Dear Jim, Being a systematician and taxonomist myself, even not a botanist, I think that you should keep in mind at least two principles: 1 - Living world does not fit in any proper mathematical equations (and if it does we just don't know yet how it does)... 2 - Systematics and phylogenetics, whether they use " the old days standard (e.g. morphology)" or the "new days standards" (e.g. DNA), just represent a state of the art in our understanding of relationship between species (nobody really knows what a species is anymore), genus (a typical "classification draw" for the comfort of human beings) and whatever rank above it... Saying that I just wish to point out that botany classification, just as zoology, is mainly a reflexion of our curent knowledge about some specific aspects of plants biology and by no means should be regarded as the "Truth" in a biblic sense of it. Confusing systematics and open nomenclature just reflects how poor is our knowledge of the living world and how much is still in front of us when it comes to descriptions of plants not just as individuals within a population (the old typoligical "species concept) but as member of the population and a living entity... Well I should just stop before I go too philosophical... I have had no other aim while writing those lines than pointing out the so little we know compared to the so much in front of us... Best wishes.. Luc