Typification of the Presl's name Calamintha canescens (Lamiaceae)

Abstract

Calamintha canescens is a taxon described in the “Flora Sicula” by K. B. Presl (1826), following the visit made to Sicily a few years earlier (March-July 1817). In the protologue Presl does not report any data on the distribution in Sicily of this taxon that will be almost completely forgotten in later floristic works. Only Nyman (1881) and later Šilić (1979) consider it as a variety respectively of Calamintha nepeta (L.) Savi and C. glandulosa (Req.) Benth. Following the review of a group of critical European taxa belonging to the genus Clinopodium L., lately Melnikov (2016) recovers the ancient taxon Calamintha canescens C. Presl and transfers it to the genus Clinopodium L. Also, the author considers Cl. raimondoi Spadaro, Faqi & Mazzola—taxon recently described from the western outskirts of the city of Palermo (Sicily) (Spadaro et al. 2016)— conspecific to Cl. canescens and synonymous of the Presl’s taxon. A detailed taxonomic study of Calamintha canescens allowed to verify the correspondence with Clinopodium raimondoi (Spadaro et al. 2016; Spadaro et al. 2021a, 2021b) and revealed that the Presl’s name has not yet been typified (Peruzzi et al. 2015, 2019). Here, we address the typification of the name Calamintha canescens as part of ongoing studies on the names of vascular plants described from Sicily (e.g., Di Gristina et al. 2012, 2016, 2017, 2020, 2021; Domina et al. 2014, 2016, 2017a, 2017b; Scafidi & Domina 2019; Scafidi et al. 2020; Traclet et al. 2017).