Dear All, Yesterday I got my IBSA (Indigenous Bulb Association of South Africa) Bulb Chat #36 which I always find fascinating. This issue is a collaborative one so I don't know if the article below was written by Alan Horstmann, the current editor, or Andries de Villiers, the previous one. I'd suspect Andries, but it doesn't have his name on it so I could be wrong. Perhaps Rachel could help me to give credit where it is due. I don't see a copyright anywhere so I hope it is o.k. to include this with the source information. Background: A couple of years ago the Manning-Goldblatt team reduced Homeria, Gynandriris, Hexaglottis, and Galaxia into Moraea, an already large genus. The IBSA members were especially unhappy about Galaxia as it more than any other of the disappearing genera resembled Moraea the least. There were protests and editorial comments. It is perhaps because of this that in the new Color Encyclopedia although all these are now listed under Moraea the key in the back of the book divides them into subgroups by the former genera. Although the article below may still be a bit too scientific for some of us gardener types I thought there are members of this group who are also unhappy with some of the changes who would appreciate it, so am copying it below as written in BULB CHAT. Mary Sue THE TAXONOMIC REVOLUTION We are living through a revolution. For 250 years we have been loyal to the Linnaean concept of cognate species grouped together into genera. A genus comprising those species which shared a common or several common characteristics based primarily on a set of morphological characteristics could be described and defined to distinguish it from any other genus. In comparatively recent years a genus could be drawn as a cladogram to demonstrate the mutations that must have occurred in the course of evolution to produce the separate species. It was a tidy, logical and understandable progression not interrupted by specimens of other genera. Now we are being subjected to a taxonomy based on DNA analysis, a science still in its infancy, which discards morphology as the determinant of relationship and substitutes genetic proximity. We in IBSA were first subjected to it by the revision of the genus Moraea which sunk the genus Galaxia into the middle of Moraea. None of us liked it but few of us realized the implications. Now if we were to draw a diagram of relationship we would have to extend a straight line or several straight lines along which species of different genera are interspersed. We would be creating a complex but, unlike a genus, the component species would have no common identifiable characteristics. Such a complex could not be defined. Genus was an inclusive concept, the component species all and only those which shared the determining characteristics. A DNA complex would include many components which had diverse characteristics and, moreover, would separate similar species by utterly different ones. When DNA taxonomy is applied to Lachenalia, Polyxena and who knows what else we will find various Lachenalia and Polyxena mixed helter skelter along the lines of relationship. We need to remember one of the abiding features of a revolution. The generation which begins it is not the generation which refines and developes it. A younger generation takes over and introduces new and exciting applications. At present the Botanists who are leading the revolution are still imbued with the Linnaean concept and will try to apply generic names to non generic complexes. They will try to make definitions of disparate specimens. No doubt a new generation will devise a taxonomy to take care of it all but it is doubtful whether any of us will live to see it. Meanwhile we must stick to names that we can understand. To us a Galaxia is still a Galaxia."