Changes to Malacothamnus jonesii, M. gracilis, and M. niveus

I've made a few changes to Malacothamnus jonesii, M. gracilis, and M. niveus on iNat.

Malacothamnus gracilis and niveus are sometimes treated as synonyms of M. jonesii without varieties. Morphological, phylogenetic, and geographic evidence indicates M. niveus and M.gracilis are likely best treated as a variety of M. jonesii. They are closely related and intergrade but are mostly morphologically and geographically distinct. The cool thing about treating them as varieties of M. jonesii is that it means I get to be a splitter and a lumper for the same taxa at the same time. It also means that intermediates can be easily IDed to just the species.

In the new treatment, I'm using the common name Huasna bushmallow for M. jonesii var. gracilis and fragrant-snow bushmallow for M. jonesii var. niveus. The Huasna region is the type locality for M. jonesii var. gracilis, so a much more useful name than slender bushmallow, which makes little sense relative to other Malacothamnus. Slender what and why? The original basionym of M. jonesii var. niveus was Malvastrum fragrans but that was already in use, so changed to Malvastrum niveus. Translate those and you get fragrant-snow bushmallow, which at least is better than San Luis Obispo County bushmallow as there are many taxa of Malacothamnus in San Luis Obispo County. The old common names are still on iNat and you can still use them but I've changed the default common name for both to be in sync with the new treatment.

See more details in my new treatment of Malacothamnus, which you can download for free here.

Posted on September 8, 2023 03:16 AM by keirmorse