Boufford, D.E. and B. Bartholomew. 2012. Premna wuii (Verbenaceae), a new name for Premna velutina C.Y. Wu. Phytoneuron 2012-80: 1. Published 12 September 2012. ISSN 2153 733X

PREMNA WUH (VERBENACEAE), A NEW NAME FOR PREMNA VELUTINA C.Y. WU

DAvID E. BOUFFORD Harvard University Herbaria 22 Divinity Avenue Cambridge, Massachussetts 02138-2020 david_boufford@harvard. edu

BRUCE BARTHOLOMEW Department of Botany California Academy of Sciences 55 Music Concourse Drive San Francisco, California 94118

bruce. barthol com

ABSTRACT Anew name, Premna wuii Boufford & B.M. Barthol. (Verbenaceae), is proposed to replace P. velutina C.Y. Wu, a later homonym of P. vehitina Giirke. Premna wuii is known only from western Yunnan Province, China.

KEY WORDS: Premna, Verbenaceae, Flora of China, new name, Yunnan

The appropriately named and distinctive Premna velutina C.Y. Wu (see also Wu and Raven, 1998) was, unfortunately, not recognized as a later homonym of P. velutina Giirke in the treatment published in the Flora of China (Chen & Gilbert 1994) nor in the earlier published treatment in Flora Reipublicae Popularis Sinicae (Chen 1982) and only recently came to light during routine identifications of specimens of Premna collected in western Yunnan. Because it is such a distinct species and easily separated from its apparent closest relative, P. mekongensis W. Smith, we therefore propose the following new name as a replacement.

PREMNA WUII Boufford & B.M. Barthol., nom. nov., based on Premna velutina C.Y. Wu, FI. Yunnan. 1: 428, pl. 102, f. 8-10. 1977. Not Girke, Pflanzenw. Ost-Afrikas 100: 338. 1895.

We are pleased to name this species for Professor Wu Zhengyi (Wu Cheng-Yi), who has devoted his life to the study of Chinese plants and whose knowledge of the Chinese flora is beyond comparison.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We thank Professor Li Heng for examining the type specimen of Premna velutina C.Y. Wu in the herbarium of the Kunming Institute of Botany (KUN) and comparing it with recent collections made in the Gaoligong Shan region of Yunnan, China.

LITERATURE CITED Chen, S.L. 1982. Premna L. In C. Pei and S.L. Chen (eds.). Flora of China 65(1): 81-119. Chen, S.L and M.G. Gilbert. 1994. Verbenaceae. In Z.Y. Wu and P. H. Raven (eds.). Flora of China 17: 1-49. Wu, Z.Y. and P.H. Raven (eds.). 1998. Flora of China Illustrations 17: fig. 61, 4-7.