A new status and typification of six names in Syringa (Oleaceae)

A new status and a new synonym in the genus Syringa are proposed based on population sampling, examination of herbarium specimens, character analysis and multivariate analysis. Syringa wolfii C. K. Schneid. is here treated as S. villosa ssp. wolfii rather than S. reflexa ssp. wolfii, and its lectotype is designated here. Also designated are the lectotypes of five synonyms: S. bretschneiderii, S. emodi var. rosea, S. villosa var. hirsuta, S. formosissima, and S. robusta. Key words Syringa, Syringa villosa ssp. wolfii, new status, new synonymy, typification. Syringa villosa was described as new by Vahl (1804) based on Incarville's specimen from Beijing. Cornu (1888) named Bretschneider's plants from Beijing as S. emodi var. rosea, which is a wrong determination. Syringa bretschneiderii first appeared in Lemoine's catalogue in 1890 and Brown (1910) considered that it was from northern China and had larger leaves and flowers and more copious panicles than S. villosa. Schneider (1910) described S. villosa var. hirsuta and S. wolfii as new, stating that the former was distributed in northern Korea and Manchuria, while the latter was cultivated in St. Petersburg and probably originated from northern China. Nakai (1917) described S. formosissima as new based on Korean specimens. He later (Nakai, 1918) raised Schneider's S. villosa var. hirsuta to S. hirsuta and reduced S. formosissima to S. hirsuta var. formosissima, stating that S. hirsuta differed from S. bretschneiderii in having pendent inflorescences. Nakai (1921) also described S. robusta as new, considering that it resembled S. villosa, but differed in having larger leaves and more robust branches. McKelvey (1928) treated Schneider's S. villosa var. hirsuta and Nakai's S. formosissima and S. robusta as synonymy of S. wolfii, considering their differences not distinct. She also treated S. emodi var. rosea and S. bretschneiderii as synonymy of S. villosa. Qu and Chen (Chen & Qu, 1989) treated S. wolfii as S. reflexa ssp. wolfii on the basis of their morphological similarity. However, Chang (1992) and Chang et al. (1996) recognized S. villosa and S. wolfii as distinct species, which is in accordance with McKelvey's treatment. They considered S. villosa having corolla tube subcylindrical and corolla lobes spreading, whereas S. wolfii having corolla tube funnelform and corolla lobes upright. These taxa belong to ser. Villosae (C. K. Schneid.) Rehder and their distribution ranges from North China, Northeast China, the Far East of Russia to the Korean Peninsula. They differ from S. reflexa and S. komarowii C. K. Schneid. of the same series in having inflorescences usually upright, while the latter two taxa have inflorescences pendulous and are distributed in western China including Hubei, Shaanxi, Gansu, and Sichuan provinces. In order to better understand taxonomy of the former taxa (S. villosa complex), we sampled four