Re: DNA CLASSIFICATION
Bill wrote:
>Has anyone read the article on DNA new plant classification that
>was supposed to appear in December in the Annals of the Missouri Bot
>Garden? I don't belong to the MBG - all I have read appeared in a
>story out of London in the press about the team at Kew that did the
>work.I was hoping there was a summary of the findings somewhere
>available.Bill Grant, Aptos, California
This is causing a bit of a stir over here and some of the findings
seem to fly in the face of common sense. A lot of work has yet to be
done, but I start to query the real value of such research when claims
are made that the lotus lily (Nelumbo nucifera) is closest in its
alliance to the plane tree - Platanus sp. This is based upon shared
dna, but my view is that they are likely to find similar instances of
shared dna amongst a whole mass of plants - it does not necessarily
signify true familial alliance. The work is interesting, but I would
find any attempts to re-classify plants based upon these findings
alone, very difficult to swallow.
David Poole
TORQUAY UK
