PBS Forum

This month's free e-magazine International Rock Gardener brings new descriptions of three Puschkinia species from the Iranian Alborz & Zagros mountains and no less than five new Crocus species from north-western & western Iran.

Authors are @JānisRukšāns, from Latvia, with @DimitriZubov, from Ukraine and Jānis with @AlirezaDolatyari from Iran. Further evidence, if such were needed, of the wealth of plant diversity in Iran. Download free here:

https://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2022Jun231656010077IRG150.pdf

It would be well to wait and see how these new descriptions are accepted by the botanical profession. Crocus is a genus in which what some botanists view as a single species can be quite variable in morphological features, especially flower coloration. Brian Mathew has written well about ongoing development in Crocus, seeing "continua" rather than clearly separate species in certain groups. As a linguist, I am reminded of dialect continua, in which it is difficult to determine what degree of difference (percentage of mutual intelligibility) is necessary before one calls two varieties different "languages." A number of the Crocus varieties presented as species in Ruksans's book on the genus have been controversial, as are some of the new species published for Turkey in recent years. I don't know about Puschkinia.

In the International Botanical Congresses there is perpetual contention between the 'Lumpers' and the 'Splitters'. Thus every five years, depending on who is in ascendency, there are few or many changes in accepted plant names. I'm not sure exactly how botanists are appointed to that congress, or which nations are represented; but I know it convenes every five years, and is responsible for all name changes, and additions.