Burmannia liukiuensis Hayata

Burmannia liukiuensis is a synonym to Burmannia nepalensis described by Miers (1841) as Gonyanthes nepalensis, transferred by Hooker (1888). The name Burmannia liukiuensis was given by Hayata (1915), accepted by Jonker (1938), Hsu and Leou (1996), Ohashi et al. (2000), and Hsu et al. (2005). In contrast, Govaerts et al. (2007) merge it with B. nepalensis, unfortunately without reasoning (it is meant as a checklist). In fact, the lines of Hayata (1915) raise doubts on the validity of B. liukiuensis. Hayata considered a specimen already named with B. nepalensis, and without having seen the type of B. nepalensis he refers only to the descriptions and drawings of Miers and Hooker (which are limited). Moreover, Hayata (1915) based his distinction on only few relative shape features (". . . much obtuse perianth lobes and by the quite obtuse or rather blunted scales on the stem.") and strongly address the geographical distance between the collecting sites, although B. nepalensis is also found in southeast China and the Philippines, which is not too far away from southern Japan. On the other hand, Ohashi et al. (2000) accept Burmannia liukiuensis for Taiwan and provide several line drawings. Finally, the latest flora making a statement on both taxa is Wu et al. (2010), an online flora accessible on the web. It synonymizes B. liukiuensis with B. nepalensis and we follow this notion. Wu et al. (2010) also reject several more recently described Burmannia species, namely B. fadouensis, B. pingbienensis, B. hunanensis, B. daxikangensis.