Notulae to the Italian alien vascular flora: 9

In this contribution, new data concerning the distribution of vascular flora alien to Italy are presented. It includes new records, confirmations, exclusions, and status changes for Italy or for Italian administrative regions. Furthermore, three new combinations are proposed. Nomenclatural and distribution updates published elsewhere are provided as Suppl. material 1.

; Verona (Verona), stazione ferroviaria di Porta Vescovo (WGS84: 45.435721N, 11.016411E), decine di esemplari lungo i binari morti della stazione dei treni, 54 m, no exp., 17 October 2019, A. Bertolli (FI,ROV No. 74208). -Naturalized alien species new for the flora of Veneto. Another population was found in a nearby soybean field (WGS84: 45.575639N, 11.912194E). According to ongoing research on herbicide-resistance (Milani et al. 2018), A. palmeri in Veneto is resistant to acetolactate inhibitors, allowing it to selfsustain and spread. At the train station "Verona Porta Vescovo", the population is represented by many fertile plants, which occupy an area of about 50 m in length.
A. Bertolli, D. Iamonico, A. Milani This species was first reported by Pignatti (1982) for Calabria, and then recorded as not confirmed by Bernardo et al. (2009  The presence of this species can be explained by the random dispersal of seeds, since they are frequently sold in food markets.

Ficus benjamina L. (Moraceae)
-ITALIA (SAR). -Alien species to be excluded from the flora of Italy (Sardegna). An incomplete verification of literature sources generated mistaken reports of this cultivated species as casual alien in Sardegna. We argue that the record by Camarda et al. (2016) is due to a transcription mistake in the database supporting this work.

Ficus elastica Roxb. ex Hornem. (Moraceae)
-SAR. -Alien species to be excluded from the flora of Sardegna. This species was first reported for the island of La Maddalena (Sassari) by Bocchieri (1996). Later, it was indicated by several authors as a casual alien (Camarda et al. 2004;Bacchetta et al. 2009;Podda et al. 2012;Puddu et al. 2016). This is a misidentification with Ficus macrophylla Pers. subsp. columnaris (C.Moore) P.S.Green, only cultivated as ornamental.
G. Bacchetta, G. Brundu, A. Lallai, L. Podda This species was introduced in the Botanical Gardens of Cagliari during the second half of the 19 th century, and then cultivated as ornamental (Vannelli 1986). In recent years, many seedlings and saplings have been observed in different parts of Cagliari, often close to the parental trees (Puddu et al. 2016). We found propagules in fallow land, roadsides, and ruderal sites, growing as a lithophyte on walls and cliffs, and even as an epiphyte on Phoenix canariensis H.Wildpret and Jacaranda mimosifolia D.Don. In Sardinian botanical literature, Ficus microcarpa has been reported under some incorrect names (Gennari 1874;Cavara 1901;Chiappini 1967Chiappini , 1985Vannelli 1986;Podda et al. 2012), such as F. retusa L. or F. benjamina L.

Ficus retusa L. (Moraceae)
-ITALIA (SAR). -Alien species to be excluded from the flora of Italy (Sardegna). The first report of Ficus retusa as a casual alien was by Podda et al. (2012). However, this record is due to a confusion with F. microcarpa L.f., the only naturalized The Central American Froelichia gracilis has been recorded as an alien in eastern United States, Japan, Australia, and Hungary (Harden 2001;McCauley 2003McCauley , 2004Balogh et al. 2004). The plants recorded for Italy were identified according to McCauley (2003McCauley ( , 2004 and Merkingler et al. (2014). They grow in cracks of the asphalt in two unloading sites close to a refinery where they form a dense, almost monospecific, vegetation.
S The South American Passiflora morifolia (Miller 1997;Imig et al. 2018) has been recently introduced into Europe, mainly for ornamental purposes, similarly to other species of the genus Passiflora. In Assemini, its presence has been observed since 2006, close to the regional nursery "Is Bagantinus". Since then, this species has spread as far as about 2 km from there, colonizing orchards, walls, ruderal places, and fallow land.
G   This subspecies can be easily distinguished from the autonym by the smaller spikelets (2.0-2.5 mm) and the copper-reddish bristles (Rominger 2003). Some authors (e.g., Morrone et al. 2014)  This species was identified according to Chambers (1993), Schulz et al. (2005), and Tison and de Foucault (2014). It was introduced in the surroundings of Lake Meugliano in the 1930s for reforestation purposes. Offspring of this species is abundant near seed-bearing plants; some young individuals have also been found ca.  (Burgarella et al. 2018). However, the correct epithet at subspecific rank is 'chudeaui' since 'monodii', described simultaneously to the species (Maire 1931), is now considered a heterotypic synonym. Consequently, a new combination is required due to the priority of the autonym (Art. 11.6 of the ICN:  Qi et al. 2013;Liu et al. 2015) confirmed the exclusive role of the Indian wild cucumber Cucumis hardwickii in the genesis of the cultivated cucumber C. sativus (de Wilde and Duyfjes 2008). Regarding taxonomy, we have already emphasized (Galasso et al. 2018) that the rank of subspecies is preferable when distinguishing between a crop and its wild ancestor whenever domestication has proceeded linearly from the second to the first without any external genetic contribution. E. Banfi, G. Galasso

Nomenclatural and distribution updates from other literature sources
Nomenclatural, status, distribution updates, and corrections to Galasso et al. (2018) are provided in Suppl. material 1. G. Galasso, F. Bartolucci