Estrela Figueiredo’s research while affiliated with Nelson Mandela University and other places

The peak Pico de São Tomé on the island of São Tomé (São Tomé and Príncipe, Gulf of Guinea) is a locality where many specimens that became types of vascular plant names were collected during colonial times. Determining the routes the collectors took to ascend the peak will help determine some collecting localities. Gustav Mann was the first collector to explore the region; his itinerary is analysed and mapped based on his correspondence. The itineraries of ten further expeditions that ascended the peak are analysed. Collections that became types of vascular plant species names are recorded. "Increasingly, the task of the historian of recent science is becoming like that of the medievalist: We get all the documents we can, then scrabble for any shard of pottery or piece of flint that can fill a gap in our fragmentary tale." Comfort (2003: 12)

A response is provided to the Rapporteurs’ comments on Proposal 193 to amend the Shenzhen Code . If adopted, Prop. 193 would amend Div. III, Prov. 5 of the Code so as to require a simple majority to approve—as opposed to the current 60% majority to reject (and thus 40% + 1 vote to approve)—General Committee recommendations on conservation, protection, or rejection of names, suppression of works, and binding decisions. We regard the requirement of a simple majority in the affirmative to approve recommendations of the General Committee to be the fairest and most easily understood procedure available. It is also one that is consistent with the compromise worked out and published in 2016 by the Special Committee on By‐laws that reported to the Nomenclature Section at Shenzhen and would restore the procedure used at all nomenclature sections prior to the Nomenclature Section at Vienna in 2005 .

Until 1987, Aloe mutans (Asphodelaceae subfam. Alooideae) was accepted as a distinctive species of maculate aloe from South Africa’s Limpopo province. However, this species thereafter often has been included in the synonymy of A. greatheadii var. davyana. Recently, A. davyana was separated from A. greatheadii at the rank of species, which requires reconsideration of the taxonomic status of A. mutans. It is shown that A. mutans differs from A. davyana in several vegetative and reproductive morphological characters so warranting its recognition at the rank of species. Aloe mutans is therefore here reinstated as an accepted species. Both A. mutans and A. davyana are illustrated and an amplified description is provided for A. mutans.

The history of vascular plant collecting on the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe, from the earliest times up to the independence of the country in 1975 is provided, along with biographical information on all the collectors that could be traced, with notes on their itineraries, collecting localities, and collections. Aspects of the social environment prevalent in São Tomé and Príncipe at the time that historical collections were made are highlighted and contextualised to enable an improved understanding of connections between scientific-botanical endeavour, colonialism, and slavery on São Tomé and Príncipe.

São Tomé and Príncipe, two islands in the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean off the central west coast of Africa, are well-known for their tropical, albeit substantially transformed, floras. Given the tropical climate prevalent in São Tomé and Príncipe, a large component of their floras is comprised of ferns and lycophytes—here collectively referred to as pteridophytes. We provide information on the collectors of pteridophytes in São Tomé and Príncipe during the colonial period (from the earliest times up to 1975). New information on these collectors and their collections are provided, and some of the doubts that existed about localities where pteridophytes were collected are solved.

Three species of Aloe, namely A. arborescens, A. maculata, and A. vera, have been formally recorded as naturalised in the region covered by the Flora iberica project, which includes the Iberian Peninsula [Portugal and Spain] and the Balearic islands [an archipelago of islands and islets off the east coast of Spain, in the western Mediterranean Sea]. All three species occur in both Portugal and Spain. At least one further aloe, A. ×nobilis, is here formally recorded as naturalised in Portugal. We provide an updated, annotated catalogue of the alooids naturalised or escaped in Portugal, the southwestern-most country included in the Flora iberica project. Apart from these four naturalised taxa in Aloe, Aloiampelos ciliaris var. ciliaris, is also recorded as having escaped from cultivation.