In message , K
writes
Sacha writes

English people living in bits of France, btw. ;-) But I will correct that
info and pass it on to them outdoors. What rather surprised me was just
how huge the Prunus grouping is. Given that taxonomists seem to spend half
their time confusing the likes of me by changing the name of some perfectly
happy and innocent plant, how is it that Prunus is such a big LUMP of a
thing?!

The taxonomic system is an attempt to reflect the 'family tree' of the
plants involved. Therefore the assumption is that the various species
of Prunus are closely enough related to justify them all being in the
same genus (or, conversely, that they are not sufficiently different to
justify a split).

Or it could be that Prunus taxonmists tend to be 'lumpers' rather than
'splitters' ;-)

How many species does Prunus have? Thymus apparently has around 350

Fide Wikipedia Prunus has 430 species. (I would have guessed 100-200.)

Hibiscus has about 300 (there's a proposal which would take it up to
700). Veronica 500. Euphorbia over 2000. Acacia over 1000 (but that
might be before it was broken, but the rump Acacia is much the biggest
of the new genera). Senecio 1500 (but that's likely to be broken up).
Vernonia of the order of 1000.
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley