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Sacha[_3_] · 15-08-2008, 09:44 AM posted to uk.rec.gardening

On 14/8/08 21:27, in article ,
"Rusty Hinge 2" wrote:

The message
from Sacha contains these words:

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?!

hyperbole="slight"

Huh! If you want meddling boffins, look no further than mycology.
Practically every mycologist of note and many of none, classify fungi in
the genus of their own naming using different criteria.

/hyperbole

A mushroom can appear in one genus (say, Tricholoma) according to an
'authority', and in another (say, Lepista) according to another.

Obviously closely-related species get bunged out of one genus where it
had seemed well-established and dropped into another on (say) the colour
of spores.

Perhaps good old Prunus are best left alone, after all. I really cannot be
doing with these tiresome people who can spend 3 hours arguing about the
length of stamens in order to support their theory that a plant belongs to
one genus or another altogether!

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon