[Taxacom] Family Epacridaceae (and Order Ericales)

[Richard Zander]

Well, I dunno. We scientists really are priests of a Great Mostly
Unknown. Coherent light is of no interest until you can play a CD with
it. Dark energy is of no interest until . . . maybe you can make a bomb
of it. Irish monks kept a lot of classical literature alive while people
mostly did not care. 

You know how organizations adopt parts of highways? Maybe we can get
cities each to adopt a family or subfamily. Maybe US states can have
state slugs and state slime molds and so on.

*****************************
Richard H. Zander 
Voice: 314-577-0276
Missouri Botanical Garden
PO Box 299
St. Louis, MO 63166-0299 USA
richard.zander at mobot.org
Web sites: http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/
and http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/bfna/bfnamenu.htm
Non-post deliveries to:
Missouri Botanical Garden, 4344 Shaw Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63110
*****************************

-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
[mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Jim Croft
Sent: Monday, March 30, 2009 9:12 PM
To: Kenneth Kinman
Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Family Epacridaceae (and Order Ericales)

The majority of people 'interested' in Styphelia and Epacris are only
vaguely aware that they are associated in some way and that a thing
called a family might or might not be involved.  They really do not
care.  Really.  And their lives are none the poorer for not caring.
And they sure as hell do not care that there are such things as
phylogeny, cladistics, paraphyly, or taxacoms.  Really, they don't.

And as for the subtlety, nuance and finesse of the subfamily to these
people, what can I say?  They just want to know where to get the plants
(they have a genus and species name, right?) and what to do with them.
It is when you dare to mess with a comfortable genus name that things
get unpleasant.

That is the reality...  and it is not always nice...

jim