Worsleya

J.E. Shields jshields104@insightbb.com
Sat, 18 Sep 2004 08:14:23 PDT
Hi all,

A web search turned up the web site http://www.sysbot.org/ and an abstract 
of a publication

Systematic Botany: Vol. 25, No. 4, pp. 708–726 (2000)
"Phylogeny of the American Amaryllidaceae based on nrDNA ITS sequences"
Alan W. Meerow, Charles L. Guy, Qin-Bao Li, and Si-Lin Yang

Which I can only read as the abstract, since I don't subscribe to that 
journal.  Worsleya is not mentioned in the abstract.  Alan does note in the 
abstract that

"Within the hippeastroid clade, the tribe Griffineae is resolved as sister 
to the rest of Hippeastreae. "

which suggests that Hippeastrum is not an acceptable genus name for what we 
refer to as Worsleya rayneri or procerum.  Other publications from Alan 
have put Worsleya and Griffinia in  the tribe Griffineae, as far as I can 
recall at the moment.   See the link at the bottom of the web 
page  http://shieldsgardens.com/amaryllids/…

Based on the DNA work, it appears that there is no way this species can be 
included in the genus Hippeastrum.

We can safely use either Worsleya rayneri or Worsleya procerum to refer to 
this plant without fear of being misunderstood.

Jim Shields


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Jim Shields             USDA Zone 5             Shields Gardens, Ltd.
P.O. Box 92              WWW:    http://www.shieldsgardens.com/
Westfield, Indiana 46074, USA
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