Introduction

The name Bauhinia diphylla (Fabaceae: Caesalpinioideae) was published in the appendix to Captain Michael Symes’s account of his mission to the Kingdom of Ava, Burma (Symes, Reference Symes1800) with an engraving accompanying the description. The engraving was based on an original colour delineation made by an Indian artist working with Francis Buchanan (later Buchanan-Hamilton) in the field. Dr M. F. Watson informed me (pers. comm., 2013) that the original drawing would have had the number 13 but is missing from the set of original drawings now kept with the Banks collection in the Botany Library of the Natural History Museum, London. During his expedition in 1795, Symes was accompanied by Buchanan-Hamilton, as surgeon and naturalist. In the protologue of Bauhinia diphylla the details of the collection are given as ‘Habitat in sylvis. Mæaday. Birma’, with the Burmese name ‘Pa-lam’, but there is no reference to a particular specimen with a collector’s number.

In his introduction to the plant descriptions, Symes explained that ‘The [eight] Plants, of which the following descriptions and figures are given, have been selected by the PRESIDENT of the ROYAL SOCIETY [i.e. Sir Joseph Banks], as the most rare and curious among a copious and valuable collection made by DOCTOR BUCHANAN, who transmitted to the COURT of DIRECTORS an hortus siccus in excellent preservation, together with delineations of each plants, executed on the spot’. ‘Delineation’ can be defined not only as a drawing but also the action of portraying in words. Buchanan, in a letter to J. E. Smith in 1802, explained that Symes actually meant by it written descriptions (for further details see Watson & Noltie, in press), and that Banks’s choice of words obscured his contribution. That the name and description were made by Buchanan himself can readily be seen from the copy of his manuscript sent with the drawings and specimens to Banks entitled ‘Enumeratio plantarum quas in adeundo civitatem Barmanorum regīam et dehinc redeundo anno 1795 observavit F. Buchanan’ [i.e. Enumeration of the plants that F. Buchanan observed on his journeys to and from the kingdom of Burma in 1795 (trans. K. N. Gandhi, pers. comm.)], which is still preserved in the Banks collection at the Natural History Museum, London alongside the drawings but, in Symes’s book, the part concerning the plant descriptions was authored by Banks. So, for nomenclatural purposes, this section of this publication is authored by Banks (Art. 46.6 of McNeill et al., Reference McNeill, Barrie, Buck, Demoulin, Greuter and Hawksworth2012). Although there is no explicit ascription of the name Bauhinia diphylla to Banks, or to anyone else, the name B. diphylla has to be ascribed to Banks (see Art. 46 Note 3 of McNeill et al., Reference McNeill, Barrie, Buck, Demoulin, Greuter and Hawksworth2012). Further, in the preface to Symes (1800: xiv) it is unequivocally stated that ‘Sir Joseph Banks selected and described the plants’ [emphasis added]. According to Art. 46.2 (McNeill et al., Reference McNeill, Barrie, Buck, Demoulin, Greuter and Hawksworth2012), the name therefore has to be attributed to Banks, even though Banks based his description on Hamilton’s account with minor editing such as ‘Calyx 5-fidus’ to ‘Calyx quinque-fidus’, ‘Petala 5’ to Petala quinque’ and ‘Filamenta 10’ to ‘Filamenta decem’, probably done by J. C. Dryander, Banks’s librarian.

Buchanan-Hamilton gave all the herbarium specimens taken on the Burma mission to the EIC Court of Directors who gave them to Banks. Hence, all the relevant Burmese material should be at BM but a request to the curator of BM proved negative with respect to a specimen with the original collecting details. Therefore, in the absence of a specimen, I am lectotypifying the name Bauhinia diphylla Banks with the unnumbered illustration ‘t. [24]’ given in the protologue.