommodate three North American cylindroid genera: Cylindropuntia, Marenopuntia Backeb. and Grusonia Britt. & Rose (incl. Micropuntia Daston, Corynopuntia F.M. Knuth) . A preliminary nomenclatural review of the genera of Cylindropuntieae reveals that the genus Cylindropuntia was first established by F.M. Knuth (1930), who raised subg. Cylindropuntia Engelm. to generic level, although usually the authorship is credited to both Backeberg & Knuth (1936) (Hunt 1999). In Knuth's book (Knuth 1930: 102, 105) there is no full reference to basionym subg. Cylindropuntia Engelm., Syn. Cact. US, 33, 46 (1856, preprinted from Proc. Amer. Acad. Sci. 3: 289, 302. 1857), but a new provision of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (Greuter et aI., 2000) treats this situation explicitly: "If, for a presumed new combination, no reference to a basionym is given but the epithet of a previously and validly published name that applies to the same taxon is adopted, the new combination is validly published as such if, and only if, it would otherwise be validly published as the name of a new taxon (Art. 33.2)". Thus, the correct authorship of Cylindropuntia is "(Engelm.) F .M. Knuth".

The situation with the type of the genus is more complex. Knuth (1930) did not designate the type of the genus in his book, but later (Backeberg & Knuth 1936: 118) Knuth proposed Opuntia imbricata Haw. as a type of the genus. His co-author, Backeberg (1942: 13), changed the type to 0. kleiniae DC. for unexplained reasons, although later he reverted to Knuth' s type, O. imbricata (Backeberg 1958: 166). However, neither of the species mentioned is eligible under ICBN to be the type of Cylindropuntia, because the type must be the same as that of the subgeneric name Cylindropuntia on which it is based (ICBN, Art. 7.4) and should be selected from among the original elements included in Engelmann's subgenus. 21 species were included by Engelmann (1856) under subg. Cylindropuntia (0. acanthocarpa Engelm. & Bigelow, 0. arborescens Engelm. , O. arbuscula Engelm., O. bigelovii Engelm., 0. bulbispina Engelm., 0.

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clauata Engelm., O. dauisii Engelm. & Bigelow, O. emoryi Engelm., 0. frutescens Engelm., O. fulgida Engelm., 0. grahamii Engelm., O. mamillata Schott ex Engelm., O. parryi Engelm. , O. prolifera Engelm., O. schottii Engelm., O. serpentina Engelm., 0. tessellata Engelm., O. thurberi Engelm., 0. uaginata Engelm., O. whipplei Engelm. & Bigelow, 0. wrightii Engelm.). Only five of these were also included by Knuth in the genus: 0. arborescens, O. arbuscula, 0. bigelouii, 0. bulbispina and 0. echinocarpa. Thus, 0. imbricata was not mentioned by either Engelmann or Knuth and cannot be accepted as the type of Cylindropuntia. The same is true for 0. kleiniae, and a new type of the genus must be selected from the five species common to both original protologues. I propose to choose O. arbuscula:

Cylindropuntia (Engelm.) F .M. Knuth, Den Nye Kaktusbog: 105 (1930, after August). Basionym: Opuntia subg. Cylindropuntia Engelm., Syn. Cact. US, 33, 46 (1856, prepririt from Proc. Amer. Acad. Sci. 3: 289, 302. 1857)*. Type (designated here): 0. arbuscula Engelm.

Acknowledgments I am grateful to Mr Roy Mottram for literature and data supplied for study. Thanks are due to Prof. Werner Greuter (Berlin-Dahlem) and Dr Gea Zijlstra (Utrecht) for comments.

References BACKEBERG, C. (1942). Cactaceae Lindley. Systematische Ubersicht (Neubearbeitung) mit

Beschreibungsschliissel. Cactaceae (Berlin) 1941(2): 1-80. -- (1958). Die Cactaceae vol. 1. Jena: Gustav Fischer Veriag. -- & KNUTH, F.M. (1936 (1935)). Kaktus-ABC. Copenhagen. DOWELD, A.B . (1999). Tribal taxonomy of Pereskioideae and Opuntioideae (Cactaceae).

Sukkulenty/Succulents (Moscow) 1999(1): 25-26. ENGELMANN, G.E. (1856 (1857)). Synopsis of the Cactaceae of the Territory of the United

States and adjacent regions. Proc. Amer. Acad. Sci. 3: 259-314, 345-346. --& BIGELOW, J.M. (1856 (1857)). Description of the Cactaceae. In: Repts. Explor. Surv.

Railroad Mississippi-Pacific 4(5): 27-58 (US Senate 33d Congr., 2nd Sess., Doc. 78). GREUTER, W. et al. (eds) (2000). International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (Saint Louis

Code). Regnum Veg. 138. HUNT, D. (comp.) (1999). CITES Cactaceae Checklist, ed. 2. Richmond, Surrey: Royal

Botanic Gardens Kew and International Organization for Succulent Plant Study. KNUTH, F.M. (1930). Den Nye Kaktusbog. Copenhagen.

*The subgeneric name Cylindropuntia appeared also in another paper (Engelmann & Bigelow, 1856: 48), but without any validating description or diagnosis, to which there is a direct reference in Engelmann (1856).

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