The Musci Indici: its authors, types and localities

The sixty new taxa described in Musci Indici are reviewed. As a result of validation of 54 of these by plates alone, authorities, original specimens and provenance of many have been widely misinterpreted. Evidence from published material, unpublished correspondence and herbarium material demonstrates that W. H. Harvey (1836) is the sole validating author of most of the names; three were validated by J. D. Hooker in 1837, and two names jointly by J. D. Hooker and Harvey in 1840. None was validated by W. J. Hooker, in the past often considered to be the author of some of the names. It is shown that Musci Indici names should be typified by lectotypes; recent typifications of four of the names by ‘holotypes' and six out of eight published ‘lectotypes' are untenable as the specimens selected were not original material studied by Harvey, and should be superseded by new lectotypes. Five specimens are selected as new lectotypes. Original material, mostly in Harvey's herbarium in TCD, is identified as most suitable for future lectotypification of the other names. Types for the three names based solely on Royle material are located in LIV and BM. Original Harvey material is also preserved in GL, but most of the Wallich collections in BM, E and elsewhere are not part of the original material. For Neckera blanda no suitable type specimen was located; the original published plate is selected as lectotype with a specimen in BM as a supporting ‘epitype'. Many of the original localities published in 1840 as ‘Nepal' are shown to be erroneous. As far as possible these are corrected but for some taxa provenance remains doubtful. Twenty-two of the new names are shown not to have been based on material from Nepal; as a result ten species (Acanthorrhynchium papillatum, Brachythecium kamounense, Chaetomitriopsis glaucocarpa, Meiothecium microcarpum, Mitthyridium repens, Rozea fulva, Splachnobryum flaccidum, Sterophyllum radiculosum, Trichosteleum boschii and Trismegistia lancifolia) and Trismegistia lancifolia) are deleted from the Nepal checklist. Twenty-eight of the new species are considered to be reliably based on material from Nepal, and a further five doubtfully so. Rozea microcarpa Broth. is shown to be an synonym of R. fulva (Harv.) M. Fleisch. Past taxonomic confusion between Hypnum cordatum Harv. and Neckera cordata [Hook. ex] Harv. is untangled; the first is shown to be a synonym of Eurhynchium hians (Hedw.) Sande Lac. and the second is the basionym of Penzigiella cordata (Harv.) M. Fleisch.