Phytotaxa 376 (5): 185–200 http://www.mapress.com/j/pt/ Copyright © 2018 Magnolia Press Article PHYTOTAXA ISSN 1179-3155 (print edition) ISSN 1179-3163 (online edition) Accepted by Angelo Troia: 31 Oct. 2018; published: 21 Nov. 2018 https://doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.376.5.1 185 Notes on taxonomy and nomenclature of juno irises (Juno, Iridaceae) MANUEL B. CRESPO 1* , MARIO MARTÍNEZ-AZORÍN 1 & EVGENY V. MAVRODIEV 2 1 Departamento de Ciencias Ambientales y Recursos Naturales (dCARN) & CIBIO (Instituto de la Biodiversidad), Universidad de Alicante, P.O. Box 99, ES-03080 Alicante, Spain; e-mail: crespo@ua.es; mmartinez@ua.es 2 Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA; e-mail: evgeny@ufl.edu *author for correspondence Abstract Juno (Iris subg. Scorpiris) is a distinct group of bulbous irises, widely diversified in central and southwestern Asia and the Caucasus with some representatives in the Mediterranean basin. It is a monophyletic group with remarkable morphological, biogeographical and molecular peculiarities, which is accepted here as an independent genus. In the present contribution, some taxonomic and nomenclatural issues are discussed, concerning several names of juno irises. As a result, ten new combinations are established (nine at specific rank and one at varietal rank), and the taxonomic relationships of some taxa are revisited. Types are indicated for all discussed names, of which one lectotype and two neotypes are designated here. Keywords: Asian flora, Iris subg. Scorpiris, Mediterranean flora, nomenclature, taxonomy Introduction Juno Trattinnick (1821: 135) is one of the most diverse groups of irises, with about 70 species, mainly from central and southern Asia, Anatolia and the Middle East, some of them extending into the Mediterranean basin (Vvedensky 1935, 1971, Rodionenko 1961, 1994, Kamelin 1973, 2017, Crespo et al. 2015). The type species is Juno persica (Linnaeus 1753: 40) Trattinnick (1821: 136) as designated by Rodionenko (1961: 206), a species occurring in the Middle East. When the genus Iris Linnaeus (1753: 38) is treated in a wide sense to include other non-iridaceous genera such as Belamcanda Adanson (1763: 60), the juno irises are regarded as Iris subg. Scorpiris Spach (1846: 16) or Iris sect. Juno (Tratt.) Maximowicz (1880: 505). However, a recent comprehensive taxonomic study including morphological, phytochemical, cytological, molecular and biogeographical data (Crespo et al. 2015) has produced a consistent integrative multigeneric arrangement of the “Iris-flower clade” (Iris sensu latissimo), which recognises several genera readily distinguishable, morphologically more homogeneous and easy to work with. Those genera basically accord with the distinction of groups as “working-names” by horticulturists (cfr. SGBIS 1997), which have traditionally been used to date within the last two centuries. In that treatment, the monophyletic juno irises (Ikinci et al. 2011, Mavrodiev et al. 2014) are again accepted at the generic rank, a solution that we strongly support here. Recent work by Boltenkov (2016a,b) and Boltenkov & Govaerts (2017) has contributed the nomenclature of many taxa of Juno, which facilitates further taxonomic arrangements of the group. In the present contribution, nomenclatural and taxonomic comments are made on Mediterranean and Asian taxa of Juno, on the basis of living plants and herbarium material. Ten new combinations are established (nine at specific rank and one at varietal one), and the circumscription and taxonomic relationships of some taxa are revisited. Types of all discussed names are indicated, and one lectotype and two neotypes are designated for three neglected taxa from Syria, Turkey and Libya. Material and methods Living plants from wild populations, dried herbarium material and/or digital images from the herbaria ABH, BM, E, FI, FT, G, JE, K, LE, LI, MPU, MS, MW, NGBB, OXF, PAD, P, PAL, PORUN and RO (acronyms according to Thiers 2018) were studied. The nomenclatural issues follow the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants