Aspidosperma carapanauba

Aspidosperma carapanauba Pichon

Aspidosperma carapanauba, a species in the Apocynaceae family, was published by Pichon in 1948 as a replacement name for G. excelsum due to the unavailability of the epithet 'excelsum' in the genus Aspidosperma. The species is distributed in Brazil (North and West-Central), French Guiana, and Peru.

Description

The name Aspidosperma carapanauba was introduced to replace G. excelsum, as the epithet 'excelsum' could not be used within the genus Aspidosperma. Some herbarium specimens of G. excelsum were annotated with 'No. 136,' but this annotation was not found in the original description, leading to the conclusion that it is unrelated to the species and likely a processing error. Kuhlmann (1935) cited the collection Ducke s. n. from the herbarium RB as part of the prologue for G. excelsum. Based on this and the materials examined, three herbarium sheets in RB (00535104, 00535159, and 00535160) are considered to represent a single specimen, as they share a common label, voucher number, and are physically grouped together, in accordance with the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN article 8.3).