Mary Sue wrote, At 08:59 PM 4/27/2010, you wrote: >To quote Wikipedia, "A modern system of plant taxonomy, the APG II >system of plant classification was published in April of 2003 by the >Angiosperm Phylogeny Group, APG. It was a revision of the first APG >system, published in 1998, and was superseded in 2009 by a further >revision, the APG III system." > >In APG II Alliaceae optionally included Agapanthaceae and >Amaryllidaceae. So you could choose to include these or to keep them >separate. Most of us didn't choose to include them. >... What does this user >community prefer to do? Are we doing away with Alliaceae, >Agapanthaceae, Agavaceae, Anthericaceae, Asphodelaceae, >Convallariaceae, Eriospermaceae, Hemerocallidaceae, Hyacinthaceae, >Themidaceae, and Trilliaceae to name a few of the families that would >be history ? I would much rather see the wiki stick with the "split" version of the classification. It makes sense to the gardener and amateur botanist because it relies to a great extent on visually observable characteristics, whereas the "lumped" version presumably relies more on molecular and evolutionary studies to which many users of the wiki do not have access. I was relieved when the Liliaceae got split up, even though my usual preference is for lumping when possible -- possibly because I think it should be done more with languages (if political considerations could be set aside). I am annoyed by gardeners who have a knee-jerk response of complaining about every name change made by botanists -- I just got a catalog that's still using names like "Cyclamen neapolitanum," which must have been renamed at least 40 years ago -- but the relentless submerging of familiar genera can stimulate even me to react that way (see Iridaceae for examples). It's very handy to have, for example, a family Themidaceae, because you can then speak of "themids" just as you do "irids," instead of listing all the similar genera you want to discuss. Jane McGary Northwestern Oregon, USA