"Stewart Robert Hinsley" wrote in message
...
In message , Peter B
writes
Thanks for the replies. I take the points. Semantics aside, I agree that
a
person is entitled to certain views, but this is a scientific matter. As
such it can be discussed in the appropriate learned journals. I do not
know the book in question, but if it is for the general public, defining
new
taxa and, as a result having to put names to them, will create confusion.
I
do realise that this area is a minefield, and I am sure that I not alone
in
having problems keeping up with the name changes. Some people seem to
want
to make life more of a struggle than it need be.

Peter


This book in question is targeted at persons with some familiarity with
botany.

Anyone writing a book on "The Families of Flowering Plants" has to make
decisions on the taxonomic classification to be presented; you're not
going to find a classification which is complete and up to date in the
learned journals, except perhaps fleetingly.

There's been some turnover in plant taxonomy over the last decade or so,
based on the application of first cladistic analyses, and then on the use
of molecular data. For example the old Liliaceae is now spread over 2
orders.

Malvaceae s.l. Has been split all sorts of ways over the years (see
http://www.malvaceae.info/Classification/history.html for my draft of the
history of the classification of the group). Latterly Cronquist's division
into Malvaceae s.s., Bombacaceae, Sterculiaceae and Tiliaceae was widely
adopted, even though it was recognised that Malvaceae s.s. was the only
clear cut group. When DNA data was looked at it became clear that the
traditional families were entangled phylogenetically. The Angiosperm
Phylogeny Group (who are lumpers) resolved this by combining the four
families into a single Malvaceae sensu APG. There have been other
proposals dividing then into two or three families.

The APG classification, and the Kubitzki and Bayer intrafamilial
classification, have been widely used of recent years, but their use is
not mandatory. From PvR's comments it seems that Martin Cheek has given
family status to the well-marked groups with Malvaceae s.l. The treatment
of Malvatheca (Malvaceae and Bombacaceae in this new classification) is
problematic in both classification. I'd be tempted to combine them into a
single taxon, divided into 5 or 6 subordinate taxa; making this a family,
rather than a subfamily does have the advantage of having an extra rank to
play with; otherwise all the traditional taxa get pushed down a rank.
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley

Some years ago I attended a talk by Francis Rose, who complained that names
keep changing. If he did not like it, what hope is there for the average,
amateur punter? I will stick with Clive Stace. A plague on all the other
houses!

Peter