Fwd: Re: Different codes - in support of the phylode

[Thomas Lammers]

At 01:34 PM 10/19/00 -0400, you wrote:
>The eudicot clade is one of the most strongly supported major clades
>of angiosperms.  Why shouldn't it have a formal scientific name
>rather than being designated with a symbol (Ken's preference) or an
>informal English name (Tom Lammers' preference)?

I'll grant you, this is one clade that does not seem in any danger of
collapse in subsequent analyses.  I'd have no problem with naming this one
via the ICBN.  Especially if Campanula L. were the type genus!  : - o

>I suspect that the only reason why the eudicot clade has never been
>formally named is that to do so under the current system would
>require giving it a rank, and it isn't clear what rank it should
>have.

Good point.  We like "monocot" and "dicot" to be classes, and Cronquist,
Takhtajan, Thorne, and Dahlgren have used subclass and superorder to
recognize diversity within these two.  It's hard to come up with a rank
between class and subclass ("supersubclass"????)

Part of the problem is what to do with the grade at the base.  Essentially,
what we have in the angiosperms are two major groups, monocots and
eudicots, plus a lump of "miscellaneous" at the base.  Cladistic thinking
won't let us give names of the same rank to non-sister taxa, so really,
what rank do we assign to *any* of them?  The monocots are not sister to
eudicots, so it really isn't right to call either of them each a subclass,
from a cladistic perspective.

And this, I guess, is why cladists favor a rankless nomenclature system.
IF you accept that cladistics is the only way to classify, then I guess you
must accept rankless nomenclature as the only way to go.

Hmm.  Sounds like just one more reason not to get too worked up over
cladistics ...



Thomas G. Lammers, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor and Curator of the Herbarium (OSH)
Department of Biology and Microbiology
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
Oshkosh, Wisconsin 54901-8640 USA

e-mail:       lammers at uwosh.edu
phone:      920-424-7085
fax:           920-424-1101

Plant systematics; classification, nomenclature, evolution, and
biogeography of the Campanulaceae s. lat.
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"Today's mighty oak is yesterday's nut that stood his ground."
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