Has anyone else followed many of the photo links on World Checklist pages?
At present, they're set up to do a Google search of images under whichever
name you've clicked, with the thoroughly bizarre result that all sorts of
erroneous photos appear. Apparently there is no vetting in this department
- any photo that anyone has captioned with the species name being searched
gets picked up. Visually, this brings you back to square one, i.e. you
will not know whether what you're looking at is or is not the species you
searched. Beats me why they did this.
Ellen Hornig
Seneca Hill Perennials
Original Message:
-----------------
From: Joe Shaw jshaw@opuntiads.com
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2006 17:50:31 -0600
To: pbs@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [pbs] World Checklist of Monocotyledons
Hi Gang,
The World Checklist of Monocotyledons is online at:
http://www.kew.org/wcsp/home.do
The big advantage for bulb growers who are also interested in taxonomic
accuracy is that all the accepted names are provided. Also provided are
synonyms. I did some quick browsing and found that Homeria is no longer an
accepted genus, the various species seem to have been placed into Moraea.
I
knew that revisions had taken place, but I didn't know what was "accepted"
or mainstreamed.
To test the database I looked up Cooperia drummondii, and the database
rightly informed me that the correct name is really Zephyranthes
chlorosolen. The list of synonyms for Z. chlorosolen is impressive. The
various synonyms are:
a.. Cooperia drummondii Herb., Edwards's Bot. Reg. 22: t. 1835 (1836).
b.. Cooperia mexicana Herb., Amaryllidaceae: 182 (1837).
c.. Amaryllis drummondii (Herb.) Steud., Nomencl. Bot., ed. 2, 1: 71
(1840).
d.. Zephyranthes herbertiana D.Dietr., Syn. Pl. 2: 1176 (1840).
e.. Cooperia kansensis W.C.Stevens, Trans. Kansas Acad. Sci. 40: 95 (1937
publ. 1938).
f.. Cooperia brasiliensis Traub, Herbertia 12: 38 (1947).
g.. Zephyranthes brasiliensis (Traub) Traub, Pl. Life 7: 42 (1951).
h.. Zephyranthes brazosensis Traub, Pl. Life 7: 42 (1951), nom. illeg.
i.. Zephyranthes kansensis (W.C.Stevens) Traub, Pl. Life 7: 42 (1951).
One interesting aspect of this Web resource (provided by Kew) is that
they place amaryllids in the Alliaceae. I suppose they are employing the
Angiosperm Phylogeny Group II recommendations.
Grasses are included in a separate Web site for now but are scheduled
to
be included in the Web site above. You can find grasses at:
http://www.kew.org/data/grasses-syn.html .
Who can say if "accepted names" are biologically accurate, or how the
database will look in 10 years (revisions and additions will happen).
However, I think the database is a brilliant achievement in using the WWW
for botanical purposes.
Cordially,
Joe
Conroe TX
_______________________________________________
pbs mailing list
pbs@lists.ibiblio.org
http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php
--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .