[Taxacom] Plant names

Mon Feb 15 14:24:31 CST 2021

Rarely do I take time to address the taxonomic status of a particular genus in this type of forum, but since BONAP’s name was mentioned earlier, I thought it might be appropriate to express my opinion, along with mentioning BONAP as a valid taxonomic resource for resolving future questions.  Regarding the status of the genus Reynoutria, it is currently accepted by most workers in North America.  In fact, the genus Polygonum, like other genera within Polygonaceae has undergone multiple generic splits over the recent past.  In North America, the genus has been split over the years into eight unique genera, including: Polygonum sensu stricto, Persicaria, Koenigia, Fallopia, Bistorta, Muehlenbeckia, Reynoutria and Coccoloba.  Since the trend today is to split genera within this family, it is unlikely that the genus Reynoutria will revert to Polygonum. 

Many functioning floristicians and vascular plant taxonomists are familiar with BONAP.  Our organization has existed since the late 1960's and continues to offer one of the most current and comprehensive sources of vascular plant taxonomy and county-level phytogeography available.  For more than a half century, BONAP has had a significant impact on North American floristics.  At the time of its publication in 1980, BONAP’s Synonymized Checklist represented the first, relatively comprehensive, taxonomic assessment ever produced for the North American continent, north of Mexico.  In 1994, it was revised and expanded to include numerous taxonomic updates.  In 1999 it was expanded further and converted into digital format to include a US state or equivalent vascular plant atlas.  Over the decades, our checklists have served as primary data standards for scores of herbaria and museums through the continent.  

BONAP's database originated from two primary sources: voucher specimens from plant repositories, and floristic, monographic and revisionary literature.  Over the past half century, approximately 100 plant repositories from across North America, both large and small, were visited.  In some cases entire collections were assessed, e.g. UNC, RENO, UNLV, NSMC, while others like MO, TEX, BRIT, were spot checked for specific genera or for individual species complexes.  Large, northeastern repositories included e.g. GH, A, NY, US, PH, DAO; those in the Southeast, GA, UNC, DUKE, USF; those along the West Coast, JEPS, LA; those in the Pacific Northwest, ALA and UBC.  Specimen collections were embellished by comprehensive, page by page literature surveys of approximately 180 scientific, botanical journals, beginning with the first issue of each, and terminating with the last or with the most current.  Annual trips were made to the Missouri Botanical Garden Library and other institutions to assure the most comprehensive taxonomic views were incorporated and maintained.  The literature survey although ongoing, was completed through roughly the first half of 2020. 

Floristic literature surveys included:  International (FNA), regional, state, county and local floras.  Many of these were hardbound, free standing publications, others were published as journal articles.  Approximately 10,000 additional records were included via personal communications from specialists or from specialized works on plant rarity, noxious weed, wetland publication, etc.  All records were documented and backed by vouchers, literature citations, and/or personal communications.  In total over 6,000,000 individual US county records were treated within BONAP, for approximately 32,000 accepted taxa and approximately 100,000 scientific names.  

In 2015, BONAP released its online database (http://bonap.net/TDC/), which provided far more capabilities than our published checklists.  It also included a polyclave identification system, and a US county-level plant atlas.  Since then, BONAP has released and published ten biennial updates of our taxonomy and county-level geography in software format.  Hundred of copies of each edition have been circulated to taxonomists throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.  Publication of our 2020 edition has already been cited in scientific literature.  

In addition to being referenced throughout domestic literature, BONAP's publications and database have appeared in prestigious international journals such as Ecology, Nature, and Nature Communications.  Moreover, our database is recognized as the floristic standard for the North American Continent by the Global Naturalized Alien Flora (GloNAF) database.  Moreover, scores of contracts have been awarded to BONAP in recent years from various US and Canadian governmental agencies, and private groups like National Audubon Society, Pollen.com, etc.  Our detailed county-level maps, which now inundate the Internet, are requested often by taxonomists, ecologists, phytogeographers and other researchers for use in their publications and presentations. 

Although originally associated with USDA PLANTS, and responsible for producing all of their vascular plant data, in the mid-2000’s BONAP departed from that responsibility due to a lack of government funding and thereafter formed its own organization.  Our county-level occurrence now data more than doubles those of USDA Plants and our taxonomy is vastly more current.  We offer most of our data pro bono, online, via our website.  

The BONAP website will be updated later this year to include all acceptable taxonomic changes through 2020.  Within the past two months, several hundred review copies of our forthcoming publication were circulated to curators and other plant researchers throughout North America.  For additional information regarding our forthcoming database and software release, please contact me or BONAP's Data Manager, Misako Nishino (misako at bonap.org).  

John

Dr. John Kartesz, Director
BONAP
9319 Bracken Lane
Chapel Hill, NC 27516

(919) 967-6240
http://www.bonap.org/

---------- Forwarded message ---------From: Weakley, Alan via Taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Date: Wed, Feb 10, 2021 at 3:25 PM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Plant names
To: Alan Franck <afranck at fiu.edu>, taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>, Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>

I agree with Alan F. -- while there remain some outstanding issues in generic treatment in Polygonaceae, I think it's safe to say that no-one going forward will be placing the species of Reynoutria back in Polygonum. 

USDA Plants has had a longstanding issue with a poorly-designed database system/website that has prevented them from making the changes that are needed to taxonomy and associated information.  I was discussing this just last week with the head of their team, Gerry Moore, and a new system is approaching completion, after which, the "standard USDA Plants taxonomy" will become "unfrozen" and will start modernizing.

More generally, there is no perfect answer about "standardized taxonomy" in vascular plants.  Birds, mammals, even spiders (mentioned by Jozef) have processes for coming to a consensus "list of taxa" that is a very useful thing for many purposes, including conservation.  In vascular plants and at a global level, there is POWO (which has its own issues), COL (likewise), and there was recently an announcement about a new effort to create a curated consensus list -- the Leipzig Catalogue (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-020-00702-z ).

For the US and North America, there is Flora North America (nearing completion, though some volumes now 30 years old and getting out-of-date), USDA Plants, and BONAP (Biota of North America Program).  Then, of course there are regional and local efforts.  None of these are perfect in meeting all needs.  The larger the scale, the longer the time lag and the greater the likelihood of more regional and local knowledge being imperfectly compiled.

Partly, it is a matter of scale.  The number of plant species is much larger than those groups with "curated checklists", and for most (maybe not spiders 😉 ) the ratio of number of species to the number of experts is also very high.  So it's a big job and with low resources.

Spiders -- ca. 48,000 species
Birds -- ca. 15,000-25,000 species
Mammals -- ca. 6,400 species
Vascular Plants -- ca. 300,000-400,000 species

Even more generally, the whole idea of a "standardized catalogue of life" has tremendous value for lots of purposes, but is also problematic to maintain in a way compatible with scientific process and philosophy.  There will never be perfect answers to this...

Alan Weakley
Director of the UNC-CH Herbarium (NCU), North Carolina Botanical Garden
Adjunct Associate Professor, Biology Department & Environment, Ecology, and Energy Program
Campus Box 3280, Coker Hall 419, 120 South Road
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill NC 27599-3280
919.619.1101 (mobile)

-----Original Message-----
From: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> On Behalf Of Alan Franck via Taxacom
Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2021 2:32 AM
To: Taxa com <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Plant names

Hi Joey,

As I understand it, Reynoutria is the generally accepted genus from recent literature. From a global perspective, Plants of the World Online is quite helpful and often up-to-date. For identification characters, FNA is a good resource, but the Polygonaceae treatment was published in 2005 when Fallopia was thought an appropriate genus for knotweed:http://beta.floranorthamerica.org/Fallopia

I would advise against using Polygonum cuspidatum, as listed by the USDA, since that reflects an old concept of Polygonum s.lat. I am not aware of any recent debate concerning the use of Reynoutria.

Kind regards,

Alan
-- 

Alan R. Franck, Ph.D.
Curator, Wertheim Conservatory
Institute of Environment
Dept. Biological Sciences, OE 167
Florida International University
11200 SW 8th St., Miami, FL 33199

On 2/9/21, 11:04 PM, "Taxacom on behalf of Joey Slowik via Taxacom" <taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu on behalf oftaxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> wrote:

    Note: This message originated from outside the FIU Faculty/Staff email system.

    So this may be a simple question. I'm helping with a Knotweed EA and
    have realized that the recent publications all use a different name
    than the USDA. The USDA plants database, which is what we are told to
    use for reference, seems outdated, like 10+ years. And for some names
    there seems to be no justification but historical use. Is there a
    reason for this? I usually work with spiders and there is a general
    consensus on accepted names from the World Spider Catalog. But is
    there debate in the plant naming world? Is it ok to use old names?

    Thanks

    Jozef Slowik
    UAF Cooperative Extension Service
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