Flag for Taxon: Jersey Cudweed (Pseudognaphalium luteoalbum)
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| nicolasr | Jersey Cudweed (Pseudognaphalium luteoalbum) |
This is a synonym of Helichrysum luteoalbum http://www.plantsoftheworldonline.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:909623-1 |
Mar. 21, 2019 21:58:59 +0000 | loarie |
see comments |
Comments
these authors do not suggest to lump Pseudognaphalium into Helichrysum nor to disentangle Helichrysum into many small genera.
To make things easier for users here I would recommend to maintain Pseudognaphalium
Ugh, what a hideous mess of paraphyly!
eh eh...
It depends on your point of view. For now I would maintain Pseudognaphalium - indeed I am involved in a draft paper where a new combination in that genus is being proposed even though two of the three on the paper agree that at some stage the genus will be merged into Helichrysum. I would suggest that for now, leave Pseudognaphalium as it is, and wait and see - people still need to argue the merits of such a move.
Just to be clear, POWO does not sink all of Pseudognaphalium into Helichrysum - the majority of species have been retained in Pseudognaphalium for the time being (see link below). P. luteoalbum, however, has been moved to Helichrysum presumably following Galbany-Casals et al 2014 (p.620) who state "... it is not clear if Pseudognaphalium luteoalbum and P. oligandrum are part of a distinct clade corresponding with Pseudognaphalium, or part of a group within Helichrysum that provided one parent of an allopolyploid Pseudognaphalium. If so, these species should be recognised in Helichrysum, while the remainder of Pseudognaphalium is retained at least in the short term."
http://www.plantsoftheworldonline.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:290947-2#children
Well, as much as I don't personally agree that POWO is the 'bee's knee's' (certainly with respect to the names used in Australasia and especially New Zealand) I gather that what it says we are supposed to follow for iNaturalist anyway, so if you apply that view then you have your answer. If however, as you say not all Pseudognaphalium are transferred to Helichrysum then shifting the few that do have valid combinations in that genus seems 'unhelpful'. I guess one needs to think of the 'end user' who on this website mostly wants to log observations and not get too bogged down in nomenclatural / taxonomic arguments, so a case is made for retaining Pseudognaphalium until a consensus has been reached.
Ultimately though this is your call to make, and to live with, if you find others don't like it.
I'm no fan of some of the treatments in POWO, myself. Having Callistemon and other familiar genera lumped into Melaleuca, with consequent name changes to prevent homonymy, still grates with me, especially as Melaleuca is undiagnosable now.
However I think it's important not to devalue the chosen authority by recognising large numbers of deviations from it. Moreover, this is a cosmopolitan species and the change seems to have been adopted in other parts of the world (see link) so I'm inclined toward adopting it, here. Any user typing in "Pseudognaphalium luteoalbum" will be automatically directed to Helichrysum luteoalbum so it shouldn't cause much confusion.
http://www.catalogueoflife.org/col/details/species/id/e064802bdeda4e7286d19e0c220d4bea
Kia kaha - as I said your call - your decision makes things way easier for me here in Aotearoa / New Zealand - because I can add this decision to the growing body of evidence and proof that Pseudognaphalium is better merged in Helichrysum - something I alluded to in Threatened Plants of New Zealand (de Lange et al. 2010). Still whether people pay attention to it in our little country or not is another matter. Time will tell what others on iNaturalist think. Nga mihi nui
We've had it in our Herbarium as Helichrysum luteoalbum since 2008, so I'm not concerned to go with POWO. However, our Herbarium is at odds with the Australian Plant Census project, which have it as Pseudognaphalium luteoalbum since 2016. We've dragged our feet because the chance that this will be resolved soon seems high. I think whichever name we pick is of little consequence at this stage and will likely change soon anyway.
I'd be more inclined to go with POWO simply for consistency and minimising deviations, with the proviso that Index Kewensis (which underpins POWO) takes a fair while to feed into POWO, and often does not incorporate regional research. There is also no easy to find mechanism for alerting POWO editors/compilers to stuff they have missed.
Merge here: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/88467
iNaturalist currently accepts two names for this taxon viz. Pseudognaphalium luteoalbum and Laphangium luteoalbum. So if you decide to keep Pseudognaphalium luteoalbum then Laphangium luteoalbum needs to be merged with it. If you decide to go with Helichrysum luteoalbum than both the other names to be rolled into that. (see https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/53083/flags)
Looks like the new merge will drop everything into H. luteoalbum so I will delete my original draft. @kitty12 some explanation always a good thing - just summarising what you intend to do and why.
@kitty12 you might as well go ahead and commit the merge, I reckon. It's sat around for 2 years, now.
I've added a link to this flag on the merge and added the subspecies.
I committed https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/88467 and also https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/95671 which I broke off to make sure that I didn't run into weird issues with having parents and children as merge inputs
I have drafted the swap but because this is such a widespread and often observed species there may be dissent and calls to deviate from POWO so I haven't yet committed the change. Will leave it sit for a while to allow discussion.
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/55119
There are a number of subspecies listed in iNat but POWO does not recognise any so these will ultimately have to be merged into the parent when the change is committed.