Phytoneuron

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.