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Editorial Comments 1
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Most treatments, dating from Fl. Europaea (1976, Vol. 4, p.43) and possibly earlier, treat Plantago psyllium L. 1753 (but see main entry for this name), Plantago indica L. 1759, and Plantago arenaria Waldst. & Kit. 1801 as conspecific, under Plantago arenaria. According to Parnell (2003, An Account of the Plantaginaceae in Thailand, Thai. For. Bull. Bot. 31:53-64): Rahn's work on phylogeny of the group (1996. A phylogenetic study of the Plantaginaceae. Bot. J. Linn. Soc. 120: 145-198) remains the most up-to-date summary; Panigrahi (1975, Kew Bull. 30: 669-673) showed that the name Plantago indica was coined by Linnaeus in 1759 as a new name for a species he had already described in 1753 as Plantago psillium, rendering Plantago indica superfluous and invalid [actually, illegitimate]; Verdcourt (1969, Kew Bull. 23: 509; 1971, in Milne Redhead & Polhill, eds., Flora of Tropical East Africa) has shown that Plantago psillium is a nomen ambiguum and therefore cannot [should not?] be used, a view also held by Rahn (1996); the first available, valid epithet therefore is that of Waldstein & Kitaibel (1801, Pl. Rari Hung. 1: t. 51); under current rules, a proposal should be submitted to reject Plantago psillium, as until this is done it remains the correct name for this taxon [or, under Art. 9.7, an epitype for Plantago psillium should be designated]; and "psillium" is a taxonomically confusing epithet due to its use in Asian pharmaceutical preparations. [Despite the foregoing, Parnell and most other current workers use Plantago arenaria for this species, a practice that will be adopted in this Index at least until the matter is formally resolved to the contrary. Whatever the status of the three names involved, there is general acceptance at present that only one taxon is represented by them.]
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