Correspondence

Scutellaria Linnaeus (1753: 598), with 425 currently recognized species (Paton 1990a), is one of the large genera in the family Lamiaceae. In Flora Iranica (Rechinger 1982), the genus is represented by 40 species, of which only 22 species grow in Iran and 10 species are endemic. Scutellaria glechomoides Boissier (1853: 67) ex Bentham (1848: 421) is an endemic species of Iran belonging to the subsection Lupulinaria (Hamilton 1832: 31) Paton (1990b: 347). Lupulinaria is the largest subsection with approximately 120 species distributed throughout North Africa and Eurasia (Paton 1990a, 1990b, Ranjbar & Mahmoudi 2013). While doing a revision of Scutellaria species growing in Iran, we realized of confusion in the authorship and type specimen designated to S. glechomoides. After a thorough examination of literature and specimens at different herbaria, we proceeded to clarify the authorship of the species and to designate a new lectotype. In Flora Iranica (Rechinger 1982), Scutellaria glechomoides is cited with authorship “Boiss. in DC.”. However, S. glechomoides first valid description was published in Bentham’s treatment of Labiatae in De Candolle’s Prodromus (Bentham 1848), Bentham himself attributed the name to Boissier because he used the epithet Boissier had chosen and which was written on the labels of Kotschy’s plants distributed by Hohenacker. But it is only five years later that Boissier (1853) effectively published his own diagnosis based on the same collections. According to current rule