Names used in Joël Lodé's Taxonomy of the Cactaceae

[Phil_SK]

Joël Lodé has published a .pdf on his website of the index of names and synonyms for his forthcoming book. From the homepage http://cactus-aventures.com/pageweb_ENG.html scroll to the bottom and it's in the cream box in the middle (NEW! free download here! Taxonomy of the Cactaceae: Index of synonyms (+10.000 entries!))

[Phil_SK]

Having had a chance to look through it now I'm going to add some comments.

Over the last few years he has published quite a few nov. comb. that gave fairly big clues to some of his intentions - Kroenleinia grusonii for Echinocactus grusonii, his splitting off the Leuenbergeria species from Pereskia - and as a result there are very few names that have left he scratching my head (Lagenosocereus is the only genus I hadn't heard of and it's not a new name anyway). He's also spoken about some of his proposals, such as treating the neoporterias, thelocephalas and pyrrhocacti as Neoporteria rather than Eriosyce as a result of (I think) DNA evidence and also his plans to treat Echinopsis as Echinopsis, Lobivia and Trichocereus, much in the way that it was mid 20th century, despite DNA and morphological evidence that this probably isn't correct. In these and other big changes - Parodia splintering - there's little to be surprised about (although I wasn't expecting Echinofossulocactus to usurp Stenocactus). Some of these I think are good ideas and some I don't and some I have mixed feelings about (resurrect Neoporteria by all means if it helps to make monophyletic groups but then why resurrect Islaya too?) In the detail, though, I hope that this index isn't too much of a reflection of the book because despite all the good work he has done this index worries me.

Perhaps because the New Cactus Lexicon was criticised for not giving a "complete synonymy", however you define that, he's included things he probably shouldn't have, such as invalidly published names, and then tried to refer them to good species - a minefield. He's also ignored rulings by the IAPT's Nomenclatural Cttee (Dec 2013) that Cactus coquimbanus should be rejected by referring Trichocereus coquimbanus to Trichocereus '?'. Even if he was too late to act on the similar ruling on Cereus spinibarbis in Dec 2014 he must have known it was about to happen and should have avoided doing anything with Eulychnia spinibarbis, let alone referring it to Trichocereus. He recognises T. spachianus (from Mexico, according to the original description, described with flowers unseen) - another name I had hoped would be ignored.

Now that we know so much more about the habitats of our cacti, it's difficult to see how he will justify some of the species he recognises. There has been quite a bit of talk about Echinopsis oxygona in the last few years, and the Cactus Explorer article showing spiny and spineless plants nearby convinced most of us that E. eyriesii, E. tubiflora and E. adolfofriedrichii were mere synonyms of E. oxygona. It will be quite a task for Joël to convince us that all 4 of these are good species.

There are some confusions. Echinopsis callichroma and E. carmineoflora are referred to Lobivia obrepanda, as is Pseudolobivia obrepanda. However, there is no Lobivia obrepanda listed (not even to refer it elsewhere) - it's there as Echinopsis obrepanda. Echinopsis oligotricha is referred to Lobivia cinnabarina but Lobivia oligotricha is recognised. In the list of Maihueniopsis there are names that have never been published as Maihueniopsis and are never spoken about as such, even wrongly - M. pachypus, M. floccosa, M. lagopus - as if a load of Austrocylindropuntia got copied and pasted in there by mistake.

There is some poor synonymisation. Lobivia kuehnrichii, despite almost universal use, can't be a form of L. or E. haematantha, based on it's location in habitat. This was picked up in the NCL (treated as a synonym of E. chrysantha) but Joël sticks with common usage in referring it to L. haematantha. Similarly, the many Rauh & Backeberg varieties of Austrocylindropuntia lagopus (almost universally accepted to be forms of A. floccosa) are casually referred to Punotia lagopus. Sulcorebutia krahnii was referred to R. glomeriseta in NCL, to the derision of sulco fanatics. Although both have yellow flowers, they are on opposite sides of sulco-land and there seems to be agreement that it's an Eastern form of tiraquensis. Here it gets referred to Weingartia glomeriseta. These may all be justified in the text of the book, of course, but for now they seem to be the result of trying to write this sort of book alone, without being able to draw on the knowledge of others as much as for more collaborative works.

One I'm a bit unsure of but which seems to be a mistake is the referral of Lobivia famatimensis to Reicheocactus pseudoreicheanus. Surely famatimensis (published in 1921) has precedence over pseudoreicheanus (1942) at species level? That would be why the combination R. famatimensis was published a few years ago. Am I missing something?

You'll notice that I've only really looked at Echinopsis and little Opuntia since these are what I know best. I'd be interested to know what others think about the treatment of other genera.

[DaveW]

Not sure about L. famatinensis Phil, does not priority only apply at that rank, therefore if he wanted to move famatinensis out of Lobivia into Reicheocactus would not the name pseudoreicheanus for the same plant take priority if it was moved into Reicheocactus, since that name for the plant known as famatinensis was published first under Reicheocactus?

As to Neoporteria, he is more or less following Donald & Rowley's "Reunion of Neoporteria" 1966 with the exception of moving Islaya out. Roger Ferryman told me Adreana Hoffmann, the Chilean botanist, expressed similar doubts that Eriosyce sensu stricto actually belonged with the rest of the plants Fred Kattermann included in Eriosyce.

Not had chance to go through the list yet as you have, so will reserve judgement on the rest. However the NCL was based mainly on morphology and probably contains just as many mistakes and wrong associations.

[KarlR]

With regards to Lobivia famatimensis I also find it a bit strange that L. famatimensis var. bonniae isn't mentioned under Lobivia, but just as Reicheocactus bonniae (also that L. famatimensis var. jachalensis isn't listed anywhere). Also that e.g. some species listed as synonyms are done so as varieties or subspecies, while others are listed as synonyms at the species level when they're really only ever used at the varietal level. Rebutia pygmaea and all it's varieties are an example of this, with all the described varieties listed as synonyms at the species level. Here as well a name such as Rebutia heliosa var. cajasensis is lacking at both varietal and species level, both under Rebutia and Aylostera.

I also think there's a few names missing under Gymnocalycium. G. esperanzae seems to be missing for instance, and (almost) all the described (though not necessarily good) forms of e.g. G. bruchii and G. spegazzinii.

His splitting of Epithelantha into several new species is also surprising.

I can understand going back to the old sensu stricto version of Echinopsis (and Lobivia and Trichocereus) although I hope he gives better reasons for doing so than has already been put forward by others for lumping everything into Echinopsis (sensu lato). Not that I'm unhappy with splitting up Echinopsis s.l., but unless he can provide a good way of doing so and keep things monophyletic along the way I don't know if it's really any better than lumping everything together like the NCL does.

I think overall the first impression is that this seems a bit messy, though maybe that is as much to do with the format of the list which I think could do with a fair bit of improving. There also seems to be a few errors probably down to a lack of sufficient time to edit his work. I hesitate to be too negative, though I fear, as Phil suggests, that at least some parts of this tome may suffer somewhat from being written by one man alone. I'm definitely still excited to receive it though. I'm sure it will be an influential work (at least for the splitters ), though I don't know whether it will knock the NCL "off it's perch".

[DaveW]

Yes the synonymy is a bit hard to read through, hopefully the books will make it clearer.

I think it was Donati & Zanovello that split up most of the Epithelantha's though, not Lode:-

http://www.atmosfera-d.it/images/storie ... _Epith.pdf

Nice to see Roy Mottram's Rimocactus reinstated for Eriosyce laui since it does not sit well in with the rest and a monotypic genus is the best resting place for it until it's relationships are sorted. Pity he did not reinstate Digitostigma for Astrophytum caput-medusae since that too does not sit too comfortably in with the other Astrophytums. Therefore a monotypic genus would be the best parking place for it until it's relationships are really decided since it may even have been an intra generic hybrid originally

[KarlR]

Yes the synonymy is a bit hard to read through, hopefully the books will make it clearer.

I think it was Donati & Zanovello that split up most of the Epithelantha's though, not Lode:-

http://www.atmosfera-d.it/images/storie ... _Epith.pdf

Nice to see Roy Mottram's Rimocactus reinstated for Eriosyce laui since it does not sit well in with the rest and a monotypic genus is the best resting place for it until it's relationships are sorted. Pity he did not reinstate Digitostigma for Astrophytum caput-medusae since that too does not sit too comfortably in with the other Astrophytums. Therefore a monotypic genus would be the best parking place for it until it's relationships are really decided since it may even have been an intra generic hybrid originally

I thought he might be relying on Donati & Zanovello for his Epithelantha revision, though I was in doubt considering he hasn't used their revision of Turbinicarpus. I haven't read their book on Epithelantha but I thought their revision of Turbinicarpus was unconvincing.

Regarding the likes of Rimacactus and Digitostigma it will be interesting to see whether he has any new molecular data on them.

[lobman]

Having had a very quick midnight look at the above , I am glad I did not invest in a copy , as the " Echinopsis , Lobivia , Trichocereus sections " do not seem to have taken onboard the DNA work to any extent , simply trying to hammer things into a genus , and seems to be a re- hash of ideas around in the 1970s , = a step backwards , and plenty of the " unknowns " have I think been resolved already and are not unknown at all in many cases ,and some of the ideas are lacking in a unified methodolgy --- Could be another Anderson tome , the main pleasure being in spluttering at the mistakes , but I am sure the pictures will be nice if you ignore some of the text !

[Phil_SK]

the " Echinopsis , Lobivia , Trichocereus sections " do not seem to have taken onboard the DNA work to any extent

He has written about his reasons for this on the french forum:

sur Echinopsis-Trichocereus-Lobivia-Soehrensia, nous pouvons dire que si les derniers travaux moléculaires nous ont aidé à y voir un peu plus clair (Schlumberger & Renner 2012), ils ont été apparemment pollués par du matériel hybridé (comm. pers. Mottram), et donc pas à prendre à la lettre.

[KarlR]

I had a further look at the index and it seems a very unfortunate editing error affects almost half of it.

Up until Mammillaria generic names not recognised in the book are underlined and species belonging to this genus are written with species name only. This makes the index easy to read and seems practical. See image below.

Example1.PNG (17.27 KiB) Viewed 4127 times

However, after Mammillaria, generic names not recognised in the book are almost exclusively written with full generic name in front of every specific name belonging to the genus. And they are written in such a way that there is no apparent shift or space or anything else when moving from one genus to another. This makes it much more difficult to read as can be seen in the image below. Pseudoechinocereus, Pseudoespostoa and Pseudolobivia all appear without anything to separate them, and it looks more like they're all synonyms under Pseudoacanthocereus than separate (urecognised) genera. It is clearly an error as the index states that genera not recognised in the book should be underlined in the manner of the first image. A second look at the pictures also show that the underlining of recognised genera disappears as well.

Example2.PNG (55.12 KiB) Viewed 4127 times

I don't know whether this index is taken directly from the book or if it is something separate. It does say "supplement", so I am unsure whether this index appears in a different form in the book proper, or whether this is simply a direct copy of how it appears in the book. If it's the latter I think it's quite unfortunate that the index is clearly in need of a fair bit of editing since I assume the book will already have gone to print by now.

[DaveW]

I heard those buying the two main volumes were going to get a free separate volume containing the synonyms,. Whether that's still the case I do not know, but whether that PDF was just work in progress or the final form I do not know. I note no references are given to the page numbers the species occurs on in the main works, something I would expect in an index or synonymy in it's final form.