Mark Alan Hershkovitz

In a revision of the systematics of Calandrinia pilosiuscula DC (including Calandrinia compressa Schrad. ex DC; Montiaceae), Hershkovitz recognized a total of ten validly named synonyms, including Calandrinia gaudichaudii Barnéoud and Talinum linaria Colla. He concluded that these two names were homotypic, both protologs citing a Bertero collection from Valparaiso, which Hershkovitz inferred to be C. Bertero 1814. However, the type of T. linaria in TO proves to be labeled C. Bertero 685, not 1814. This is problematic for two reasons: 1) this number corresponds to a series of Bertero’s numbers not from Valparaiso, 1830, but Rancagua, 1828; and 2) sheets elsewhere labeled C. Bertero 685 are Cistanthe trigona (Colla) Hershk. or Calandrinia nitida (Ruiz & Pav.) DC, whereas Bertero’s Rancagua collection of Calandrinia pilosiuscula is C. Bertero 686, not 685. Thus, the present analysis seeks to resolve these and other discrepancies reported previously in the numbering, localities, and dates indicated on sheets of Bertero’s Chilean plant collections. The principal conclusion is that Bertero’s numbers were not intended as “collection” numbers in the modern sense, but rather merely a minimal “species list” of his Chilean collections numbered alphabetically according to genus and species. This scheme evidences his underlying Platonic idealist taxonomic epistemology. Accordingly, he intentionally combined spatiotemporally distinct gatherings, with the consequence that his numbered collections do not qualify conceptually as “specimens” (and/or “duplicates”) per current nomenclatural code criteria, hence neither as types. Individual sheets can, however, be qualified as such secondarily, if code criteria are met. The present work also emphasizes other apparently more clerical errors rampant among sheets of Bertero’s collections. It also concludes that are far fewer spatiotemporally distinct and total Bertero Chilean collections than previously believed. Finally, the species Calandrinia gaudichaudii and Talinum linaria are retypified robustly in view of the present analysis.