The herbarium of the Natural History Museum, London (BM) houses the important, but largely overlooked, Indian botanical collections of Alfred Prentice Young (1841–1919). Between 1878 and 1882, Young undertook several botanical expeditions in the Southern Maratha Country of the Bombay Presidency and Kashmir, and in 1884 his considerable collections were sent to what was then called the ‘British Museum (Natural History)’. Biographical information about Young is available online in the Harvard Index of Botanists and further details can be found in Murray (1904), Vegter (1988), Burkill (1963) and Desmond (1994). A major source of information is Young’s obituary written by Spencer (1921), perhaps based on the profile Young himself included at the end of his geological PhD thesis. Despite his considerable plant collections from Western India, his name has rarely appeared in botanical literature. The purpose of this article is to highlight Young’s herbarium collections in which, as will be seen, new discoveries can still be made.

Biography

Alfred Young was born into an English family on 13 December 1841 in Bombay (now Mumbai). He was brought up in London and attended Denmark Hill Grammar School, then prepared to become a practical seaman. On 3 September 1857 he was appointed as a midshipman with the East India Company (Anon, 1857a, b) and became a mate in the Indian Navy in 1862. In 1864 he was transferred to the Revenue Survey of the Bombay Presidency as an Assistant Superintendent (Markham, 1871; Anon, 1876; Anon, 1884a). From 1876 to 1877 and 1882 to 1883 he was on furlough in London (Anon, 1877) when he studied Mineralogy and Geology at the Royal School of Mines. On 29 December 1877 he was promoted to the first grade of Assistant Superintendent (Anon, 1878) and in 1878 he travelled back to India where he made extensive plant collections. He presented his botanical collections (in January 1884) to what is now the Natural History Museum, London (Murray, 1904; Burkill 1963; Desmond, 1994) and on 21 February 1884 he was elected as a Fellow of Linnaean Society of London (Anon, 1884b). Young retired from his post of Assistant Superintendent in 1893 and travelled to Italy.

In 1894 he enrolled at the University of Berlin to study for a PhD on the petrography of rocks collected by J.W. Reiss and M.A. Stuebel from Cotopaxi and nearby volcanoes in Ecuador. He was awarded a PhD in 1902 (Young, 1902) and in the same year became a member of the Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1906 he became a Fellow of the Geological Society of London and a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute, London (Anon, 1913). He had a special interest in the Tyrol mountains, on which he wrote papers on stratigraphy and physiography (Young, 1907; Young, 1908; Young, 1909), and was stranded there in 1914 at the outbreak of World War I. He died in London at the age of 77 on 8 December 1919 (Spencer, 1921). No letters or personal notes from Young have been passed down through his family (pers. comm. Collen Slater), the only surviving personal document being a photograph of him as a bright-eyed young man that was, perhaps, preserved by Young’s sister (Fig. 1A).

Fig. 1
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A. Portrait of Alfred Prentice Young (available at: https://images.findagrave.com/photos/2019/59/129096604_17979e4a-a4f3-4803-95cf-08b9f3c4a886.jpeg), B. Printed label ‘Ex Herbario Musei Brtiannici’ annotated by BM staff with name (Andropogon), locality (Nidhori, Bombay) and collector (A.P. Young), C. Above: Printed label ‘Southern Maratha Country and North Canara, Bombay Presidency. Collected & Presented by A.P. Young, Esq., I.N. Received 1884, No….’. Below: Label in Young’s hand with local name ‘Hasoli’ (the Marathi and Konkani name for Microcos paniculata L.), Marathi name (in Modi script referring to a tree bark), and date (May 9th 1879), D. Specimen label in Young’s hand: plant name (Grewia), locality (Nipani), date (22nd June 1880), E. Printed label ‘Cashmere. A.P. Young, Esq. Received 1884’ for Young’s Kashmir collections (B–E photographed at BM).

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Young’s Expeditions and his Plant Collections at the Natural History Museum, London (BM)

Although the name of Alfred Young seldom appears in Indian botanical literature, he made significant botanical collections during a series of expeditions conducted in India between 1878 and 1882. He appears to have been an accomplished botanist with a reasonable knowledge of the flora he encountered. Young’s botanical collections come from the Southern Maratha Country and North Canara and ‘Cashmere’, and were donated in 1884 to what is now the Natural History Museum, London (herbarium acronym, BM). Duplicates of some of these specimens were subsequently distributed to other herbaria including Arnold Arboretum Herbarium (A), DePauw University (DPU), Naturalis, Leiden (L), Komarov Botanical Institute of RAS, Russia (LE) and Missouri Botanical Garden (MO).

Probably because Young never published in the field of botany his contribution has been overlooked, and his name is recorded neither in Index Herbariorum nor in Taxonomic Literature II. His most important collection, from the Southern Maratha Country in Western India, has remained unnoticed despite the considerable attention devoted to this region by the British botanists and plant collectors viz. N.A. Dalzell (1817–1878), D. Ritchie (1809–1866), J.E. Stocks (1822–1854), J.S. Law (1810–1885), Theodore Cooke (1836–1910), G.M. Woodrow (1846–1911) and W.A. Talbot (1847–1917). Although Young and Cooke botanized in the Bombay Presidency at almost the same time, Cooke appears to have been unaware of Young’s collections as they are not included in his monumental Flora of the Presidency of Bombay.

As Young’s collection at BM is not fully databased, the number of specimens collected by him is unknown. The 9 January 1884 letter addressed to E.A. Bond (Principal Librarian at BM) by William Carruthers (Scottish botanist, paleobotanist and keeper of Botany at BM from 1871 to 1895) reports donations of 2037 valuable plant specimens Carruthers received from Southern Maratha Country collected by Young, in addition to eight more cases from different regions of India (Fig. 2). Presently, more than 200 records are available through the NHM’s Data Portal, 92 of which have been digitized. In 2019, I had the opportunity to visit BM and found about 20 of Young’s specimens in the families Commelinaceae and Malvaceae (Grewia), most of which were un-named to species. Compared with collectors active in western India at the same time, Young’s specimens are notable in the quality of their preservation and collection data. Most of the specimens bear one of three sorts of printed label made after they reached BM in 1884. One, on blue paper, ‘Ex Herbario Musei Britannici’ often has the identification and locality added by hand by museum staff (Fig. 1B). The other two labels are specific to two of Young’s collecting areas: ‘Southern Maratha Country and North Canara: Bombay Presidency. Collected and presented by A.P. Young Esq., I.N. Received 1884, No. [...]’ and Cashmere. A.P. Young Esq. Received 1884′; many of these have a pencil annotation with the precise locality (Fig. 1C – above & E). In addition to these printed labels, some specimens have Young’s own handwritten labels in purple ink with botanical and local names, locality and date (Fig. 1D). Young appears to be have been familiar with Marathi as some of the labels have handwritten local names written in Devanagari script (Fig. 1C – below).

Fig. 2
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Report of Donation prepared by William Carruthers, mentioning details of the specimens presented by Alfred Young to the British Museum on 9th January 1884 (Reproduced from the British Museum Trustees Book of Donations).

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Young’s collections are predominantly from the states of Karnataka and Maharashtra and a few are from Andhra Pradesh. He also made collections in ‘Cashmere’, in areas that are now in India (Jammu & Kashmir State) and Pakistan (Stewart, 1982). Some of the localities on the labels, especially from ‘Cashmere’, are hard to decipher. His most frequent collecting localities are given in Table 1 and the Western Indian ones are mapped in Fig. 3.

Table 1 Alfred Young’s collecting localities in India and Pakistan taken from herbarium labels at BM and L. SMC = Southern Maratha Country. *some localities are without date of collection.
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Fig. 3
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Map of Young’s collecting localities in the southern Bombay Presidency (light grey shading = Southern Maratha Country in present day northern Karnataka and western Maharashtra States; dark grey shading = former Princely States of Kolhapur).

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Though employed by the Revenue Survey of the Bombay Presidency from 1864, his botanical expeditions were all made between August 1878 and October 1882, but no evidence has yet been found for his reason for undertaking them. They follow his first period of study at the Royal School of Mines in London and after four years of botanical expeditions he was again on furlough to continue his studies in London. There is no record of when Young returned to India, but his leave must have been extended for a second year, as it was in 1884 that he presented his botanical collections to BM and was elected a Fellow of the Linnaean Society of London.

Taxonomic Novelties Based on Young’s Collections

Many of Young’s specimens at BM remain undetermined, but might well prove useful in studies of morphology, phenology, and distribution, and some may represent undescribed species. The large set at L (ca. 140 specimens), mainly of grasses, sedges and a few dicots, have been better studied, with many (particularly the grasses) annotated by Jan-Frits Veldkamp and Jan Henrard.

The following Indian plant taxa are based at least in part on Young’s collections:

Indigofera rubro-violacea Dunn, Bull. Misc. Inform. Kew 1922(3): 117 (1922) (= I. heterantha Wall. ex Brandis). Cashmere (Mari: August 1880, BM) (along with two other syntypes: R. Ellis, August 1880; R.N. Parker, July 1920, both from Chamba, Himachal Pradesh).

Urochloa marathensis Henrard, Meded. Rijks-Herb. 43: 2 (1922) and U. marathensis var. velutina Henrard, Meded. Rijks-Herb. 43: 3 (1922) (= Urochloa panicoides P. Beauv.). Southern Maratha Country (L).

Digitaria corymbosa subsp. marathensis Henrard, Monogr. Digitaria: 152–153, 943, f. 1950 (15 Jan 1950) (= D. bicornis (Lam.) Roem. & Schult.). Southern Maratha Country: Dharwar (L).

Arthraxon deccanensis S.K. Jain, J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 68(1): 297, t. 297 (1971). Southern Maratha Country (Paratype, LE).

Undetermined collections and new species

One of the Commelinaceae specimens from the dryland hillocks of Sunnal in Karnataka, that Young collected in November 1879 is of particular interest. The duplicate at L was in 1957 misidentified by R.S. Rao as Commelina attenuata, but study of the specimen at BM and comparison with available literature (Clarke, 1881; Joseph & Nampy, 2012; Nandikar, 2013; Nandikar & Gurav, 2015; Nandikar & Gurav, 2018; Nandikar & Naik, 2019) shows it to represent a hitherto undescribed species, described here as Commelina youngii.

With about 170 species, Commelina Plum. ex L. is the largest genus of the family Commelinaceae and is distributed in tropical and warm temperate parts of the world. The genus is most speciose (ca. 120 species) in Tropical Africa (Faden, 2012). India has 29 species (Nandikar & Naik, 2019), four of which have been described only recently (Nampy et al., 2013, Nandikar and Gurav 2015, 2018; Nandikar & Naik, 2019).

Materials and methods

Flowers and capsules were dissected and photographed at BM using a Stereo Zoom Leica S60 microscope. The duplicate at L was studied as an online image. Comparison with other members of the genus is based on available literature and on specimens studied at BM, BSI, CAL, K, MH and NGCPR. The watercolour illustration was made to depict the habit, spathe, capsule, and seed characters.

Taxonomy

Commelina youngii Nandikar, sp. nov. Type: India, Southern Maratha Country (present day Belgaum district, Karnataka), west of Sunnal, 19 Nov 1879, ‘Commelyna with nerved spathes’, A.P. Young s.n. (holotype: BM [barcode BM013399278]; isotype: L [barcode L. 1431960]). (Fig. 4, 5 and 6).

Fig. 4
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Holotype of Commelina youngii (BM, barcode BM013399278) copyright: NHM, London.

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Fig. 5
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Commelina youngii Nandikar: A. Habit. B. Open spathe with flowering cincinni. C. Capsule. D, F. Seeds (lateral view, lateral view with capsule remnant and dorsal view). Illustration by Mayur Nandikar, based on holotype (BM).

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Fig. 6
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Commelina youngii A. Spathes. B. Seed with capsule remnant. C. Seeds in different views (Photographed from holotype: BM).

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Diagnosis: Commelina youngii is distinguished from other members of the genus by its linear to ensiform, ligulate leaves; falcate, 2–3 vinaceous-nerved spathes; dehiscent, globose, unilocular capsule; and its unique, solitary, domed seed with a characteristic, conduplicate, thick, appendaged hilum and smooth, mottled testa.

Annual, decumbent, spreading herb. Roots thin, fibrous, rooting at the base of decumbent nodes. Stem terete to faintly sulcate, glabrous, internodes 4–8 cm, shorter in erect flowering shoots. Leaf sheath open, 7–10 mm, sparsely pubescent, vinaceous-striated. Leaves ligulate, ligule similar to leaf sheath, more hyaline, glabrous, faintly stramineous; leaf lamina linear to ensiform, 20–50 × 4–7 mm, often conduplicate; apex acuminate, often falcate; base rounded to amplexicaul, sparsely villose; surfaces glabrous to sparsely pilose; margin entire, sparsely pilose. Spathe (Fig. 6A) solitary, leaf-opposed, usually from erect shoots, peduncle 15–20(−23) mm; folded, outline lanceolate, 12–15 × 4–5 mm; apex often falcate; surface characteristically 2–3 vinaceous-nerved; base free, sparsely pilose; margin sparsely pilose. Upper cincinnus solitary, male flowered, pedicel 10 mm, sericeous, flower early caducous. Lower cincinnus 3–4-flowered (1-bisexual, 2–3 male). Flower ca. 10 mm across; medial sepal ovate, ca. 2.5 × 1.5 mm, free, hyaline, faintly vinaceous-striated; lateral sepals elliptic, ca. 4 × 1.5 mm, similar to medial sepal; lateral petals dark blue, orbicular to broadly ovate, 5–6 × 4–5 mm, claw ca. 2 mm; medial petal pale blue to hyaline, elliptic to spathulate, ca. 3 × 2 mm; lateral stamens ca. 4 mm, filaments filiform, dark blue, anthers ellipsoid, pale yellow; medial stamen shorter, ca. 2 mm, anthers saddle shaped, cream-white; staminodes 3, filament 1.5–2 mm, pale blue, antherodes lobed, lemon yellow; ovary ovoid, glabrous, style 4–5 mm, sigmoid, pale blue to hyaline, stigma simple. Capsule one per spathe, globose to humpbacked, ca. 4.2 × 3.7 mm, unilocular, dehiscent, 1-seeded, stramineous. Seeds (Fig. 6B & C) domed, ca. 4 × 3 mm; testa smooth, ventral side pale brown with dark brown mottling, widened on the dorsal edges, dorsal side smooth flattened, with pale brown stripes, dorsi-ventral margin involute, crisped; embryotega semilateral, inconspicuous; hilum appendaged, conduplicate, thick, stramineous.

Distribution.—Endemic to the Belgaum District of peninsular India in the vicinity of Sunnal, an area of sandstone plains and small hillocks with dryland vegetation and loose, sandy soil, at elevations of 400 to 600 m above sea level.

Phenology.—Flowering September to January.

Etymology.—The species is named after Alfred Prentice Young, who collected the type specimen and for his contribution to the study of the botany of the Southern Maratha Country.

Note.—Commelina hirsuta, C. wightii and C. indehiscens are reported to have single-seeded capsules but differ from C. youngii (dehiscent, unilocular capsules) in their indehiscent, bi or trilocular capsules in which the dorsal locules are usually abortive.

Commelina badamica is similar in habit, leaf-size and -shape, but differs from C. youngii in its longer (1.5–22 mm) spathes, 1–2-seeded, bilocular capsules and reticulate and warty, trapezoidal to truncate seeds. Commelina diffusa and C. caroliniana produce lanceolate spathes with free and rounded bases, but differ from C. youngii in having elliptic to lanceolate leaves, 5-seeded capsules and reticulate to foveolate seeds. Likewise, C. attenuata and C. rupestris also grow in similar dryland habitat and have lanceolate spathes, but the former is different from C. youngii by its hastate spathe base and appendaged seeds, whereas latter has a knotted, rhizomatous base, and ellipsoid to oblate, rostrate seeds.

Current status.— Intensive searches for C. youngii on hillocks near Sunnal, Karnataka, have failed to locate it. Over the last 150 years, most of these hillocks have been developed for agricultural expansion or affected by urbanization. However, as suitable habitat is spread over hundreds of kilometers the species might well survive and the search for it will be continued.