taxonomic keys

[SERVANDO CARVAJAL]

In his communcation Warren Lombay wrote:
"...and please, let's all agree to abandon the use of vestiture or indument
as a plant character..."

That is not possible, as a result of many years working with the Mexican
species of Ficus L. (Moraceae), I found that exactly this one character that
halp to identified at the level of species. v.gr. Ficus goldmanii Standley
and F. horaliae Carvajal looks like the same species, but  the pubescence in
F. horaliae composed  of long single white hairs and small capitate
"glandular" red hairs (this realible at 150X), further more other diagnostic
characters made possible to separate it as a differente species. But my
observations are not new, at the end of the last century, Sereno Watson, on
the basis of the pubescence described some new species (F. radulina, F.
jaliscana and other), but subsequent monographers (Standley 1917, and 1923),
not considered as a suitable character. Nevertheless  my findings had
demostrated that in Ficus this a strong and useful character. Of this I am
not sure what occurs with other groups of plants

Servando Carvajal
Instituto de Botanica
Universidad de Guadalajara
Jalisco, Mexico.
tel: (3) 682-0003
e-mail: scarvaja at foreigner.class.udg.mx