[Taxacom] paleodicots (monosulcate dicots)

[Thomas Lammers]

----- Original Message -----
From: kennethkinman at webtv.net (Kenneth Kinman)

> As for conceding to a cladistic view, that is what I was doing when I divided dicots into 2 Classes to make it more like APG.<

Exactly.  I think we can go that far and still be happy.  I just shift the emphasis a bit and say your Magnoliopsida "isn't" a dicot group, because I would like Rosopsida to = dicot.

>However, I won't go further and split up the paleodicots (monosulcate dicots) into multiple Classes just because it is paraphyletic.<

Nope.  Me neither.  Utter silliness.  I have no problems with characterizing taxa on the basis of primitive character states.  No one has EVER explained the biological basis for the primacy of apomorphies.  The Emperor Has No Clothes."  

Anyone who feels that makes me anathema will just have to lump it.  Bigger people have tried to torpedo my career for not cow-towing to others' views and failed.  I'M STILL STANDING.  Unrepenetent.  Unbowed.  Still propagating heresy.  

> By the way, if you turn my classification upside-down and draw lines around the three Classes, you would get that Bessyan diagram.<

Exactly what I was thinking.  


Thomas G. Lammers, Ph.D.

Associate Professor and Curator of the Herbarium
Department of Biology and Microbiology
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh

http://www.uwosh.edu/departments/biology/Lammers.htm
http://www.kewbooks.com/asps/ShowDetails.asp?id=615