Any objections to merging G. uniflora into G. herbacea? @marcoschmidtffm @lincolndurey @animuswild @galanhsnu @jasonhernandez74 @agboola @andreas_berger

There are just 6 observations of uniflora

https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:1211972-2

See also flags
https://www.inaturalist.org/flags/523306
https://www.inaturalist.org/flags/639886

Thanks, Jason! I tagged the top identifiers and observers from the leaderboard, but because of the way the leaderboard works, you may only have added Geophila identifications, for example, and not species-level IDs

Thanks, Marco! From that paper you linked: "The oldest validly published name for the paleotropical plants that have been included in Geophila repens appears to be Geophila uniflora Hiern, which is here adopted as the accepted name; further study of Geophila in southeast Asia may show that an earlier name exists but is outside the scope of this present work."

Let's hold off on any changes for now until the recommendation is clear. The ideal situation would be to make the case to POWO for them to make any change to their current arrangement, and then follow that here on iNaturalist.

We have recently had a debate about the identification of south Pacific species working on the checklist of Vanuatu flora. Here is a suscint conclusion: "Geophila repens had formerly been considered Pantropical, but is now restricted to the New World; Old World populations are sometimes listed as G. herbacea (Jacq.) K. Schum., but Razafimandimbison et al., 2014, clarifies that this name is a superfluous later name and thus illegitimate, and that G. uniflora Hiern (non Span.) is the correct name. We follow this interpretation, which is also reflected in the Tropicos Rubiaceae Project webpages." In my understanding POWO was reflecting some of the older views on those taxa.

Rafaël from Kew responded already to my email. He argues that the conclusion from the 2014 paper about Geophila herbacea/uniflora is flawed, and that G. herbacea is the correct name. Here is his message (I can't see how to convert the linked images correctly in markdown, so have left them as links):

Dear Ben,

The arguments in that 2014 paper are floored, There is no indication that “The name Psychotria herbacea Jacq. does apply to the paleotropical plants that have been included in Geophila repens, however this is not the same species as Geophila herbacea K.Schum.,”. Schumann clearly referred to https://ipni.org/n/212871-2, there is no evidence at all that he referred to Rondeletia repens L., nor is there any explanation why the author came to that conclusion.

Here some more that I wrote so other who asked me the same recently (seems that time of year :) )

“There does seem to be confusing, that is people mixing nomenclature and taxonomy.

There is no such thing as Psychotria herbacea L. as Linnaeus clearly included Psychotria herbacea Jacq. by citing the only original material:

https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/11628699#page/261/mode/1up

an isonyms at best (which has no standing anyway).

Jacquin: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/622933#page/19/mode/1up

so Geophila herbacea (Jacq.) K.Schum. is correct as Schumann too does not exclude the Asian plants from Jacquin and the “L.” is just an indirect reference to Jacquin as there is no Linnaean new taxon.

https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/32102299#page/135/mode/1up

Best wishes,

Rafaël

Thanks, Marco! I'll draft the swap to merge G. uniflora into G. herbacea