''Viola angustifolia'' is a species of flowering plant, in the genus ''

Viola ; german: Bratsche , alt=Viola shown from the front and the side , image=Bratsche.jpg , caption= , background=string , hornbostel_sachs=321.322-71 , hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded by a bow , range= , related= *Violin family ...

''.

Taxonomy

This species was first described in 1857 by the

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

paleontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

and

zoologist Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and d ...

Rudolph Amandus Philippi. In 2019 the husband-and-wife team of rock gardening enthusiasts John Michael Watson and renamed the species to ''V. wikipedia'', after

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

, the free-content

online encyclopedia An online encyclopedia, also called an Internet encyclopedia, or a digital encyclopedia, is an encyclopedia accessible through the internet. Examples include Wikipedia and ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Digitization of old content In January 199 ...

. They did so believing that the name ''V. angustifolia'' was a

later homonym In biology, a homonym is a name for a taxon that is identical in spelling to another such name, that belongs to a different taxon. The rule in the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature is that the first such name to be published is the se ...

, and thus

illegitimate Legitimacy, in traditional Western common law, is the status of a child born to parents who are legally married to each other, and of a child conceived before the parents obtain a legal divorce. Conversely, ''illegitimacy'', also known as '' ...

. Indeed, the name "''Viola angustifolia''" had been published prior to Philippi's description, in 1824 by the Swiss historian and botanist Frédéric Charles Jean Gingins de la Sarraz, in the famous ''

Prodromus A prodromus ('forerunner' or 'precursor') aka prodrome is a term used in the natural sciences to describe a preliminary publication intended as the basis for a later, more comprehensive work. It is also a medical term used for a premonitory sympt ...

'' of

Alphonse Pyramus de Candolle Alphonse Louis Pierre Pyramus (or Pyrame) de Candolle (28 October 18064 April 1893) was a French-Swiss botanist, the son of the Swiss botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle. Biography De Candolle, son of Augustin Pyramus de Candolle, first devot ...

. However, this publication cites it as a '' nomen nudum'' synonymous to the species ''Pigea banksiana'', which is now known as ''

Hybanthus enneaspermus ''Hybanthus'' (green-violet) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Violaceae. This genus name is Greek for "humpback flower", referring to the drooping pedicels of plants that are part of this genus. The genus is grossly polyphyletic and m ...

''. The name had been proposed on a specimen sheet collected in India, but had never been validly published. As such, this name is what is known as a '' pro synonymo'', a name which cannot be considered as validly published because it is merely a synonymy citation. Therefore, Philippi's description is in fact the first valid publication of the name "''V. angustifolia''", and ''V. wikipedia'' is thus a superfluous and illegitimate name.

Description

It is closely related to '' V. acanthophylla'', '' V. bustillosia'', and '' V. cheeseana'', the latter being newly described by Watson and Flores. It is differentiated from these other species by having a "leaf margin shallowly long-

serrate Serration is a saw-like appearance or a row of sharp or tooth-like projections. A serrated cutting edge has many small points of contact with the material being cut. By having less contact area than a smooth blade or other edge, the applied p ...

. Peduncle clearly shorter than leaves".

Distribution

The species is presumed to be

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

to the Santiago region of

. It is known only from a specimen collected in 1855.Philippi, R.A. (1857) Plantarum novarum chilensium. Centuria prima. Linnaea 28: 612.

References

{{Taxonbar, from1=Q15386329, from2=Q69412442 angustifolia Flora of central Chile Plants described in 1857