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SANSEVIERIA AS A GENUS

SANSEVIERIA AS A GENUS

Stephen Jankalski

The story of naming of the genus Sansevieria is a long and tortuous one. It
seems that nothing is simple or straightforward for the genus.

It begins with two species grown in the garden of Dutch merchant and
botanist Caspar Commelin (1667-1731) and illustrated by Jan Moninckx in the
former's book "Horti Medici Amstelodamensis Rariorum Plantarum" published
in 1701. Based upon the illustrations in Commelin's book, Carolus Linnaeus
(1707-1778), the father of modern botany, placed the two species known to
him in the genus Aloe in the first edition of his Species Plantarum (1753),
and later Aletris in his second edition (1762). Several of his
contemporaries realized the species to be deserving of a separate genus and
each named one independently.

The German botanist Frederich Kasimir Medikus (1736-1808) coined the name
Acyntha. The name was ignored until it was reinstated by Italian botanist
Emilio Chiovenda, who named several new species from Somalia under that
genus.

Italian botanist Vincenzo Petagna (1734-1810) proposed the name
Sansevierinia in honor of the father of Italian botany, Raimond de Sangro,
Prince of  San-Severo (1710-1774), born in Naples.

Swedish botanist and physician Carl Peter Thunberg (1743-1828) was a
student of Linnaeus and a prolific botanical author. He published the name
Sansevieria, an obvious variation on Petagna's generic name. It was
Thunberg's name that became widely used, perhaps because of the relative
obscurity of Petagna's work.

Spanish clergyman and botanist Antonio Jose Cavanilles (1745-1804) named
the genus Salmia in honor of Prince Joseph von Salm-Reifferscheid-Dyck for
his interest in succulent plants but the name has been rejected in favor of
a homonym published by another author. Prince Salm Dyck is also remembered
by the Bromeliad genus Dyckia.

French botanist and explorer Michel Adanson (1727-1806) coined the genus
name Cordyline for a Sansevieria illustration in Leonard Plukenet's
Phytographia (1691) but described no species. The name is rejected in favor
of its use for a completely different group of plants named coined by a
different author.

British botanist Richard Salisbury (1761-1829) named the genus Pleomele
based on two species with superficially similar flowers. One (the type
selected by N.E. Brown (1914)) is now Dracaena fragrans (L.) Ker Gawler and
the other is now Sansevieria hyacinthoides (L.) Druce (according to
Wijnands (1983)).  The genus Pleomele is now considered synonymous with
Dracaena.

George Bentham & Joseph Dalton Hooker (1883) used the name Sansevieria,
with Thunberg's spelling and that has been followed by most botanists. The
generic name Sansevieria, with Thunberg's spelling, was officially
conserved over all previous names and spellings by the Vienna Congress of
Botanical Nomenclature in 1905 and is now the accepted name for the genus.

Several later variations in spelling have appeared in the literature but
have been dismissed as being minor variations in orthography.

**********************************************
Sansevieria Thunberg, Prodromus  Plantarum Capensium 29: 65 (1794) nom.
conserv.
Typus conserv.:  Aloe hyacinthoides L. (= Sansevieria hyacinthoides (L.)
Druce; Sansevieria thyrsiflora Thunberg )

syn. Cordyline Adanson, Familles des Plantes 2: 54, 543 (1763) nom. rej.,
not Commerson ex Jussieu (1789) nom. conserv.
Typus: Aloe zeylandica pumila foliis variegatis Plukenet (= Sansevieria
zeylandica (L.) Willdenow)

_      Acyntha Medikus, Theodora speciosa 76 (1786) nom. rej.
Typus: Acyntha guineensis Medikus (= Sansevieria trifasciata Prain)

_      Sanseverina Petagna, Institutiones Botanicae 3: 643 (1787) nom. rej.
Typus: Sansevierina thyrsiflora Petagna (= Sansevieria hyacinthoides (L.)
Druce)

_      Salmia Cavanilles, Icones et Descriptiones Plantarum 3: 24, t. 246
(1794) nom. rej., not Salmea De Candolle (1813) nom. conserv.
Typus: Salmia spicata Cavanilles (= Sansevieria hyacinthoides (L.) Druce)

_      Pleomele Salisbury, Prodromus 245 (1796) pro parte, quoad Pleomele
aloifolia Salisbury (= Sansevieria
hyacinthoides (L.) Druce)

_      Sanseviera Willdenow, Species Plantarum 2: 159 (1799) orthographic
varient
_      Sansevera J.Stokes, A Botanical Materia Medica 2: 260 (1812)
orthographic varient
_      Sanseverina Thunberg, Flora Capensis 2: 322 (1818) orthographic
varient

References

Bentham, G. & Hooker, J.D. (1883) GENERA PLANTARUM. volume 3.

Bos, J.J. (1984) DRACAENA IN WEST AFRICA. Agricultural University
Wageningen, The Netherlands. (Belmontia (n.s.) 17: 1-126 (1985))

Brown, N.E. (1914) NOTES ON THE GENERA CORDYLINE, DRACAENA, PLEOMELE,
SANSEVIERIA AND TAETSIA. Kew Bulletin 1914: 273-279.

Brown, N.E. (1915) SANSEVIERIA. A MONOGRAPH OF ALL THE KNOWN SPECIES (WITH
PLATES). Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Mangani, R. (1992) EARLY SANSEVIERIA ILLUSTRATIONS. The Sansevieria Journal
1 (2): 19-24, 4 figs.

Mangani, R. (1995) THE COMMELIJN'S SANSEVIERIAS. The Sansevieria Journal 4
(1): 15-18, 1 fig.

Mbugua, P.K. (1992) NEED FOR REVISION OF THE GENUS SANSEVIERIA THUNB. The
Sansevieria Journal 1 (1): 5-6, 1 fig.

Pfennig, H. (1979) GRASS-LIKE TO TREE-LIKE: THE SANSEVIERIAS. Nat. Cact. &
Succ. Journ. 41 (3): 56-60, 8 figs. (translated from Gartenpraxis 1977
(10): 506-511 (1977))

Reynolds, G.W. (1950) THE ALOES OF SOUTH AFRICA. A.A. Balkema. Rotterdam.

Van Jaarsveld, E. (1994) THE SANSEVIERIA SPECIES OF SOUTH AFRICA AND
NAMIBIA. Aloe 31 (1): 11-15.

Wijnands, D.O.  (1973) TYPIFICATION AND NOMENCLATURE OF TWO SPECIES OF
SANSEVIERIA (AGAVACEAE). Taxon 22 (1): 109-114, 3 figs.

Wijnands, D.O.  (1983) THE BOTANY OF THE COMMELINS. A.A. Balkema.
Rotterdam.
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