Melocactus and the Suringars of Leiden

Summary: Willem Frederik Reinier Suringar and Jan Valckenier Suringar between them named a large number of Melocactus species in the middle of the nineteenth and start of the twentieth century. All of them subsequently have been considered to be synonyms of M. macracanthos, M. stramineus, M. curvispinus subsp. koolwijkianus or M. ×bozsingianus. W. Suringar visited the West Indies, Suriname, Guyana and Trinidad, collecting plants. In Curaçao he took special note of melocacti. Through a study of their descriptions, herbarium material and published images, several new synonyms of their taxa are designated in this paper. One Suringar Melocactus, M. stramineus, recently demoted to a subspecies of macracanthos, is reinstated as a good species. An assessment of the work of the Suringars is made. It is noted that, in spite of reservations about their species concept, the Suringar taxa are valid and have to be considered in any taxonomic study of melocacti from the West Indies.