Of Kelp & Cacti - The First Mammillaria, and a Kelp that was an opuntia.
This historical narrative is based on the following references, cited in chronological order
- Simone Wartono, 1689, Schola Botanica sive Catalogus Plantarum
- Johannes Commelin, 1697, Horti medici Amstelodamensis rariorum tam Orientalis
- Samuel Goodenough & Thomas Jenkinson Woodward, 1797, Observations of the British Fuci, Transactions of the Linnaean Society of London. 3: 84-235
- Stackhouse, 1809, Mémoires de la Society Imperiale des Naturalistes de Moscou, 2: 50-97
- Adrian Hardy Hayworth, 1812, Plantarum Succulentarum
- R.K. Greville, 1830, Algae Brittanicae
- Friedrich Traugott Kutzing, 1843, Phycologicia Generalis oder Anatomie, Physiologie, und Systemkunde der Tange
- Nathaniel Lord Britton & Joseph Nelson Rose, 1920, The Cactaceae
- M. Parke & P.S. Dixon, 1976, Check-list of British Marine Algae - third revision, Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, 56: 527-594
- Elizabeth Den Hartog & Carla Teune, 2003, Gaspar Fagel (1633-88): His Garden and Plant Collection at Leeuwenhorst, Garden History, 30(2): 191
[Phycology is the scientific study of Kelp; a Phycologist is a practitioner of Phycology]
OF KELP & CACTI, A TAXONOMIC SAGA.
Brace yourself.
The first Mammillaria was a kelp!
And, it had the very cactus-like name of Mammillaria echinata,
which translates to English as the Hedgehog Mammillaria.
It was given the name Mammillaria echinata in 1809, by a phycologist named Stackhouse. The kelp genus Mammillaria thereby had what in taxonomic parlance is called "Priority of Publication."
Yes. That's a fact.
Three years later, in 1812, a botanist named Adrian Hardy Hayworth described a cactus derived from Curacoa, calling it Mammillaria simplex. It was the first cactus to be called a Mammillaria, but as we now know, the first Mammillaria was a Kelp, not a cactus. Oh, what to do?
Before we chase down that answer, let us consider how odd it seems that a kelp, a group of plants notorious for being flimsy, un-rigid, and non-spiny of form, could be considered in need of being named after a Hedgehog, an animal renowned for its rigid spiny armor. Stackhouse may have been inspired to do so by Samuel Goodenough and Thomas Jenkinson Woodward. For in 1797, these two gentleman named a kelp Fucus mammillosus, and "raised the roof" when they did so. There can be little doubt that their little publication received a clamor of attention in botanical circles around the globe.
You must understand that Goodenough & Woodward were publishing their article in the Transactions of the Linnaean Society of London, yet in their article they boldly highlighted an error by Linnaeus, the man for whom the society was named. Yikes!
In their publication of the kelp, Fucus mammillosus, Goodenough and Woodward provided the following commentary. "The errors which have attended the investigation of this plant, are owing in great measure to Linnaeus himself, who inadvertently under his ceranoides quoted the figure of Morison above mentioned. The figure altogether militates against the description which he gives of ceranoides; for he describes it as having apices vesiculosus, which mammillosus never has; besides, the specimen preserved in his herbarium has no affinity to it; for that is never found with these excrescences which we mention as the characteristic of this plant. Linnaeus's quoting this figure of Morison to his ceranoides led subsequent authors, who naturally trusted more to such an expressive figure than to his verbal description, to mistake the plant which he named ceranoides. Thus Gmelin supposed crispus to be ceranoides, and mammillosus, in as much as it was so cited by Linnaeus himself, a variety of it."
Crikey!
Knowing their illumination of Linnaeus's error would ignite a firestorm in the Linnaean Society, Goodenough & Woodward cautioned, "When the learned of science so differ, we must deprecate all censure upon our vanity, if we presume to hold out a truer investigation." No wiser words were ever written.
This all relates back to our Phycologist, Stackhouse, who knew the genus Fucus well, and in particular a species he described as Fucus echinatus in 1797. Do you see where this is going? Goodenough & Woodward had brought to the attention of the botanical world a kelp they named Fucus mammillosus, which Stackhouse knew as Fucus echinatus. Stackhouse took things one step further in 1809, and renamed this kelp Mammillaria echinata. And that is how a marine kelp became the first Mammillaria.
That, however, is not the rest of the story.
This is.
The reign of Mammillaria as a genus of kelp lasted for 34 years (1809 - 1843). For it was in 1843 that Friedrich Traugott Kutzing renamed Mammillaria echinata as Mastocarpus mammilosus. Afterwards, it seemed that all the cacti that had, during the interim, been named to the genus Mammillaria were at last safe. Or were they?
In 1920, Nathaniel Lord Britton & Joseph Nelson Rose were taking no chances, and so renamed the cactus genus Mammillaria as Neomammillaria just to be on the safe side as regards taxonomic rules of priority of publication. But not everyone was happy with this measure, but not for the reasons you might imagine.
A few people, Latin Scholars in particular, were unhappy with the spelling, Mammillaria, for the proper diminutive form of the Latin word for nipple, mamma, meant that Hayworth should have spelt his cactus genus with one less m in it, as Mamillaria, not Mammillaria. Thus, Britton & Rose might also have spelt their Neomammillaria as Neomamillaria, but they didn't. It would seem that the Latin Scholars are correct, but that everyone else was happy with the double M's and double L's in Mammillaria and Neomammillaria.
And what of Hayworth's Mammillaria simplex ? It was first described and illustrated by Commelin in 1697. He did not use binomial nomenclature as is now customary, but in the manner of botanical names of the time, gave it a description, "Ficoides vel ficus americana sphaerica", Figure 55 of his text. Commelin's illustrations are very realistic, and the viewer immediately recognizes the plants depicted, including the cactus we now call Mammillaria simplex. Latin Scholars will recognize, however, that Commelin's written description relates to a fig, not a cactus. I conjecture that he was led to do so by the fact that Mammillaria simplex produces a milky sap when its surface is cut, in the same way that the common fig produces a milky sap when its stem is cut.
An Opuntia that was a Kelp
Is there no end to this Kelp-Cactus connection?
Be at ease.
It is not as bad as you might think.
A Kelp in Tenby, south Wales was once an opuntia.
It was described as Fucus opuntia in 1797 by our old friends, Goodenough & Woodward. They gave the kelp that name for its appearance as a string of flat elongate beads. Thirtythree years later it was renamed Catanella opuntia by Greville, 1830. And it wasn't until 1976 that Tenby Wales finally lost the distinction of having a kelp called Opuntia, for the kelp was renamed Fucus caespitosa by Park & Dixon.
And that, dear reader, ends our Kelp-Cactus connection.
[Someone has since renamed Fucus caespitosa as Catanella caespitosa. So, not even a pretty little kelp is immune to a string of name-changes].
[Someone has renamed Haworth's Mammillaria simplex as Mammillaria nivosa. Oh well. There you have it.]
