In message , Nick Maclaren
writes

In article ,
Stewart Robert Hinsley writes:
|
| Well, there are about 70 in Bean. What is now Prunus used to be
| half a dozen different genera, but they were 'lumped' - whether
| that was justified or not, I can't say. The old Prunus was just
| the plums.
|
| Prunus - plums
| Amygdalus - almond
| Armeniaca - apricot
| Persica - peach
| Cerasus - cherries
| Padus - more cherries
| Laurocerasus - cherry laurels
|
| (per Komarov, 1971, fide Lee & Wen 2001)
|
| But a single genus has been the most common position for a long time
| (e.g. Bentham & Hooker, 1865).
|
| Molecular systematics work doesn't support the split genera, but the
| clade as a whole doesn't look well resolved. For the latest (April) word
| on the topic see
|
| http://www.plantsystematics.com/qika...g/jse08050.pdf

Thanks. But it seems to be yet another single gene/whatever analysis,
and therefore as likely to be completely misleading as not!

I did say that it "doesn't look well resolved". However, as a point of
order, two genes (ndhF and ITS) were used. (From what I've seen
elsewhere ndhF is too conservative to be ideal at this level.)

Especially for a genus like Prunus :-(


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

--
Stewart Robert Hinsley