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bouteloua green alder (Alnus viridis)

treated as Alnus alnobetula subsp. alnobetula in POWO, please discuss before swapping

Sep. 1, 2018 16:53:22 +0000 bouteloua

committed taxon change

Comments

Alnus viridis is not seen by the iNat community as a snonym for Alnus alnobetula ssp. alnobetula. According to POWO this subspecies should only occur in Europe. All American ID's would not be correct.
Proposal: Taxonswap from Alnus viridis to Alnus alnobetula with all subspecies.

Posted by epsilon over 4 years ago

What do you think @bouteloua should I do in this way?

Posted by epsilon over 4 years ago

Sorry I'm just on my phone and haven't had a chance to research this. I'd like to know what research POWO is following here and how it differs from accepted floras in the western hemisphere.

Posted by bouteloua over 4 years ago

Hello @bouteloua
I haven't been a curator for iNat for a long time and don't know my way around here so well yet. Maybe I don't understand everything correctly because my English is not very good.

According to my information, the taxonomy of plants is mainly based on POWO in order to save primary literature studies and not to get lost in "exhausting" discussions.

I have tried here to collect what I found.

According to USDA, Alnus alnobetula is synonymous with Alnus viridis sinuata.
https://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=ALVIS

According to POWO Alnus viridis is synonymous with Alnus alnobetula alnobetula
http://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:295013-1

According to The Plant List, Alnus viridis is synonymous with Alnus alnobetula.
http://www.theplantlist.org/tpl1.1/record/kew-6257

According to the 3 most important German field guides, Alnus viridis is a synonym for Alnus alnobetula

Catalogue of live only lists Alnus alnobetula and Alnus viridis does not appear here at all.
http://www.catalogueoflife.org/col/details/species/id/995fe0931df8484a5a2cd1faf9dfc04d

The German Wikipedia says:
The name Alnus alnobetula was published in 1873 by Karl Heinrich Emil Koch in Dendrologie, Volume 2, 1, p. 625. The name Alnus alnobetula (EHRH.) K.KOCH, with the basionym Betula alnobetula EHRH published 1783 by Jakob Friedrich Ehrhart in Gartenkalender, Vol. 2, p. 193, has priority over Alnus viridis (CHAIX) DC, with the basionym Betula viridis CHAIX published 1786.
http://www.tropicos.org/Name/3600188

I don't think that's helping us much. Accepted by POWO is Alnus alnobetula (Ehrh.) K.Koch with his 5 subspecies. At the moment iNat has both species which is not correct.

Posted by epsilon over 4 years ago

I can sympathize with you -- even being a curator for several years now it's not always "easy" to determine what to do! Essentially we want to make sure the community is okay with the change, and that POWO is not simply out-of-date.

Thank you for doing the work looking at those resources. Note that The Plant List is very old/not updated, so it is best to ignore. POWO is essentially its replacement. Here are a few additional western hemisphere sources:

GoBotany (New England in the US): Alnus viridis is accepted. Specifically Alnus viridis subsp. crispa in that region, which is considered a synonym of A. alnobetula subsp. crispa in POWO. The same conclusion (accepts Alnus viridis subsp. crispa) is taken at Minnesota Wildflowers and Flora of Wisconsin, Michigan Flora.

Flora of North America accepts Alnus viridis listing the three subspecies that occur there: crispa, fruticosa, and sinuata.

VASCAN (Canada) follows Euro+Med, dated 2011, in accepting these three taxa as Alnus alnobetula. Except that Euro+Med accepts Alnus viridis...what??

Ah I just reread the German Wikipedia quote. Yes, perhaps that is why POWO is giving Alnus alnobetula priority.

https://www.ipni.org/n/60446836-2 - Betula alnobetula (1783)
https://www.ipni.org/n/295233-1 - Betula viridis (1785)

Posted by bouteloua over 4 years ago

Hello bouteloua,
Thank you very much for your kind answer.

I got the link from "The Plant List" from Kai_Schablewski. He already mentioned that the link is only of limited use.

Are the links to IPNI the ones we needed to accept Alnus alnobetula? In this case I would do the taxon swap.

Another general question. If we had found out now that Alnus viridis has priority over Alnus alnobetula, would one then stay with Alnus viridis contrary to the specification of POWO or nevertheless change to Alnus alnobetula because POWO says it?

Greetings

Wolfgang

Posted by epsilon over 4 years ago

IPNI doesn't claim which taxa are accepted and which are synonyms. IPNI is simply a list of names that have been published.

If Alnus viridis really did have priority over A. alnobetula, it would need to be brought to the attention of POWO. POWO will update their database based on the most accurate/complete information.

I just emailed POWO to get clarification/confirmation on this case.

Posted by bouteloua over 4 years ago

Got a response from Rafael already:

Me: Hi there, is the reason for accepting Alnus alnobetula because its basionym was published earlier than that of Alnus viridis?
We have both taxa (and their subspecies) on iNaturalist and need to determine which is correct, but I am not sure the current status of POWO's "completeness" in this group.

Rafael: Yes Cassi, that's right. Certainly in Europe it (Alnus alnobetula) is now universally accepted. Anything that is also on WCSP
http://wcsp.science.kew.org/home.do
Is very reliable (Same data btw)

Going to commit the taxon changes now.

Posted by bouteloua over 4 years ago

Thank you :)

Posted by epsilon over 4 years ago

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