[Taxacom] Rankless classifications

[Kenneth Kinman]

Hi Paul and Curtis,
      You're right.  Cactales was a poor example.  However, it does
illustrate the importance of not even considering the dumping of Family
Cactaceae into the paraphyletic Family Portulacaceae.  
      The most extreme examples are indeed among the vertebrates.  But
herpetologists (especially dinosaur systematists) have an inordinately
large percentage of PhyloCode adherents, so that is not surprising.  I
see that NCBI has also adopted their extreme expansion of
Sarcopterygii---no longer just a Class of fish, it now includes all the
Classes of tetrapods as well. And did you know that Stegocephali is no
longer a subgroup of amphibians?  It has also now been redefined (and
greatly expanded) to include all the tetrapod classes.

           --------Ken

*********************************************

Paul wrote: 
I would guess that a very high percentage of end-users would look for
Cactaceae in Caryophyllales, which traditionally is the mainstream
placement (and has been for at least a century?), and also is the choice
of Arthur Cronquist, whose system was used so pervasively.