Estrela Figueiredo

A collector with the surname “Scott” who was active in the Lake Malawi region (Malawi and Mozambique) from 1887 to 1888 has been listed in the literature without further information. Up to now the identity of this collector has been uncertain. For example, specimens cited in the literature or databased in herbaria as having been collected by “Scott” often appear under different collector names. We investigated the applicable historical literature and examined the relevant collections to establish the identity and itinerary of this collector, as well as the collections that he made in Mozambique. The identity of other collectors with the same surname with which he has been confused is also established.

Global databases have contributed to our understanding of alien, naturalised and invasive plant species distributions. Still, the role of species invasions in habitats, specifically in aquatic habitats, remains underexplored at the global scale. Accordingly, a comprehensive global synthesis of the status of plant invasions in aquatic habitats has been missing. Here, we focus on macroecological patterns of naturalised non-invasive and invasive plants in aquatic habitats using the recently built SynHab database. Amongst all the plant records compiled in SynHab, 592 are assigned to aquatic habitats, of which 183 are unique plant taxa (further termed ‘species’) belonging to 49 families. Of the total number of records, 462 refer to taxa with naturalised non-invasive occurrences and 130 to invasive occurrences. The species pool analysed here refers to 78 regions distributed across all botanical continents as defined by the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions. The number of naturalised non-invasive aquatic species is similar across different continents and biomes, but Tropical Asia had more and the Mediterranean zonobiome had fewer invasive species than expected. Tropical Asia, Temperate Asia and Africa have the highest proportions of naturalised species that have become invasive, while across continents, invasive proportions were highest for tropical and subtropical zonobiomes. New Zealand, Italy and California contained disproportionately more naturalised species than expected, given the area covered by aquatic habitat in those regions, whereas South Sudan, Papua New Guinea and Kyrgyzstan had disproportionately fewer species. In pairwise dissimilarity comparisons, all continents had distinct species compositions (from 0.73 to 0.92 of the Jaccard dissimilarity index) and so did zonobiomes (0.69 to 1.00). The high proportion of invasive species in Tropical Asia in comparison with terrestrial invasions in this region, indicates a greater susceptibility of warmer regions to aquatic plant invasions. This may be exacerbated by further naturalisations in the future, as data from temperate regions suggest a larger pool of available species.

Figueiredo, E. & G.F. Smith (2025). The collections and legacy of João de Loureiro (1717–1791), the first collector in East Africa and the author of Flora Cochinchinensis, and his collections from Africa. Candollea 81: 123–139. In English, English João de Loureiro (1717–1791) is best known for his magnum opus Flora Cochinchinensis (Vietnam). Even though the history of his collections was treated by Elmer Drew Merrill (1876–1956) in 1935, doubts remained regarding the existence of the Loureiro Herbarium and additional, associated materials that could be construed as original, especially for typification purposes of the names that Loureiro published. Loureiro's work and legacy is also linked to ethical, political, and legal issues that remain particularly pertinent to reconsider. These issues are addressed and discussed against a historical background. Even though the focus of his work was the flora of Vietnam, Loureiro was also the first collector in East Africa and recorded 50 taxa in that region. These are reviewed and catalogued, with reference to the specimens that have been located. Submitted on December 2, 2024 – Accepted on August 13, 2025 – First published online on September 24, 2025

The British expedition that lasted from 1822 to 1826 and was led by Capt. William Fitz William Owen was charged with surveying, mapping, and charting parts of, inter alia, the southern and eastern coasts of Africa. It had an additional mandate: to obtain natural history objects and artefacts, and for this purpose John Forbes (1799–1823) was appointed as the first (and at the time, only) collector. From September 1822 to August 1823, Forbes made numerous biological collections in Mozambique, in southeastern Africa. His collecting localities and numbers in that country, which have often been wrongly cited and confused in the literature, are discussed in this paper. Because most of his field book records survived and are extant, we determined that during the time that Forbes spent in Mozambique, he made at least 226 plant collections. Forbes died in August 1823 during an expedition up the Zambezi River. All the collections, their metadata, and other associated records that he made in Mozambique after 14 March 1823 were lost upon his death. The Forbes collections that are either cited in the literature or have been located in herbaria belong to 144 taxa, with only 83 of these taxa having specimens databased and (mostly) imaged. For 42 of the taxa, specimens collected by Forbes became the types of names; 47 of these specimens, i.e., including duplicates, have been located. Forbes’s collections are mostly unnumbered and labelled with scant information and are sometimes mislabelled. Following a comparison between the Forbes specimens and his field notes, information on his exsiccata is corrected. For several collections, the collecting number, date, and locality are confirmed, or are posited here, and guidance is provided on how the specimens should be cited. The whereabouts of the majority of Forbes’s specimens remain unknown.

Following publication in 2021 of a proposal to permanently and retroactively eradicate a set of offensive epithets from the scientific nomenclature in use for algae, fungi, and plants, this proposal eventually formed part of the ballot sheet placed before people eligible to cast a preliminary guiding vote (the so-called “mail vote”) to amend the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants in 2024. In this mail vote the proposal received 74 ‘no’ votes (47%) out of 156 votes cast. This meant that the proposal was not automatically rejected and that it would be put to a vote, following discussion, at the Nomenclature Section of the XXth International Botanical Congress that was held in Madrid, Spain, from 15 to 19 July 2024. We document the process and results of the voting on this proposal during the preliminary guiding vote, as well as during the Nomenclature Section.

John Forbes (1799–1823) briefly visited South Africa’s present-day Eastern Cape province on three occasions, once in the spring of 1822 and twice in 1823, in autumn and in mid-winter, respectively. An analysis is presented of his collecting activities after he disembarked in what is now Nelson Mandela Bay. During these three visits, Forbes spent a total of ten days in the vicinity of Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha) and Uitenhage (now Kariega). During this time he made 119 plant collections. Forty-nine of these have been located, two further collections cited in the literature have not been located; the collections are mostly unnumbered and labelled with scant information. The whereabouts of the majority of the collections remain unknown and the information available is that given by Forbes in his fieldbooks. His collections from the Eastern Cape include 12 type specimens. By comparing the Forbes specimens with his fieldnotes, the collecting number, date, and locality are confirmed or posited here for 23 collections. The present-day occurrence in Gqeberha of the taxa Forbes collected in 1822 and 1823 is given.

The peak Pico de São Tomé on the island of São Tomé (São Tomé and Príncipe, Gulf of Guinea) is a locality where many specimens that became types of vascular plant names were collected during colonial times. Determining the routes the collectors took to ascend the peak will help determine some collecting localities. Gustav Mann was the first collector to explore the region; his itinerary is analysed and mapped based on his correspondence. The itineraries of ten further expeditions that ascended the peak are analysed. Collections that became types of vascular plant species names are recorded.

A response is provided to the Rapporteurs’ comments on Proposal 193 to amend the Shenzhen Code. If adopted, Prop. 193 would amend Div. III, Prov. 5 of the Code so as to require a simple majority to approve—as opposed to the current 60% majority to reject (and thus 40% + 1 vote to approve)—General Committee recommendations on conservation, protection, or rejection of names, suppression of works, and binding decisions. We regard the requirement of a simple majority in the affirmative to approve recommendations of the General Committee to be the fairest and most easily understood procedure available. It is also one that is consistent with the compromise worked out and published in 2016 by the Special Committee on By‐laws that reported to the Nomenclature Section at Shenzhen and would restore the procedure used at all nomenclature sections prior to the Nomenclature Section at Vienna in 2005.

Until 1987, Aloe mutans (Asphodelaceae subfam. Alooideae) was accepted as a distinctive species of maculate aloe from South Africa’s Limpopo province. However, this species thereafter often has been included in the synonymy of A. greatheadii var. davyana. Recently, A. davyana was separated from A. greatheadii at the rank of species, which requires reconsideration of the taxonomic status of A. mutans. It is shown that A. mutans differs from A. davyana in several vegetative and reproductive morphological characters so warranting its recognition at the rank of species. Aloe mutans is therefore here reinstated as an accepted species. Both A. mutans and A. davyana are illustrated and an amplified description is provided for A. mutans.

The history of vascular plant collecting on the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe, from the earliest times up to the independence of the country in 1975 is provided, along with biographical information on all the collectors that could be traced, with notes on their itineraries, collecting localities, and collections. Aspects of the social environment prevalent in São Tomé and Príncipe at the time that historical collections were made are highlighted and contextualised to enable an improved understanding of connections between scientific-botanical endeavour, colonialism, and slavery on São Tomé and Príncipe.