Radically amusing...
Bryan Whelan
Just wanted to vent this..
After a few years of being slightly confused about the identity of my
epidendrum, I have come to a conclusion..
Can I do that?
Am I qualified as a simple hobbyist grower to 'decide' what a plant is
called?
The plant in Q' is an Epidendrum Radicans, which for two years I have been
calling an Ibanguense, because certain books said it had been recently
reclassified..
However they are two distinctly different plants, according to
http://www.orchidspecies.com/indexepid-ex.htm
Does this happen often?
How much of the naming of orchids has to do with an actual classification,
as opposed to some individuals or panels desire to 'classify?
I can understand that even a single breeding can produce several different
cultivars, etc.
But I would think that there is a set standard somewhere which keeps things
from getting too crazy..
Firearm calibers are not too far removed in the way they are categorized..
there seems to be no set rule.. a .38 and a .357 are the same caliber.. but
differ in that they were named in different decades, a .38 dia. being
measured from the outer lands of the rifling groves, the .357 from the inner
lands.. But the same bullet..Just as one example..
... And what of latin?
I just read that latin hybrid names were prohibited some time ago?
It's all very confising.. Maybe I'm looking at it from the wrong angle..
Does anyone out there know of a good place for a lesser hobbyist like myself
to get better acquainted with the rhyme and reason behind it all? Would be
very grateful..
Updated my page.. http://www.geocities.com/muffinmeat/Randomshots.html
Ken Woodward
an Encyclia cordigera, although one particular variant is equivalent to
Encyclia hanburyi. When I see the flower, I may be able to figure out what
I actually have. Confusion reigns.
Ken Woodward
Newton, MA
http://kwoodward.net
"Bryan Whelan" <bryan....@this3web.net> wrote in message
news:3cc72...@news.cybersurf.net...
K Barrett
http://orchidweb.org
K Barrett
TZ
There is no one little thing that a human being can see on an organism
that tells him it is a different species from something very similar.
We are trying to discern and name populations of organisms that make
up coherent groups of ondividuals that have a shared history as an
interbreeding group. It is like trying to tell two towns apart by
driving through them. What defines the town/city is the city limits
described by survey and held on a map in the town hall, the population
is related in that it pays city taxes etc making it a related group,
but you cannot see that just by looking. If two towns have
undeveloped land in between them and a "Welcome To XXXX City" sign on
the one road leading in you can pretty much tell them apart, but if
they are right next to each other you may have to drive around and
look for clues such as the names on high schools and businesses, city
limit signs etc. With a group of organisms organism we cannot go to
city hall and ask to see the map of the city limits.
The actual city of Los Angeles consists of several mailing areas such
as Westwood, West Los Angeles, Hollywood, and Los Angeles. It has has
a long narrow corridor extending to Los Angeles Harbor, which is many
miles (10-15?) away from central the city proper. You can see how
much investigation by driving around the streets it would take to
determine these limits.
We have to extrapolate the limits from morphological characters and
genetic sequences (if available). Epi radicans and Epi ibanguense are
very similar so with only a few specimens availabable to study it was
difficult to separate inherent variability within each species from
differences that would separate/identify the two species. Generally
the most up to date classification is the best because it should be
based on more available information.
The Encyclia cordigera problem is different. Many of the species were
named a long time ago with very little infomation available (a few
specimens at most). In the early days there was very little
communication such that a French expedition could go to an area and
name many species, and then a Dutch expedition would go through and
name the same organisms something else, and then the English would do
the same. The first published name is the only one that counts but
you can see how things got messed up. As we gained more information
and could see patterns emerge it became apparent that a subset of
Epidendrum species were different, so they were place into the genus
Encyclia, Botanical/scientific nomenclature is different from
horticultural nomenclature The RHS decides if they want to update a
name or keep using the old name for convenience, so you often see the
old name being used for orchid registration. Epidendrum cordigera is
the same thing as Encyclia cordigera, they are synonymous, however
Encyclia cordigera is current proper botanical name as it best
reflects the plant's grouping /relatedness to other species.
The species "cordigera" was name in 1815, but it was listed as a
variety of Epi atropurpurea by Cogniaux in 1903 (who may or may not
have looked at any of the plants and could hav based his descision on
published information alone). This became the popular reference so
the name persisted. Upon closer examination the plant originally
named as "atropurpurea" fits in with the Psychilus species (and is
probably difficult to find in cultivation), while the "cordigera" fits
in with the Encyclia species.
Encyclia hanbury is considered to be a full species and not a variety
of either cordigera or selligera.
There is no governing body that accepts a species name or not.
Botanists decide if they agree with the most recent evidence and
proposed name change or they don't. But the publication process is
usually stringent enough that if a name is published in the scientific
literature there is stronge evidence that it should be used.
Man made orchid hybrids are a different matter. The RHS makes up
rules for naming those. Latin names have probably been dropped for
man made hybrids to avoid confusion with species names.
Hope this helps.
"Ken Woodward" <k...@kwoodward.net> wrote in message news:<KyIx8.43611$%s3.18...@typhoon.ne.ipsvc.net>...
Wendy
Why don't the orchid growers, Botanists, Taxonamists & whoever else is
involved, get together & make a "governing body" with one set of rules &
list?
Cheers Wendy
"TZ" <la_j...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:ab9ca7de.02042...@posting.google.com...
Jorge Melendez Zajgla
encyclias, photos sometimes look very much alike, but cordigera is
very different from hanbburyi, and do not share ecological niches,
etc.
Ken Woodward
"Epidendrum atropurpureum var. roseum (Bateman) Rchb. f. 1854 - See Encyclia
hanburii (Lindl.) Schltr. 1914 "
"Jorge Melendez Zajgla" <jorge...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:f73d961b.02042...@posting.google.com...
Jorge Melendez Zajgla
Jay's site is useful; nevertheless there are a lot of mistakes,
missidentifications, wrong synonimia, wrong distribution, etc in it.
The last time I checked there was around 10-20% wrong id's in laelias
and encyclias. This is due to the enormmous effort that only one
person makes (who is not a taxonomist), and the usage of sources that
have been corrected more recently (i.e. listed books) and the wrongly
named submitted photos and info.
Anyway, the site cite E. atropurpureum var. roseum as a synonim of E.
hanburii, as opposed to E. cordigera, so it cannot be concluded that
E. hanburyi is a variant of E. cordigera. (even then I do not think it
is a valid synonim, but more a misapplied name, as E. atropurpureum is
invalid).
Jorge
"Ken Woodward" <k...@kwoodward.net> wrote in message news:<m44y8.47655$%s3.19...@typhoon.ne.ipsvc.net>...
Ken Woodward
Thanks.
"Jorge Melendez Zajgla" <jorge...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:f73d961b.02042...@posting.google.com...
TZ
> TZ, Thanks for explaining the Taxonomy naming issues.
> Why don't the orchid growers, Botanists, Taxonamists & whoever else is
> involved, get together & make a "governing body" with one set of rules &
> list?
> Cheers Wendy
>
Hi Wendy,
The RHS system is practical and stable in that is uses one name and
sticks with it. Those old synonyms will always be with the plant
(noone can name a new plant Epidendrum cochleata, just because the
other one has now been moved from Epidendrum through the genus
Encyclia to the genus Prosthechea). Keeping track of all the hybrid
ancestry is the real fly in the soup preventing updates.
Science is unstable in that it is always trying to seek truth by using
new/better methods to test old conclusions. The we hope that the name
will reflect evolutionary relatedness. When all is said and done the
goal in understanding how life got to this present point is to have a
family tree branching all the way down/up to pairs of most closely
related specis. As more information is gained larger general will ge
split into smaller genera. species will be moved around until they
are in the right place etc.
As far as some governing body putting together a giant public database
of all species, it is not going to happen any time soon because
1)nomenclatural stability takes time. You can have a couple of teams
of scientists publish different results in one year after a three to
five years study, which do you keep?, the one that came out in June or
the one that came out in September? It is also the strength of the
scientific method that people are supposed to question and test every
conclusion. New techniques are usually imperfect and are continually
being improve upon. Todays molecular analysis is much different than
what you saw ten years ago and is giving different/cleaner results,
which may be in line with traditional conclusions, or may support
conclusions of the early molecular work, or may give an entirely
different picture.
2)Who is going to do it? The scientists trained to evaluate such
things are advanced based on their own published research.
Library/database work is not going to further their careers.
3)Each year fewer good taxonomists exist. The old guys retire, and
the universities and museums are highering new graduates with four or
six years of experience learning how to do the genetic analyses but
little or no experience at identifying the species from descriptions
or herbarium/museum specimens. This is because the universities and
museums get a proportion (around 40%) of every grant that comes in, so
a molecular systematist who needs to bring in grants of $300,000 in
chemicals and equipment every four years to do his thing will be hired
befor the field biologist/taxonomist who just needs $10,000 to go look
for new species in Costa Rica and photocopy species decriptions out of
old books.
4)Scientists like to protect their resource base. If you have spent
forty years sorting out the names and information about a group
organisms you do not have much competition working on that group, but
if you make all that information public, you are now competing for
money with every grad student who wants to use your database to turn
out a quick dissertation.
What is needed is government funding for something along the lines of
the human genome project. Lots of money being funneled into the system
to pay people to find, sort out, and database the names of the 1-3
million described species (and to keep the project going ad
infinitum). Unfortunately there is no way to say that the project is
going to cure cancer and every other genetic disease known, so it will
be hard to sell.
The AOS could probably take a stab at it for orchids, but then again
they would have to weigh the benefits of putting money into the
project vs funding something else.
Susan Erickson
computer program (easy enough to do) to make those changes?
It really is not that difficult to do search and replace.
SuE
TZ
> But if we are ever to go forward - someday won't they have to run a
> computer program (easy enough to do) to make those changes?
> It really is not that difficult to do search and replace.
> SuE
Yes, any relational database program would be able to simply update
the name changes of the hybrid ancestry even without a search and
replace. You would just have to change the name on the species list.
The database sees that record as a number that does not change when
the name does. It could/should happen in the future for the RHS
orchid registry, but it will need people in charge who want to make it
happen and are willing to figure out what to do with plants that are
going to change generic designations (most of the Blc would change
because Brassavola digbyana is now Rhyncholaelia digbyana).
Aaron Hicks
>TZ, Thanks for explaining the Taxonomy naming issues.
>Why don't the orchid growers, Botanists, Taxonamists & whoever else is
>involved, get together & make a "governing body" with one set of rules &
>list?
What, like the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature wasn't
enough?
http://www.micologi.it/ICBN_main.htm
Seriously, though. Most of it comes down to "splitters versus
lumpers." Is it a new species, or a variety of an old one? Objectivity
plays a role, too.
"I think it's a new species!"
"I think you're nuts! It's just a variety!"
Repeat as often as necessary until you get tenure.
People thought molecular taxonomy would answer these questions.
After all "it sure LOOKS like a different" species is a great thing to
say. Unfortunately, what plants look like to us mere mortals could have
relatively little to do with what's going on. Two plants that appear to be
closely related may, in fact, be more distant than perceived, and vice
versa.
So, molecular taxonomy was supposed to fix that. Now mole
taxonomists simply quibble about the genetic displacement. We've gone from
using a microscope to PCR. Different tools, different standards, different
battles, all in the name of binomial nomenclature. Blame Linnaeus.
Wanna see a good fight? Lock two orchid taxonomists in the same
room together.
Cheers,
-AJHicks
Chandler, AZ
Bryan Whelan
In protest.. Besides the fact that
it just sounds better...
"Wendy" <wen...@cox.net> wrote in message
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