[Taxacom] Polygonum cespitosum or P. caespitosum?

[Paul van Rijckevorsel]

From: "Dilrukshan Wijesinghe" <dpwijesinghe at yahoo.com>
To: "Taxacom" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>

> A quick question: What is the correct spelling of the specific epithet 
> of the so-called Oriental Lady' s Thumb or Cespitose Smartweed:
> cespitosum or caespitosum? It appears as cespitosum in Gleason 
> & Cronquist's Manual of Vascular Plants of Northeastern United 
> States and Adjacent Canada, 2nd ed. 1991 (11th printing 2009, 
> p. 137) and in the USDA PLANTS Database 
> (http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=POCE4)
> but as caespitosum in several popular recent publications
> (e.g. Del Tredici, 2010, Wild Urban Plants of the Northeast, p. 260).

***
Looks like a classic case of (not) correcting spelling:

http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/html/taxon.pl?400114
Polygonum cespitosum Blume (Bijdr. 11: 532. 1826)

http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/9224#253
Clearly, /cespitosum/ is the original spelling. From the perspective 
of Latin usage, it would have been preferable if caespitosum 
had been used originally, but it wasn't. The correct spelling is
cespitosum (see Art. 60, Ex. 1, last line).

Paul