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Re: [SANS] SANSEVIERIA Monographs, again

Hi y'all

It is good that long over due treatments of Sansevieria will finally
appear. Hopefully that will clear up misconceptions of the various species.
Would have been nice if some of the big guns with years of taxonomic
experience, such as A. A. Obermeyer or Susan Carter were doing them instead
of newcomers. As Juan has pointed out, errors from inexperience may creep
in. I wonder how much of this is political, a way to encourage local
botanists to take interest in their national flora.

Treatments by disinterested parties can have disasterous results. When Mats
Thulin covered the genus in Flora of Somalia, he made several serious
errors in what will be looked upon as a reference book by many unsuspecting
botanists. He missed many opportunities to publish valid names for several
unnamed species in that region. For example, he lists the broad leafed
species or variety allied to S.arborescens as S.powellii from Kenya. What
he lists as S.fischeri, is it not the undescribed S.bacularis Pfennig?

The experience of growers is a valuable resource often untapped.The gulf
between botany and horticulture is often very deep, sorry to say.

Juan, you know more about the genus than anyone else alive. You should, at
least, try to publish valid names for some of more distinctive anonymous
species currently in cultivation, like those I mention above. You've
already done so in the Sansevieria Journal for several others in the past.

I checked the original description of Sansevieria sambiranensis Perrier (in
Notulae Systematicae (Paris) 5 (2): 154-156 (1935)). He does describe the
flowers as being carmine red! I must have blocked that out in disbelief.
One more thing to add to the allure of this mystery species. Rauh, in his
book, has the name misspelled S.sambiranoensis. I wrote about what I saw in
the book without first checking the original. Sorry.

Meanwhile, in another part of the plant kingdom. Polyploid species in
Kalanchoe occur in mainland Africa and Arabia as well as Madagascar.
Kalanchoe prittwitzii, K.faustii (from Morocco) and K.deficiens (from the
Arabian peninsula) are all decaploid! Stephanos replied to Hermes.

Sansevieria has several polyploid species. But, that's another story for
another time.

Cereusly, Steve

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> Subject: SANSEVIERIAS Digest - 3 Oct 1998 to 4 Oct 1998 (#1998-87)
> Date: Monday, October 05, 1998 12:32 AM
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