Changes in Malacothamnus fasciculatus
I've made a few changes to Malacothamnus fasciculatus on iNat.
Malacothamnus fasciculatus var. laxiflorus was lumped into var. fasciculatus for many years. My research shows that it is distinct, maybe distinct enough to be recognized as a species. It needs more research though, so I'm splitting it back out as just a variety of M. fasciculatus. Vars. laxiflorus and fasciculatus are mostly distinct geographically but intergrade near the border or Orange and San Diego Counties. So that will be the problem area for identification. Var. laxiflorus may also be planted in parts of San Diego County, so that is something to watch for.
My research showed Malacothamnus fasciculatus var. nuttallii to be morphologically, phylogenetically, and geographically distinct from the rest of M. fasciculatus. It also blooms roughly one month later than the other M. fasciculatus varieties growing at similar elevations. So, the new treatment returns M. fasciculatus var. nuttallii back to the species rank as M. nuttallii.
I've added the suggested common name "southern coastal bushmallow" as a common name for both M. fasciculatus and M. fasciculatus var. fasciculatus. Ideally, this will become the default common name but as there are so many observations of M. fasciculatus on iNat, it might be good to hold off on that to see what other websites end up doing.
See more details in my new treatment of Malacothamnus, which you can download for free here.
Comments
@phytographer @serpophaga @matt_g @bmacm @dhwilken and anyone else who wants to help,
The transition from M. fasciculatus var. nuttallii to M. nuttallii needs a little ID help as most iNat people only ID to species, which causes a lot of conflicts when a variety is made into a species. Below is a query showing those now stuck at the genus level because of this, 292 observations as I write this. Most of these should be M. nuttallii, though it might have a few nuttallii/orbiculatus intermediates on the northern border too (beware those). If any of you want to add IDs to these, that would help. It wouldn't hurt to add a comment perhaps linking here or to the new treatment when you add an ID as well. Thanks!
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?lrank=genus&nelat=34.86471446695442&nelng=-119.18685582392717&place_id=any&subview=map&swlat=34.19268502368396&swlng=-120.43105748408342&taxon_id=57138
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