[pbs] Dangerous Topic: Taxonomy

Jim McKenney jimmckenney at jimmckenney.com
Sat Oct 14 16:37:09 EDT 2006


Joe Shaw wrote: "In 2003 the Angiospermy Phylogeny Group (AGP II report)
lumped several monocot families "back" into the Alliaceae and the
Asparagaceae.  If this arrangement catches on, such families as the
Agapanthaceae and others will be footnotes in history."

Joe, I only took a quick look at the abstract and did not read the entire
article. But in the abstract, the families alluded to are the Alliaceae s.l.
and the Asparagaceae s.l. 

For those of you who don't follow these things, the "s.l." means "in the
broad sense". To me that implies that the authors recognize the simultaneous
correctness of Alliace s.s. and Asparagaceae s.s. (s.s. meaning in the
narrow sense). 

Perhaps I misunderstand the authors' use of modal auxiliaries, but it seems
to me that nothing has changed. The authors themselves use the term
"optional" to describe these arrangements. 


Jim McKenney
jimmckenney at jimmckenney.com

Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7
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