This species was first
described in 1857 by the Chilean paleontologist and zoologist
Rudolph Amandus Philippi. In 2019 the husband-and-wife team of
rock gardening enthusiasts
John Michael Watson and renamed the species to
V. wikipedia, after
Wikipedia, a
free-content online encyclopedia. They did so believing that the name
V. angustifolia was a
later homonym, and thus
illegitimate. Indeed, the name "
Viola angustifolia" had been published prior to Philippi's description, in 1824 by the Swiss historian and botanist
Frédéric Charles Jean Gingins de la Sarraz, in the famous
Prodromus of
Alphonse Pyramus de Candolle. However, this publication cites it as a
nomen nudum synonymous to the species
Pigea banksiana, which is now known as
Hybanthus enneaspermus. The name had been proposed on a specimen sheet collected in India, but had never been validly published. As such, this name is what is known as a
pro synonymo, a name which cannot be considered as validly published because it is merely a synonymy citation. Therefore, Philippi's description is in fact the first valid publication of the name "
V. angustifolia", and
V. wikipedia is thus a superfluous and illegitimate name. ==Description==