[Taxacom] Grass taxonomy (paraphylophobia strikes again??)

[Curtis Clark]

On 8/8/2012 6:37 PM, Ken Kinman wrote:
> Hi Curtis and Mary,        I don't know all the details of this debate, but I get the distinct feeling that this debate is largely fueled by a desire to avoid a paraphyletic genus Festuca.  In this case, one seems to get some advocating lumping to get a larger holophyletic Festuca, while others advocate splitting to get a smaller holophyletic Festuca.  If this is indeed the problem in this particular case, is it worth all the instability and conflicting name changes?

I'll defer to Mary, since she's the expert, but it is my impression that 
Festuca has always been unstable. Vulpia was first embraced as a 
segregate by people unconcerned by monophyly or paraphyly, and I first 
heard of genetic information suggesting Lolium was a Festuca back in the 
1970s or 80s.

Closer to my expertise, a similar situation exists with Helianthus and 
its segregates; last I noticed, synantherologists were taking the 
splitting route rather than lumping.

-- 
Curtis Clark        http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark
After 2012-01-02:
Biological Sciences                   +1 909 869 4140
Cal Poly Pomona, Pomona CA 91768