Plant Families, Wiki

Joe Shaw jshaw@opuntiads.com
Tue, 07 Nov 2006 19:20:23 PST
Susan Hayek, Linda Foulis, and I have started a project to do wiki pages for 
at least some of the Families of the genera represented on the wiki and are 
making sure that each genus page has a family listed for it.
++++++++++++++

Hi Gang,

I think Mary Sue's idea is a great idea, putting plant family information on 
the PBS Web site.  I like the AGP II scheme, but I'm pretty sure that 
when/if AGP III gets published there will be more changes from that group. 
So, there is nothing to do but ride the waves and make changes later; pick a 
scheme or combination of approaches and run with it.

It is not too popular and certainly has a ways to go before it is generally 
useful, but I guess I'm attacted to the Phylocode approach, at least as a 
future possibility.  Phylocode is an ambitious attempt to supercede 
Linnean-style taxonomy.  As such, Phylocode has been embraced by some, but 
damned by many.  Phylocode is a set of rules for naming clades and does not 
make use of orders, families, and genera, etc.

Of course, one very important and exceedingly tricky bit inherent in 
Phylocode resides in properly identifying clades.  So, for the time being, I 
think a PBS approach to helping us all understand bulb/geophyte families is 
a wonderful endevour.

One last thought for Mary Sue I., Susan H., and  Linda F., go ahead and get 
something up (anything) on the WWW and then you will surely get comments 
that you can use or ignore to help clarify plant families.



Cordially,

Joe
Conroe, TX
Crinum moorei bloomed last week and C. x 'Stars and Stripes' is blooming now 
(early November).


LINK:  Phylocode Information, International Code of Phylogenetic 
Nomenclature
http://www.ohiou.edu/phylocode/

LINK:  Wikipedia, Phylocode
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhyloCode/

LINK:  Wikiepedia, Clades
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clade/

LINK:  Wikipedia, Cladistics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cladistics/

LINK:  New Scientist Article, Phylocode
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6369


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