Flag for Taxon: western scouringrush (Subspecies Equisetum hyemale affine)
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| dryopteris2 | western scouringrush (Subspecies Equisetum hyemale affine) |
this is a synonym of Equisetum praealtum. |
Sep. 27, 2021 18:40:43 +0000 | kitty12 |
Swap done |
Comments
I have no particular knowledge or expertise about this issue, so I'll just say that iNat generally follows Plants of the World Online (which is referred to as POWO, for some weird reason) when it comes to plant taxonomy. POWO treats praealtum as the correct name, so that would be a point in favor of the swap. Here are the relevant links:
Equisetum praealtum page
Equisetum hyemale var. affine page
Equisetum hyemale page
I don't have a strong opinion either way-- but the two should not be treated as separate taxa.
Seems the swap was drafted a year ago, but never committed: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/64880.
Personally, I'm inclined to this sort of thing, but feel that this one is premature. There's, to my knowledge, one study that shows that the NA and Eurasian hyemale are reciprocally monophyletic, but with pretty modest sampling (geographic sampling) and the divergence is pretty shallow (compared to the commonly-recognized species of Equisetum). And I don't feel that praealtum has any real traction with field botanists--ie, a lot of people will be upset or confused...
(Note that the fern treatment rather deliberately stays clear of POWO, so I wouldn't count POWO's recognition of praealtum as a point in favor in this particular case)
Per my comments at the swap, I don't think treatment of E. praealtum at the species level is justified yet, although it might be in the future; I'd prefer to keep it at ssp. affine at present. I'll see if I can modify the swap to go the other way.
From the scientific point of view, one should wait for universal scientific acceptance and more publications on this topic, so far we have only 1 publication and that is definitely not enough from the point of view of scientific research methodology. That's why I stick to the older version and look forward to more publications; it is taxonomically very reckless to introduce a newer version without definitive scientific evidence.
Looks like everyone is in agreement. Someone want to go ahead and commit the swap?
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/64880
This is a big swap, so let's gauge the temperature in the community. @radekwalkowiak @erwin_pteridophilos @choess @barbaraparris @davidenrique @crothfels Please tag in other interested people.