>I think this situation occurs only with special taxa, ie CP, cacti,
>orchids, and a few other taxa where there's a horticultural interest in
>"true species". I'd wager the vast number of new species being
>discovered are of no immediate interest to horticulture, ie. new
>species of Juncus, Phytolacca, Psychotria, etc.
But in the case of CPs, new species ARE of immediate interest to
horticulture.
>> The other alternative is to make
>> publishing new species a whole lot easier so that more people could do it.
>> This could reduce the amount of invalid nicknames, but would surely
>> increase the amount of synonyms for your list. We've discussed this in the
>> past on this listserv. Make it too easy, and you'll be flooded with new
>> names, most of which are synonyms for other species. So now we have the
>> other extreme, make it too difficult and you'll be flooded with nicknames.
>
>The nicknames sound infinately better than a flood of slapdash new species
>publications in obscure unrefereed journals! :-)
AGREED!
>This is very intersting. Is there a published account of variability in
>the D. petiolaris complex? Some kind of phenetic study? If not, then on
>what basis can a claim be made for random intermediates? Or could these
>be hybrids?
I believe these D.petiolaris-complex species are not intermediates
in any way. There are specific characteristics which may be intermediate
between one species and another, yet not one of his species is completely
intermediate or somewhere inbetween 2 other species. Allen has been on the
road for too long to not recognize simple variation between 2 species. I
think if he's publishing them then they can be easily distinguished from
each other. What Jan and I are discussing (sorry, but mostly privately) is
the species concept itself, which for him is something narrower than it is
for Allen and I, apparently. Who knows, time will tell what will become of
these and other CP complexes.
>I must admit I'm made uneasy to see a plant seller also
>authoring new plant species. It would seem he'd have a vested interest
>in splitting--and he HAS described an awful large number of new plants.
>Could Allen be one of those species speculators? Is he shooting wild,
>hoping to get his name on a lot of plants, and leave it to future
>taxonomists to figure out the situation? I don't know Allen or the
>state of Australian floristics well enough to make a judgement.
Ok, so let me tell you, since I HAVE met Allen. Before ever
selling CPs, he was already into botanizing and he gets his money from
activities other than selling CPs (and believe me, I think he's happy with
what he's got). The reason to sell the CPs is merely to help sustain his
hobby and to spread all those fantastic plants into other CP collections
around the world.
And no question about it that Australia has a CP flora which is
just so huge it's mind-boggling. So we were bound to see tons of
publications of CPs from Australia sooner or later. It just so happens
that Allen has gone deeper than anyone else and for a longer time,
becoming THE authority on Australian CPs. What Allen is showing us is just
the wide range of natural variation present. Some might not agree that all
his plants should be true species, but maybe infraspecific taxa. But
that's how taxonomy works!
The only reason why Allen began describing new species was because
he was unhappy with the slowness of publication by taxonomists. Any of you
remember how long it took to publish the new species in his 2 books? And
who ended up publishing them after such a long wait? It sure wasn't the
taxonomist mentioned in the book who was supposedly preparing the
publications!
Best Wishes,
Fernando Rivadavia
Tokyo, Japan