Flag for Taxon: lady fern (Athyrium filix-femina)
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| charlie | lady fern (Athyrium filix-femina) |
Both this and A. angustum are on iNat, according to Go Botany they are synonyms. Jepson uses A. filix-femina. Should they be merged? Into which? (i have no preference) |
Nov. 25, 2017 14:05:23 +0000 | Not Resolved |
Comments
huh. yeah the one issue i have is that the Vermont observations are spread across the two species. My preference is always to go to subspecies rather than species when possible, but that isn't the official iNat taxonomy guidance
Previously flagged, but here's a better summary and links to rewrap my head around this:
2019 Note: Outdated assessment comparing to old version of Curator Guide which is no longer relevant
iNaturalist
taxon pages: A. filix-femina, A. angustum, A. asplenioides
Flora of North American
Lumps into A. filix-femina: "Athyrium filix-femina is circumboreal, and this or closely related species extend into Mexico, Central America, and South America. The delimitation and infraspecific classification of A . filix-femina need detailed study." Lists 4 varieties:
var. cyclosorum (west)
var. californicum (west)
var. angustum (east)
var. asplenioides (east)
Summary: like @choess we're lumping and running but here are some varieties to keep our fans happy.
The Plant List
A. filix-femina accepted
A. angustum rejected (synonymous with A. filix-femina)
A. asplenioides accepted
Also accepts all the varieties listed in FNA, including asplenioides...what?
Summary: We should probably just ignore TPL for this one.
VASCAN:
Lumps into A. filix-femina, with varieties angustum and cyclosorum. According to FNA asplenioides doesn't occur in Canada, so they wouldn't cover that.
Calflora:
Lumps into A. filix-femina with only variety cyclosorum (no mention of californicum?)
GoBotany
splits them to A. angustum and A. asplenioides
Weakley:
Same take as GoBotany. Splits them to A. angustum and A. asplenioides.
Kelloff 2002's Differentiation of Eastern North American Athyrium filix-femina Taxa: Evidence From Allozymes and Spores:
Although, these two taxa have been long perceived as closely related, they have been known to intergrade and recombine to form a hybrid zone in their relatively narrow region of overlap. This perception is supported by the data from the present study. ... The spore and isozyme data indicate substantial divergence between A. angustum and A. asplenioides, suggesting that they merit distinction at the rank of subspecies or species."
Charlie, a figure from that 2002 paper shows that Vermont obs. should pretty much be angustum
oh dear. But thanks for looking them all up! It sounds like filix femina may be real but not in Vermont? So we can't merge the VT ones into asplenoides, but nor do i really feel like going back and changing all of them including everyone else's. Not even sure what to do here. :/
To my understanding Athyrium filix-femina (subsp. filix-femina and var. cyclosorum) will persist no matter what.
The main question is whether angustum and asplenioides should be species, subspecies, or varieties. It would be easy enough to just merge the sp into the subsp.
But if we wanted to split them into species, we should really split Athyrium filix-femina into 3 things: a NEW filix-femina, angustum, and asplenioides (taxon split one-to-many, https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/curator+guide#changes), right?
Spoke too soon...further complicated by "Athyrium cyclosorum"...
http://www.theplantlist.org/tpl1.1/record/tro-26603640
oh wow. boy did i step in it! :) i need that gif of homer simpson dissapearing wth a hedge, except with ferns
I'm waking up the lions again here. Wondering what to do about this Athyrium mess. To further complicate things, POWO lists A. angustatum as a ssp. of A. asplenioides.
My vote is to maintain filix-femina, asplenioides, angustatum and cyclosurum as separate species. Cleaning up North American observations will be a big job but should be doable. A few of us will get soris.
well, i'm a lumper when it comes to species vs subspecies but... since we only have one here i don't care too much. Just need to know which to use
Looks like I stepped in it as well but from a different direction: https://www.inaturalist.org/flags/373405
I keep putting this off because I have to read some primary literature to get this right, but setting up the split is on my to-do list. (I will have to master this for some contract work this summer, anyway.) The major impact will be that observations in the mid-Atlantic, primarily, will have to be re-ID'd as A. angustatum or A. asplenioides. There are some hybrids/intergrades, so some observations may get stuck at genus level.
@alexgraeff also flagged this issue today.
@choess looks like part of this was already committed
subsp. asplenioides https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/79982
Other drafted changes
The big split: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/80148 (not yet fully atlased)
subsp. filix-femina: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/80149
subsp. angustum: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/80147
subsp. cyclosorum: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/80150
I changed the split draft to use the input as an output (rather than making a new A. filix-femina. Still needs to be atlased by someone.
OK, on my radar--ping me this weekend and I'll work on the atlasing.
(I'm not going to remember to do that but maybe one could set a reminder?)
Further discussion here: https://www.inaturalist.org/flags/558897#activity_comment_c8248eb5-4d4a-4abd-bc2b-9c594f9040dc
OK, I have the atlasing done...sort of. A. angustum and A. asplenioides are mapped, but there's still enough range overlap in the mid-Atlantic that there will be much reassigning done there. I have mapped A. filix-femina in a polyphyletic way, covering the Eurasian distribution + the West Coast material (cyclosorum/californicum) + some Mexican/Central American distribution which probably will go to other species eventually. I am OK with splitting off cyclosorum & californicum at some point but there are nomenclatural issues to be worked out first.
@seanblaney, do you know of any more fine-grained data covering the (presumably few) records of var. cyclosorum in Quebec and Ontario? If I can atlas the locations where it occurs in those provinces, the system will be able to automatically reassign all the other A. filix-femina there to A. angustum, whereas right now it cannot.
Also, I am thinking that before we commit these swaps, I should subdivide Athyrium according to the section classification of Wei et al. 2017. That way observations that can't be geographically assigned to species will bubble up only to Athyrium sect. Athyrium, not to genus Athyrium, which will make cleanup and reidentification a bit easier.
For your proposed deviation from POWO for A. cyclosorum - is there a good reference/explanation as to why we would be deviating?
cyclosorum is S2 in Quebec so occurrences are likely databased by the heritage program. @samuelbrinker likely knows something about the Ontario occurrences.
FNA maps 2 Ontario records (http://www.efloras.org/object_page.aspx?object_id=5701&flora_id=1) - a collection from Thunder Bay but we are unaware of what the basis of that record is (though the area is known for other western Cordilleran disjuncts). The other is from near Sault Ste. Marie but is believed to be based on a misidentified specimen. So currently ranked SU for the province with no other confirmed records.
OK, the Quebec occurrences are all apparently in the general vicinity of https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/67668255. I have cleaned up Quebec and Ontario, so records not from Nord-du-Quebec or Thunder Bay should automatically flip to angustum on splitting the taxon.
I have a query in awaiting attention from the relevant people at Kew, but it looks to me like there is no "Athyrium cyclosorum", despite the IPNI entry--I think Ruprecht's binomial is properly interpreted as Athyrium filix-femina var. cyclosorum, so there's no validly published name at species level for the western taxon. @msundue has a graduate student working on this, so it should resolve eventually, but that will take a few years.
woo hoo, maybe it stays subspecies!
Amateur here trying to follow. I have research grade observations in VT, NH, & MA marked variously as:
Athyrium filix-femina angustum
Athyrium filix-femina
Athyrium angustum
And some stuck at Athyrium because one ID says Athyrium angustum and one says Athyrium filix-femina angustum
Do I follow the above thread to say that all of these will be merged to Athyrium angustum automatically some time in the future?
It's frustrating to have two active synonymous taxa (i.e., A. angustum and A. filix-femina var. angustum), but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any agreement on how to treat this entity on iNat so we're stuck with that as the status quo for now.
I plan to go forward with a swap of A. filix-femina angustum to A. angustum, which is consistent with our current treatment of A. asplenioides. This is the name that has been used for a number of years by Flora Novae-Angliae/GoBotany and more recently by BONAP. NatureServe Explorer still uses ssp. angustum. With the possible exception of a few things along Long Island Sound and the possible cyclosorum at Thunder Bay, New England and eastern Canadian populations should pretty much all be A. angustum, so you don't have to worry about differentiating different lady ferns within that region.
I think other taxonomies are likely to be updated to match this over time, as the two taxa seem to remain distinct and can generally be separated morphologically (blade shape works pretty well for me, it seems better than the basal pinnule trick on Dryopteris intermedia/carthusiana). If Bertrand's work comes out lumping them again, I'm happy to swap them back to subspecific level.
it looks to me like there is no "Athyrium cyclosorum", despite the IPNI entry--I think Ruprecht's binomial is properly interpreted as Athyrium filix-femina var. cyclosorum, so there's no validly published name at species level for the western taxon
Did IPNI update? I thought they used to link to a BHL archive of something with the name listed at species rank, but now I'm not able to find it. Now it says: "Ruprecht (preface p. 6) mentioned: “In sequentibus pagellis species Cryptogamarum vascularium 96 primi et 33 second ordains (second-order species or species within species) s.d. (sive dicta = also called)) …. His (p. 41) publication no. 65. Athyrium Filix Foemina (no.) 65. (gamma) Athyrium cyclosorum is construed as Athyrium cyclosorum (see Melbourne Code Art. 37.7 Note 1.)" https://www.ipni.org/n/26122-2
does this give two lady ferns in new england? i am confused? Leaf tricks are all good and well moving forward but if they require photos of something that isn't in most observation photos it still messes up a bunch of existing observations.
But i think i am reading it as no there are not?
No, just angustum in New England, at whatever rank
@bouteloua, yes, I missed your question above; there were inconsistent entries in the IPNI database of how to interpret some of Ruprecht's names. I have been asked to clean up Athyrium filix-femina subsp. angustum so we don't have 2 names for the same taxon, so I am going to do a partial split of Athyrium filix-femina, removing the 2 eastern North American taxa. Further splitting will have to wait on @athyriumroth's work, including publishing a new combination for Athyrium cyclosorum.
Incidentally, all of these species are now in Athyrium sect. Athyrium in our taxonomy, so catching and re-identifying things that escaped the atlases and so forth should be easier.
Oh dear. A. angustum and A. asplenioides are sometimes recognized at species level, sometimes as subspecies of A. filix-femina. The west coast material is usually treated as ssp. cyclosorum. I have been told that some of the material in the mid-Atlantic is intermediate between the first 2, so I tend to just lump everything into A. filix-femina and run away.