On 22 Mar 2013, at 10:33, Michael Mace wrote: > Personal opinion: we won't be able to really make sense of the genus > [Narcissus] without genetic analysis. Personal opinion: genetic analysis won't help much. It's pretty clear that on the Iberian peninsula, the genus Narcissus is undergoing active speciation. The fixed category "species" just doesn't work very well under such circumstances, just as it's of questionable utility in paleontology. (The paleontological day is saved thanks (a) to the fact that only a tiny subset of all organisms is fossilized and (b) per Stephen Jay Gould, active speciation is a relatively fast process, so fossilization of true intermediates would be rare. It strikes me that the situation with Iberian narcissus may be like that with the Pacific Coast irises, where logging has created "bio-ways" linking distinct species and allowing them to hybridize freely. I've read that some of the PCI species are actually at risk of being hybridized out of existence. The usual definition of species is a population of plants that can breed together but does not _or_cannot_ breed with other species. When interbreeding is prevented by ecological barriers, if those barriers are disrupted, suddenly formerly good species stop looking so good. Human habitation of the Iberian Peninsula goes back some tens of thousands of years. It may be that the clearing of forests and similar ecological degradation lies at the root of the complexities of Iberian narcissus. -- Rodger Whitlock Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Z. 7-8, cool Mediterranean climate