Talk:Nüsser 4459 (1999)
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Evidentiary scope
The label gives the habitat as village environs, cultivated fields, in the Sanqebethu valley of Mokhotlong District, on 8 April 1999, and the Edinburgh catalogue repeats it. The words place the plant near a village and in cultivated fields. They do not say whether it was the crop of those fields or a plant that came up in them: the same words fit a cultivated plant and a weed in a crop. The label names no grower, no use and no local name, so the accession is classified Unknown. The sheet does not show what became of the plant or whether its seed survives, and no conservation priority is assigned.
Label reading
Read twice, independently, from the Edinburgh image of E00313428 (2842 × 4096 pixels); the two readings agree on every printed line.
- Printed label, lower right: Flora of Maloti, Lesotho / CANNABINACEAE / Cannabis sativa L. / Mokhotlong District / Lesotho / Sanqebethu Valley / 2600 m, with 1999-04-08 at the right / village environs, cultivated fields / det. Hilliard & Burtt 2000-11 / leg. M.Nüsser 4459.
- Other marks: (12) and, below it, 203 in pencil above the label; the stamp HERB. HORT. EDINB. at the top right, above an empty fragment packet; the barcode label ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN EDINBURGH, E00313428, at the lower left.
Georeferencing
The label names the Sanqebethu Valley in Mokhotlong District and no village or spot within it. In OpenStreetMap the Sanqebethu River (ways 1323665941, 294413853, 1188090747, 567560112, 294407995, 294407198, 294406521 and 294399402) rises beside Sanqebethu peak (node 2330793122) and runs west for about 41 km, falling from about 3,050 to 2,270 metres (SRTM), to a mouth about 14 km east of the town of Mokhotlong. OpenStreetMap places villages along it, among them Koeneng and Mok'hoek'hoe (Ha Motlalepula). The point -29.30, 29.32 is the middle of the river's course; every part of the course lies within 12 km of it, and the uncertainty adds the valley's sides. It is an area point for the valley, not the place the plant was gathered. The label's 2600 m is the height of the river about 13 to 15 km below its source, 3 to 4 km north-east of the point; it agrees with the valley but does not place the gathering within it. The Edinburgh catalogue gives no coordinate for this sheet. The only Sanqebethu sheet it gives one for, Nüsser 4521 (E00304412), gathered the next day in grassland at 2975 m, carries -29.289167, 29.0675: that is the town of Mokhotlong (OpenStreetMap node 3666485874, 0.4 km away, SRTM height 2,200 m), about 13 km west of the river's mouth, and it is not used here. The Mokhotlong growing area's point, -29.22, 29.03, is the middle of the district, about 30 km to the west-north-west. Basis: district point. Uncertainty: about 16 km.
Editorial treatment
Collector. The collector field takes the label's M. Nüsser (the catalogue's Nüsser, M.). Marcus Nüsser published a study of pastoral use and land-cover change in the Sanqebethu Valley in 2002 (Erdkunde 56: 207–221). No source read for this page ties that study's author to the sheet, so the name is not expanded or linked.
Determination. The identified-by field takes the label's Hilliard & Burtt as printed. The Edinburgh catalogue gives the determination's date, November 2000, and not the names.
Altitude. The elevation field takes the label's 2600 m; GBIF gives the same figure.
Source citations remain in the article. Éloise 05:28, 22 October 2026 (+07)