Dear Icones, Last two years I have sent circa 200 corrections on orchids of Brazil to Rafäel Govaerts and he was quick to answer and accept or ask for more info about them. I have revised most of Brazilian species. Just Brassavola, Pleurothallidiinae, terrestrial and few othes were left out of the revision at the time. The corrections were so many that they ended puting my name there on the database at the reviewers page.
Of course things keep moving and some later changes, which we do not agree with, have been made, particularly some in Oncidiinae (most due to Koniger's publications). Anyway there are different opinions about a large number of synonyms everywhere we look at in orchid world of taxonomy. That's normal. Well, despite what Cribb said to you in Sarasota, this time I have to desagree. They indeed make daily changes, but that does not apply to acceptance of genera. It is easy to check that. As an example you may look for the new genera created by Luer months ago in Icones Pleurothallidinarum 28. They are not mentioned in Kew, not even as synonyms. So daily changes may take months. I do not believe they do not know that this volume has been released, so why have they not input anything as yet? Neither as accepted genura nor as synonyms? The thing is some changes take time do be complete. I remeber of Rafäel telling me months before doing so, that he was going to update Pleurothallis and move some the species to Aciantera, etc. He did it later, but we knew it was going to change months before happening. Another example: Now they do accept Flickingeria but do not most other genera of Dendrobium in recent revisions. Well, it seems Flinkingeria situates between two diferent clades of Dendrobium. According phylogenethic rules, that is not possible to stand, thus they will have to get rid of Flikingeria or split Dendrobium. Why have not they do so as yet? It is because they are getting more data and deciding what to do. Another example: Castro and Chiron have revised Baptistonia and moved there many species of Oncidium. This move is potentialy correct and we all know Oncidium cannot stay as it is. Why din they not accept it as yet? My guess is that they are deciding if they will move the whole group to Gomesa, or maybe keep Baptistonia separated but including on it the section Crispa (Brasilidium), etc. Again I return to my earlier statement, if they keep Baptistonia under Oncidium, then they have to do the same with Binotia and Rodrigueziella. They know that but have not changed anything as yet. Studies are not finished and decisions not made so far. Just because it the info is still there does not imply it is not going to change sometime ahead. They know it will. That was my point to Iris. So acceptance of genera does not seem to be in daily bases. I am sure Tolumnia will not stay under Oncidium unless they make of Oncidium an even larger and more heterogeneous genus than it was before. Dalton _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [email protected] http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
