Maihueniopsis archiconoidea

Maihueniopsis archiconoidea F.Ritter (1980)

🌵 Author(s)	Friedrich Ritter
🌵 Published in	Kakteen Südamerika 3: 877 (1980)

Etymology

Greek archi– ‘first, primary, most important, primeval’ + Latin cōnŏīdĕus ‘conical’. For the conical stem segments. Ritter originally wanted to name this species “Tephrocactus conoideus” and a related species “Tephrocactus schaeferi“, but in 1958 Curt Backeberg published the name Tephrocactus conoideus (now Maihueniopsis conoidea) for the latter species. Ritter (Kakteen Südamerika 3: 874. 1980): “As a result, I was forced not only to give up my name schaeferi for this species, but also the name conoideus for the other species […].” According to Eggli & Newton (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names. 2004) the epithet archiconoidea also refers to the fact that this species was discovered earlier than Maihueniopsis conoidea, but Ritter does not mention this.

Writing about the similar case of Rebutia buiningiana and Rebutia archibuiningiana, Ritter (Kakteen Südamerika 2: 622. 1980) explained his use of the prefix archi-: “Archibuiningiana means “old buiningiana” (Greek archaios = old). A corresponding example: In the class of algal fungi or Phycomycetes, the oldest or most original order is called Archimycetes (= primordial mycetes or primordial fungi). It is common to form generic names such as Neoporteria, Neoraimondia, or specific names such as Mamillaria neopalmeri [= Mammillaria neopalmeri] when honoring an individual whose name has already been used as a generic or specific name by adding a “neo” = “new” in front of the name. Accordingly, I put “archi” = “old” in front of the specific name buiningiana, because this name was the old, original name for this species, but was later given to another species because it was still a nomen nudum.”