Icones wrote "The Kew Database is not perfect by any estimation ( and I think Kew would agree), however, it is the best tool we have to work with and if everyone is working to improve it, we will ultimately get a database that reflects the current consensus of the majority of orchid people (please note I did not say taxonomist)."
I agree; the Kew Checklist is a work in progress, and can benefit from informed input from everyone, rather than complaining about its imperfections. Jim Ackerman has nearly completed a taxonomic revision of Tolumnia for Flora of the Greater Antilles, and I've asked him to email this to Rafael Govaerts at Kew. We have a good start on a molecular phylogeny of Tolumnia, and so far it shows that Dr. Braem's segregates ( e.g., Gudrunia, Hispaniella) are embedded within Tolumnia (sorry, Guido). I don't know whether the Kew Checklist will wait until Genera Orchidacearum Vol. 5 is published before making some of these changes. I would disagree that we should strive for a "database that reflects the current consensus of the majority of orchid people (please note I did not say taxonomist)." The majority of people may not be as up-to-date on current research on a group of plants, and so I don't think that mob rule is the way to construct a classification system. After all, the majority of U.S. citizens do not believe in evolution, but at least so far the college textbooks have not been rewritten to do away with evolutionary theory. -- ******************************************************************* Mark Whitten Senior Biological Scientist 385 Dickinson Hall Florida Museum of Natural History University of Florida P.O. Box 117800 Gainesville, FL 32611-7800 tel. 352-392-1721 ext 214 FAX 352-846-2016 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ******************************************************************** _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [email protected] http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
