[Taxacom] Centuries of usage of Nothofagus

[Rob Smissen]

Hello Taxacomers
At the risk of fanning fames (and of pedantry), I want to point out for the record that Stephen Thorpe's characterisation of "centuries of usage" of Nothofagus sens lat is somewhat misleading. Cheeseman treated the New Zealand species as Fagus in 1906 (Manual NZ Fl. 1st ed.), adopting Nothofagus sometime between then and  1925 (Manual NZ Fl. V2).  So I suppose that could fairly be characterised as a century of use. However, Cheeseman's concept of Nothofagus in 1925 included only temperate species. Names in Nothofagus for the tropical species date from the early 1950s and significantly changed the generic concept. It is this 1950s concept of Nothofagus (attributable to van Steenis) that needs to be defended against the recent revision of Nothofagaceae by Heenan and I. "Decades of use" might be more accurate.
Best wishes
Rob



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