Flower for ID

[Dorts]

Originally Posted by aeshna5

It's now Helminthotheca echiodes in the latest Stace.

Can they not leave anything alone? The name Picris has been fine for over 250 years.
Sorry Hawk Roosting, you were right all along.

I don't have a copy of the latest Stace, which will no doubt have changed again by the time the next volume appears.
I do have a list of changes since the last volume, but I don't refer to it at every moment.
Such is the world of plant taxonomy.
Dorts.

[Johnny81]

I see Autumn Hawkbit Leontodon autumnalis recently changed to Scorzoneroides autumnalis too

http://www.bgbm.org/willdenowia/w-pd...Greuter+al.pdf

So I am guessing a few more have changed over the last couple of years...

[Dorts]

Originally Posted by Johnny81

I see Autumn Hawkbit Leontodon autumnalis recently changed to Scorzoneroides autumnalis too

http://www.bgbm.org/willdenowia/w-pd...Greuter+al.pdf

So I am guessing a few more have changed over the last couple of years...

John, in one of the recent BSBI Journals, there was a long list of species where names haved changed between the last two editions of Stace.
It's not until you happen to look-up one of those plants, (if you happen to have the latest edition of Stace), or a query such as has just happened arises, that you are aware of such changes.

New Field Guides will be produced, and many of the old names will remain, as I'm sure, like myself, publishers find it difficult to be right up-to-date with the latest nomenclature.

I think it is important that when making an ID on WAB, we give synoyms where appropriate, as most flora's and field-guides will still have the old names, and using the new ones will cause confusion when anyone wants to look them up.
Dorts.

[poschiavanus]

This seems to be the original culprit - SpringerLink - Folia Geobotanica, Volume 8, Number 2 - well before molecular phylogeny got going and perhaps even a bit before people worried about making genera monophyletic groups.

Helminthoides seems to be pretty old too, although the paper on Scorzoneroides gives a different authority (Vaill.) to that of Zinn (as in Zinnia) 1757 given elsewhere. Most English language floras seem to use Helminthoides now, although recent continental ones (to hand & on-line) still seem to use Picris.

Odd that there should be all this fussing around when the problem of large plant genera is still a major issue : nice intro on wikipedia which I came across today.

[Dorts]

You may want to see this Wikipedia piece on Helminthotheca. It appears that with one exception, all species have been moved from other genera!

Helminthotheca - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dorts.

[Hobjob]

Originally Posted by Dorts

You may want to see this Wikipedia piece on Helminthotheca. It appears that with one exception, all species have been moved from other genera!

Helminthotheca - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dorts.

Wikipedia hasn't yet changed the genera name for the species entry for Bristly Oxtongue!!
(And in the link above I find the direction of the arrows confusing).

Do I really care ............

[Dorts]

Originally Posted by Hobjob

Do I really care ............

Seconded!
By the time I catch-up, they'll all have changed again.
Dorts.

[Johnny81]

Would we be technically wrong for still using an older name? I can only see people like us on forums using them when they become more "fashionable" and more widely accepted.

[Dorts]

Originally Posted by Johnny81

Would we be technically wrong for still using an older name?

No, not at all John. Virtually all field botanist's that I have known use the (latin) names that are in common usage; or if they are up to date with the new names, will mention both.
If a name is changed, I think most will wait for a while to see if the new name will stick, or until it becomes widely known.

I would guess that 90% of those on these pages use Field Guides that are older than the last edition of Stace. So there is very little point using new names except when naming a photo for the Gallery, when the new name should be used along with its synonym which should be added in the 'notes'.
Dorts.

[King Edward]

Originally Posted by poschiavanus

Odd that there should be all this fussing around when the problem of large plant genera is still a major issue : nice intro on wikipedia which I came across today.

I don't see that having large genera is necessarily a problem, so long as the classification is a reasonable representation of the underlying biological reality. I'm not sure what the underlying mathematic model would be, but it stands to reason that one would expect a large number of (very) small genera, and a small number of very large genera. Likewise at higher taxonomic levels - in the British flowering plant flora, for instance, I think about half the species are contained within about 10 or so families, while there are about 30 families with only 1 native species.

Rather than splitting up (genuinely) large genera (or families etc.), much better to use the appropriate sub-taxa such as subgenus, section, tribe.

Regarding the new names in Stace 3, I was disappointed to see that he has resisted the change of Lemnaceae to Araceae (Arum family) subfamily Lemnoideae.