Re: Re: Iris pallida cultivars and nomenclatural question

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Dave has given a pretty good overview of where we are in botanical -taxonomy/horticultural- classification of the bearded Iris. One of the goals of taxonomy is to place similar categories at parallel levels of the taxonomic tree. When one compares splitters and lumpers the problem lies in that they are not consistent with each other for the level at which they are applying a name. In the western botanical world of large computers a new method is being applied that supposedly makes these decisions more objective. The process is known as cladistics. It gets its name from clade meaning branch and is an out- growth of an earlier practice of numerical taxonomy. This ?new? method essentially has the computer process information much like earlier taxonomists did intuitively in their heads. By recording scores to hundreds of variables the computers is then asked to compare plants and sort by various variables. In doing so a phylogenetic tree is created.  Since the computer can sort this data weighting different variables. Hundreds of possible trees are generated. The computer then chooses the one that is most parsimonious. The old Ochem?s Razor, the simplest explanation is the best. Neil was asking about various parameters. As many as possible are thrown into this mix. Todays taxonomist uses morphological data as in the past, but also chemical data and DNA data, all, thrown together, and analyzed cladistically. There is a group of researchers at the Jodrell laboratories at Kew gardens that are working on the genus Iris and for that matter other Monocots. The results so far have rearranged the genera in various plant families and the families into new groupings of orders. The Missouri Botanical Gardens hosts a website that provides information as in is being developed by this and other labs. If you are interested I will try to give you the website. I remember it has angiosperm taxonomy in the title and you can usually find it by Googling those words. Surprisingly the results often mirror the thoughts of old time botanists.  

dferguson@cabq.gov wrote:

I think you are looking for the term "lumpers".

With Iridaceae I don't really know what is currently going on with
classification at the genus level. I am much more up to date with
Centrosperms than Irids. In the Centrospems (and also butterflies!) there
is indeed some interesting work going on with genetic/molecular studies
that will probably re-shift even family boundaries. I would guess that
similar work is going on within the Iridaceae, but I'm not familiar with
who might be doing it. To be honest I've rather restricted my interest to
mostly the subgenus Iris (the Bearded / Aril species), with a passing
interest in beardless types that I can actually grow in NM. The whole
family fascinates me, but I'm have a lot of catching up to do before I know
what is going on.

I am aware that there are interesting problems with the definition of the
genus Iris. The fact that some plants which do not have a "typical" Iris
type flower will hybridize with others that do is one of those problems,
accentuating the fact that gross morphology does not always correlate with
true relationship. Perhaps these are the most primitive Iris relatives, or
perhaps they have developed rotate flowers secondarily from the Iris type
flower?

Then there are all the South American genera that are excluded from Iris,
but they do have Iris type flowers and are clearly closely related. Are
they any more different from Iris in general than Junos, Reticulatas, and
Bearded Iris are from one another? I have a feeling that it will be some
time before it is all really settled out, and I suspect that molecular
studies will be a very great help in sorting out what is truly related to
what.

It is a very interesting family for botanical studies, and I'm surprised,
considering how popular it is in the horticultural world, that more people
aren't specializing in the botanical study of Iridaceae.

A side comment here. I also wish more botanists would pay attention to
what the horticultural world has to offer in knowledge, and visa versa. I
think people studying Iridaceae have to be commended in that often the
botanists have been one and the same people as the horticulturalists, and
they do often seem to communicate with one another when they are not the
same people.

Dave




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