Botanists Correct a 120-Year-Old Mistake in the Naming of an Alpine Lungwort

In the quiet corridors of European herbaria, a specimen collected more than a century ago near the northern Italian city of Trento has just been given a new official role. Botanists writing in the journal Italian Botanist have revised the typification of Pulmonaria angustifolia var. australis, the name on which the currently accepted alpine species Pulmonaria australis is based. The correction untangles a nomenclatural knot tied by Wilhelm Sauer in 1975 and, in doing so, anchors the identity of a distinctive Southern Alps lungwort to a single, verifiable sheet of pressed plants. It is the kind of painstaking archival detective work that rarely makes headlines, yet it underpins every ecological study, chromosome count, and conservation decision that involves this species.

Pulmonaria australis, a member of the borage family Boraginaceae, is an accepted species distributed across Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, and Croatia. Its stronghold lies in the Southern Alps, with additional populations in the Western and Eastern Alps and, in part, the Dinarides. The plant occupies montane and subalpine zones and occasionally disperses into the alpine and colline belts. For decades, botanists have recognized it as clearly distinct from its close relative Pulmonaria angustifolia, the narrow-leaved lungwort of Linnaeus. The two differ in chromosome number, with 2n = 20 in P. australis against 2n = 14 in P. angustifolia, a karyological gulf that Sauer documented in his 1975 monograph of the genus.

The morphological differences are equally telling. Pulmonaria australis bears broadly lanceolate basal leaves that are four to six, occasionally seven, times longer than broad, ovate-lanceolate cauline leaves with a truncate-cordate base, and an indumentum of heterogeneous bristles measuring 0.5 to 1.5 millimeters mixed with very sparse glands. Its corolla is purple and glabrescent to sparsely pubescent beneath the ring of trichomes at the throat. Pulmonaria angustifolia, by contrast, has narrowly lanceolate basal leaves six to nine times longer than broad, linear to broadly lanceolate cauline leaves with a cuneate base, homogeneous bristles of roughly 0.6 millimeters without glands, and a blue corolla that is smooth under the faucal trichome ring. These characters, elaborated by Cecchi and Selvi in their 2015 revision, give P. australis a coherent taxonomic concept. What remained murky was the nomenclatural type of its name.

Every accepted species name rests on a basionym, the earliest validly published name on which the combination is based. For P. australis, that basionym is Pulmonaria angustifolia var. australis, published by Josef Murr in 1903. Murr, an Austrian botanist active from 1864 to 1932, described the variety on the printed labels of specimen No. 4480 in the Herbarium normale, an exsiccata series edited by Ignaz Dörfler. Exsiccatae are sets of duplicated herbarium specimens distributed to institutions across Europe, and their printed labels carry the published descriptions. Murr’s labels included a short explanatory text, translated from German, in which he noted that he had attributed this southern race, differing in its often much broader and usually much soft-haired leaves as well as in its purple rather than blue corolla, to P. tuberosa Schrank with reserve, following Freyn’s determination. Freyn later revoked that identification in a letter, pointing to the hairless, at most somewhat papillose corolla throat below the ring.

That explanatory text matters enormously under the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, the rulebook governing botanical names. According to Article 38.2 of the Code, a description or statement of the characters distinguishing a taxon can serve as a diagnosis, the requirement for valid publication. Murr’s label text presents precisely the diagnostic features of the new variety: broader, softer-haired leaves and a purple corolla. Combined with the printed distribution of the labels in the published fascicles edited by Dörfler in 1903, which satisfies Articles 30.8 and 38.1, the name P. angustifolia var. australis was effectively and validly published by Murr in 1903. All the herbarium specimens carrying these labels, collected by Murr in April 1901 in the vicinity of Trento, are therefore syntypes under Article 9.6 of the Code, the specimens on which the name was based.

Here the story takes its nomenclatural turn. When Sauer proposed the new combination Pulmonaria australis in 1975, he cited a holotypus: a specimen collected by Anton Val de Lièvre at Mt Chegul near Trento in May 1869, now kept at the herbarium IBF. The problem is that there is no holotype for P. angustifolia var. australis, and therefore none can exist for the combination based on it, as Article 7.3 of the Code makes plain. A holotype is the single specimen designated by the author of the name or the one upon which the description was based. Val de Lièvre’s specimen was not among the syntypes carrying Murr’s labels, nor does it belong to the rest of the original material. Murr’s earlier publication of 1899, cited in the protologue, did not mention any specimens collected by Val de Lièvre, nor the locality Mt Chegul. There is no evidence that the specimen was available to Murr and associated by him with the variety before or at the time of publication.

Sauer’s citation of the term holotypus, however, can be treated under Article 7.11 as an attempt to typify both names, with the misuse of the term corrected under Article 9.10. Some authors, including Cecchi and Selvi, have considered this a lectotypification and treated the IBF specimen as the lectotype. The Italian Botanist paper argues otherwise. Because the Val de Lièvre specimen is not part of the original material, Sauer’s designation is, in fact, a neotypification, and the misused term must be corrected to neotype. But even a corrected neotypification cannot stand, because dozens of syntypes representing No. 4480 of the Herbarium normale are scattered across many herbaria. Being the only specimens cited in the protologue, these syntypes have preference in lectotype designation over the remaining original material according to Article 9.12 of the Code.

The solution, then, is an effective lectotypification. Among the syntypes, the specimen kept at WU, the herbarium of the University of Vienna, bearing the accession number WU0131160, is designated here as the lectotype of Pulmonaria angustifolia var. australis. A high-quality image of the lectotype is available through the herbarium’s online database. The other syntypes, recently located at B in Berlin, E in Edinburgh, GJO in Graz, LI in Linz, O in Oslo, and P in Paris, as well as specimens potentially present in other herbaria, are considered isolectotypes, duplicates of the same gathering that share the nomenclatural status of the lectotype. The study examined herbarium specimens kept at B, BRNU, E, GJO, IBF, LI, O, P, W, and WU, primarily through online digitization platforms that have transformed typification research in recent years.

The provenance recorded on the lectotype label, in collibus et montibus circa Trient at 450 meters above sea level, likely refers to Margone, southeast of Trento above Ravina-Romagnano and below Mt Palon, a locality already mentioned in Murr’s 1899 work. Murr sent herbarium vouchers from Margone to Josef Franz Freyn, asking for determination, noting that he presented the Trento hill plant to the building councilor in broad- and narrow-leaved forms from Margone at around 400 meters. Margone is therefore likely the locus classicus, the classical locality of the species. Pulmonaria australis occurs scattered near Trento and has been proven karyologically even from Margone, confirming the chromosome number 2n = 20 that distinguishes it from P. angustifolia. The lectotype now anchors the name to a verifiable gathering from this landscape.

For working botanists, the correction is more than archival housekeeping. A stable type specimen means that every application of the name Pulmonaria australis, from floristic surveys to phylogenetic analyses, refers to the same biological entity that Murr described in 1903. It prevents the misapplication of the name to populations of other lungwort taxa, a problem that has plagued the genus, where the misapplied name P. tuberosa Schrank has been used for at least four other currently accepted Pulmonaria species. It also clarifies the status of duplicates distributed across Europe, ensuring that herbaria holding isolectotypes understand the nomenclatural weight of their collections. In a genus where chromosome number, leaf shape, bristle heterogeneity, and corolla color separate closely related species, the identity of the type specimen is the thread that holds the taxonomy together. The alpine lungwort of the Southern Alps now has a name anchored, at last, to the plants that inspired it.

Subject of Research: Revised typification of Pulmonaria angustifolia var. australis, the basionym of P. australis (Boraginaceae)

Article Title: Revised typification of Pulmonaria angustifolia var. australis , the basionym of P. australis ( Boraginaceae )

Article References: Pachschwöll, C., & Nachychko, V. O. (2026). Revised typification of Pulmonaria angustifolia var. australis, the basionym of P. australis (Boraginaceae). Italian Botanist, 21, 13-18. https://doi.org/10.3897/italianbotanist.21.182301

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/italianbotanist.21.182301

Keywords: Revised, typification, Pulmonaria, angustifolia, australis, basionym, Boraginaceae, scientific research