Malacothamnus Treatment Published

I've published my PhD research, which you can download for free here. This is a three-volume open-access monograph on the genus Malacothamnus. Most people will only be interested in the third volume, which is a new treatment of the genus with a geographically focused identification key, lots of photographs, preliminary conservation assessments, and general information on the genus. For those who want to dig deeper, the first two volumes go into the details of the evidence used in making the taxonomic decisions for the treatment.

I'll be working on updating the Malacothamnus taxonomy on iNaturalist but it may take some time to complete everything, especially as I want to make it as smooth of a transition as possible. I hope to have all changes done by the time the Jepson eFlora version of the treatment comes out in winter 2023/24.

As well as changing some scientific names, I will also be adding some new common names, which might take some getting used to but will likely ultimately be to everyone's benefit. Some of the common names that have been used on iNaturalist in the past have led to a lot of misidentifications, have been attributed to many different taxa, or honor people who led massacres. I'll be adding some common names that might not all be helpful in themselves but will hopefully eventually be used more than those that cause problems. When possible, I tried to think of a common name that will help reduce misidentifications. See Volume 3 of the monograph for explanations of these.

Perhaps I'll give updates in the journal as I make changes so you can see what I'm doing and give you a little more detail on each change.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this project! I couldn't have done it without you!

Posted on August 24, 2023 03:12 AM by