Pierfelice Ravenna (1938–2022)—Life, New Names, and Confusion

Abstract

Pierfelice Ravenna was a controversial Chilean botanist active from the late 1960s through the first decade of the 21st century. He died in 2022. During his active years he described ca. 650 species and infraspecific taxa of plants, mostly in Amaryllidaceae and Iridaceae. Unfortunately, the fate of his type specimens, a majority of which were located in his personal herbarium along with many loans from other herbaria, is not clearly known, but by all indications they were destroyed. In this article, we briefly review his life, compile an annotated list of all validly published specific and infraspecific taxa that he described, and determine which have available holotypes and isotypes.