Paeonia identity question

Tim Eck teck11@embarqmail.com
Sat, 22 Mar 2014 05:49:27 PDT

Paeonia mairei Leveille (1915) is a Chinese plant closely related to P.
obovata. Its synonyms are  P. bifurcata and P. oxypetala. It is said to have
more pointed leaves than P. obovata. My reference for this is Halda, The
Genus Paeonia, which, however, is "splittist" in tendency.

Jane McGary
Portland, Oregon, USA

Jane,
Your comment on "splittist tendency" reminded me of my Wikipedia search for
'Hippeastrum'.  I was trying to put together  a presentation on the genus
and was disconcerted to see that Wikipedia would not commit to a phylum or
class but was willing to insert a subfamily, tribe, and subtribe between
family and genus.
Admittedly it's been 45 years since I've had a botany or taxonomy course and
there has been a lot of parallel developments and philosophical changes
affecting taxonomy, but I'd love to know 'the rest of the story' on what
seems to be a basic dis-functionality regarding flowering plant taxonomy.
Thanks,
Tim




More information about the pbs mailing list