(948) Proposal to conserve 4662a Tontelea (Celastraceae) with a conserved type

Aublet based Tontelea and its only named species, T. scandens, on material he collected in French Guiana, illustrated as pl. 10 in the original publication. Aublet’s specimens are incorporated in the herbarium of J. J. Rousseau (now located in the Paris Herbarium in herbier Denaiffe) and also in the Herbarium of the British Museum. The sheet in herbier Denaiffe was identified by Lanjouw and Uittien (1940) as the original for Aublet’s pl. 10, which shows a flowering twig, analysis of a flower, and a detached leaf much larger than the leaves on the twig. From a photograph of this sheet it appears that the inflorescence is reproduced only in fragmentary form in the drawing. In the latter the inflorescence is represented as a rather short, few-branched, flowering twig, whereas in the specimen the inflorescence is strictly dichotomously branched many times with occasional supernumerary branches in the leaf axils. The sheet also has four detached leaves.