Steve Beckendorf wrote: �When and why did the Dockrillia species go back to Dendrobium? Who put them back?� � If you do not like a proposed generic rearrangement, like Brieger�s establishment in 1981 of Dockrillia for the terete-leaved Dendrobiums, you do not need to put the Dockrillias back into Dendrobium. You can just ignore Dockrillia and go on using Dendrobium for these species. Most recent taxonomists want taxa be clades, i.e. monophyletic branches of a phylogenetic tree. A monophyletic branch can be cut off the tree by just one cut below the branch. Dendrobium in the broadest sense is no doubt monophyletic, but if you begin cutting off smaller branches you will be left with a paraphyletic remnant � a piece of the tree delimited not only by one lower cut, but also one or more higher up. That is one reason to be conservative when considering new split-off genera. � Finn Rasmussen, Copenhagen
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