Does anyone know if the miniature Brasilian Oncidium hians, and O. edwalli,
have been tested regarding their placement on Ondidiinae clade yet?
The thing is today they are regarded as belonging to a group of four species
subordinated to Section Paucituberculata Lindl., thus close to Gomesa group,
nevertheless they are completely diferent from the remaing species allied to
O. raniferum group. I believe they possibly are related to Trichocentrum
group instead. They are very small but have thick leaves and vegetatively
resemble the species of O. pulvinatum group a lot, furthermore they just
have a couple of flowers on a generaly racemose inflorescence.
BTW I haven't seen for a while on this list any discussion related to the
great many genera changes happening on these days...
What are your opinions about all Dendrobium new genera?
What about Brazilian Laelia? are they better placed under Sophronitis or
split in four like Hoffmannseggella, Hadrolaelia, etc?
What about Prosthechea/Anacheilium issue?
What about Oncidium pumilum and O. cebolleta? are they better under
Trichocentrum or as Lophiaris and Cohniella?
Should O. pulvinatum group and Saundersia be lumped inside the
Trichocentrum, as they also seem will be, or is it better to create a new
genus to Oncidium pulvinatum (that eventually can contain O. hians group),
and keep all five genera separated?
What about the placement of O. waluewa group inside new widened Baptistonia?
This move implies on creation of one or two new genera.
Or lump section crispa inside Baptistonia also, or create a new genus for
them. Furthermore there is another four or five Brasilian Oncidium sections
allied to Baptistonia that migth be placed under another new genus, lumped
inside Baptistonia along with section crispa or either under Gomesa, making
then Gomesa a very heterogeneous group that might include also the said
Baptistonia, Rodrigueziella, Rodriguesiopsis, Binotia(?) and Ornithophora.
What do you think is the best approach here?
I see the taxonomists that work with philogeny generally follow the trend of
lumping together as many genera they can, as they say "avoiding inflation of
number of genera" and also to maintain information about evolutionary
relations inside a given heterogeneous genus with a larger number of
species. On the other hand sometimes they create monotypic genera. That
sometimes make hard to place species under the right genus unless you have a
personal lab at home. This is particularly clear when we see the
Pleurothallis which where moved to Stelis.
It seems the decision of where to cut and split said monophyletic genera is
somewhat subjective after all phylogenetic studies are done. I ask myself if
this is more or less important than creating a more vegetatively hogeneous
group easyly recognizeable, no matter what is the number of new genera to be
created.
Just as a counterpoit to all this, talking about Brazilian growers, it is
interesting that Baptistonia echinata, for decades considerated to be better
placed as Oncidium brunleesianum never was called diferently than
Baptistonia in Brazil. Anneliesia (some Miltonia) where never recognized.
Some of these moves take time to be recognized but some never will.
Prosthechea, despite being a new revision, was moderatly accepted and it is
frequent to see plants called as such, thus and spite no one, nor the
plants, care what we call them, orchid growers do pay attention to new
genera and classification and decide to use them or not.
Any thoughts?
Dalton
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