Hauhau tree

[P. F. Stevens]

>At 01:59 PM 2/10/00 -0600, you wrote:
>
>>Actually, Both Tiliaceae and Malvaceae are typically included within the
>>Malvales (along with 3 other families), and so the resemblance is not
>>accidental.
>
>True, but when folks say "related" in popular writing, it seems they
>generally mean a thing is in the same genus or at least family -- tomatoes
>are related to potatoes, white oak is related to black oak, etc.  Order is
>a bit far up the hierarchy.  In fact, the local papers have been touting
>"industrial hemp" as a plant "related to" marihuana (they are cultivar
>races of one biological species.
>

But here I think we are perhaps caught up in a misunderstanding of the
hierarchy - rank has no absolute meaning.  Indeed, when Robert Brown
described families in Malvales, he compared them to tribes in Rosaceae - he
knew they weren't equivalent.  Many Malvales in the old sense look
remarkably similar, and in sight ientification one can get there very
easily - for the "families", even with flowers, it was much more difficult
(the Malvaceae in the old sense are parly an exception).

Peter S.