Flag for Taxon: Texas Paloverde (Cercidium texanum)
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| elizatorres | Texas Paloverde (Cercidium texanum) |
Ahora es sinónimo de: Parkinsonia texana var. macra |
Nov. 10, 2021 17:26:51 +0000 | ragoliv |
taxon swap made |
Comments
World Flora Online says the opposite (http://www.worldfloraonline.org/taxon/wfo-0000174169), and these changes were made here before (https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/32374; https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/32376). Do we trust POWO in this case (https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:485663-1)?
We follow POWO online unless there is a clearly articulated and well supported reason not to. https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/curator+guide#authorities
Ok, but in this case these changes were made before saying just the opposite. I think it would be better if we heard some of the specialists in the group.
@joshua_tx , @aztekium , @alexiz , @stevejones , @pioleon , @mjplagens
This change was made without any source cited. https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/32376 The other change appears to have been deleted. https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/32374;
According to POWO, the varieties are not valid anymore, so I merged Cercidium texanum, C. texanum var. texanum and C. texanum var. macra into Parkinsonia texana (https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/111142).
You might be interested in the following paper I found on the internet: https://www.scielo.br/j/rod/a/mbCTyHhnXFFZScM6P9bMm5c/?lang=en
Taxonomic review of the species of Parkinsonia (Leguminosae, Caesalpinioideae) from the Americas by Marcos Vinicius Varjão RomãoVidal de Freitas Mansano in Rodriguésia vol.72 Rio de Janeiro 2021 Epub Dec 03, 2021.
What a nightmare! Whether C. macrum was to be held as its own species, held as a variety of C. texanum/P. texana, or merged with C. floridanum/P. florida, now none of that is readily possible here on iNat because that distinction was erased with this taxon change. It is going to be a serious headache to have to manually sift through every observation one by one to attempt to correct all of these observations (reassign distinctions, which will require first reactivating the varietal status), and even though I use the word "correct" these observations will only ever be effectively corrected if the majority of users agree. So many headaches have been created on iNat by well-intentioned curators chasing POWO without having any firsthand knowledge or field experience with the taxa in question. I have spent hundreds of hours of my personal time on iNat trying to correct similar blunders.
POWO's assertion that C. macrum/P. texana var. macra should be submerged into P. texana without any varietal distinction is a bad joke. I have personally studied these in the field in Texas. In Val Verde county near Lake Amistad, you can find C. texanum/P. texana var. texana as a low bush with fully mature individuals often averaging less than 2 feet in height on limestone uplands, with only the oldest/largest individuals approaching 3 feet in height, having numerous branches arising from the root crown, with the majority of pinnae only bearing a single pair of leaflets (a minority of pinnae bearing 2 pairs of leaflets per pinna). Contrast this with the C. macrum/P. texana var. macra that can be found in Cameron county that are trees that with age tend to bear a single trunk and can reach over 30 feet in height, with the majority of pinnae bearing 3 to 4 pairs of leaflets. The large majority of each of their native ranges are allopatric, and even in the relatively narrow area of deep south Texas where the two are sympatric almost all individuals still key out cleanly to C. texanum/P. texana var. texana or C. macrum/P. texana var. macra. Whether you prefer the taxonomic view that these represent two distinct species or the view that these represent two distinct varieties of a single species, the idea that no reliable noteworthy distinction exists between the two is simply not reflected in the field.
POWO has it as Parkinsonia texana