Vascular Plants
Australian Plant Name Index (APNI)
The Australian Plant Name Index (APNI) is a tool for the botanical community that deals with plant names and their usage in the scientific literature, whether as a current name or synonym. APNI does not recommend any particular taxonomy or nomenclature. For a listing of currently accepted scientific names for the Australian vascular flora, please use the Australian Plant Census (APC) link above.
APC Comment:The name Altingia cunninghamii G.Don was published as a nom. nud. in J.C.Loudon, Hort. Brit. 408 (1830). The same name was shortly thereafter used by J.Ross, Hobart Town Almanack 66 (1835) in referring to a tree collected by R.Gunn at Meander and by J.W.Scott on the Huon River in Tasmania. Hill (1998) referred A. cunninghamii to the synonymy of Araucaria cunninghamii, but if the two references refer to the same plant, this cannot be correct. The Tasmanian plants of Ross (1835) were probably Athrotaxis selaginoides (A.Buchanan, pers. comm.). Certainly, there is no Araucaria in Tasmania. Alternatively, the J.Ross name may be a misapplication of the G.Don nom. nud. The name "Araucaria cunninghamii Sweet ex Courtois" listed by Chapman, APNI: 250 (1991) is only an indirect reference to Sweet's Hort. Brit (1830) nom. nud., not an attempt to coin a later homonym.