Long-lost WWII plant specimen fixes a sedge naming error
Native Plants
The marshy spikerush patches you might overlook at a pond's edge carry naming histories tangled up in wartime losses, and sorting them out helps conservationists and botanists correctly track which species are rare, common, or at risk.
Scientists thought a key reference specimen of a spikerush plant had been destroyed in World War II, but they found it. Using this rediscovered specimen, they realized two other spikerush species had been wrongly lumped into the wrong species for years, so they moved them to their correct grouping and designated a new reference specimen to keep the naming straight going forward.
Key Findings
Type specimen of Eleocharis lehmanniana, presumed destroyed during World War II, was rediscovered
Eleocharis glazioviana and E. lehmanniana were incorrectly synonymized under E. maculosa and are now transferred to E. debilis
A neotype (replacement reference specimen) was formally designated for E. debilis
chevron_right Technical Summary
Botanists rediscovered a plant specimen believed lost since World War II and used it to fix a decades-old naming mistake in a group of wetland sedges called spikerushes.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Lost to War, Found by Time: The rediscovery of a Boeckeler’s type specimens and taxonomic realignments within Eleocharis (Cyperaceae)
Here, the type specimen of Eleocharis lehmanniana, previously thought to have been destroyed during World War II, is reported. In addittion, Eleocharis glazioviana and E. lehmanniana were wrongly s...
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Eleocharis is a virtually cosmopolitan genus of 250 or more species of flowering plants in the sedge family, Cyperaceae. The name is derived from the Greek words ἕλειος (heleios), meaning "marsh dweller," and χάρις (charis), meaning "grace." Members of the genus are known commonly as spikerushes ...