Feedback request: Melampyrum pratense (35508)

[Roger Horton]

This post was made automatically in response to a request for comment on the documentation form. There is more general info about such requests here.

Specimen #360516

Taxon:	Scrophulariaceae: Melampyrum pratense L. ("Common Cow-wheat")
Filed in taxon folder:	Scrophulariaceae: Melampyrum pratense L. ("Common Cow-wheat")
Collected by:	Mr Charles Edward Britton
Collection date:	28/6/1930
Locality:	Great Britain, VC20 Hertfordshire, Broxbourne, TL30, Near
ex herb:	Mr Charles Edward Britton
Institution:	South London Botanical Institute (SLBI)
Image:
collector's number:	3641
Filing note:	Melampyrum pratense var lanceolatum

Documented by xmhcman on 17^th March 2013.

Checked by oldnick

Edit history

date	user	change
02/09/2013	oldnick	Added attribute collector's number: 3641

N.B. reporting of the edit history is currently fairly unclear and misleading. Most edits made to specimens appear as a pair of 'add' and 'delete' entries, which may not be together in the list. There are also often 'minor' edits, which are made automatically (rather than due to user activity), for example to merge synonym names.

User comments about this sheet

xmhcman wrote

Cannot trace site 'Great Beauverd'.

[oldnick]

This sounds a bit New Forest-ish I thought? Britton was in Mudeford 10 days earlier. Sounds a bit like Beaulieu and vert?

[Roger Horton]

There is the chance that this is a person - Gustave Beauverd (1867–1942) a Swiss botanist!

[Chris Liffen]

Quote http://archive.bsbi.org.uk/Wats5p336.pdf

In the first important monograph on the genus Melampyrum (Beauverd 1916) great stress is laid on the colour of the corolla after anthesis in M. pratense and the two subspecies are based on this. In subsp. eu-pratense Beauv. the corolla is said to become purple to pale red after anthesis and in subsp. vulgatum Pers. the corolla becomes blackish. Britton (1943) follows Beauverd and, although he recognises more subspecies, these are in two groups corresponding to the original two subspecies of Beauverd. It is not clear either from Beauverd or from Britton whether anthesis means(correctly) opening of the flower or (incorrectly) shedding of pollen.