Jim McK., Good idea! The weather here is definitely not conducive to outdoor activities -- too cold and too windy. Sorry, Diane. Back to the keyboard. 1. A Geophyte is whatever we define it to be. I define the concept very broadly: A plant having some sort of subterranean storage organ and an herbaceous, perennial habit. Since I'm not a taxonomist, you can take my "definition" with a grain of salt. (I've noticed that some real taxonomists in the past have used conflicting concepts as invitations to war.) I think the usual definition, limiting "geophytes" to bulbs, corms, tubers, or rhizomes, is a bit narrow. Jim Waddick's Paeonia, some of Mary Sue's Delphinium, lots of things with "fat" roots, surely ought to be included. I like to say something like, "geophytes and friends" for suitable discussion topics. The term "geophyte" is, after all, not a phylogenetic classification but a pragmatic one. 2. Species are human conceptual constructs too, by and large. Those obvious species, easily perceived, are not the problems of course. For a lot of biologists, I suspect the true but unspoken definition is something like "I can't actually define species, but I know one when I see one." There are a few, like Pierre Felice Ravenna, who see new species wherever they look. There may be matters of ego gratification involved, or more serious motivations like getting tenure or a promotion. All sorts of things can help define "species." The definition that goes something like "a species is an interbreeding population" bothers most people, who seem to read into it the word "potentially"; i.e., "a species is a [potentially] interbreeding population" which confuses the devil out of things where plants are concerned. The orchids present an obvious case in point, with myriads of complex, multiply (adverb of "multiple") intergeneric hybrids made in cultivation. Remember: where species are concerned, cultivation does not count! I like the approach that starts with a species as an identifiable group of individuals, sharing certain traits in common. You can elaborate from there. This also opens up the notion of reticulated evolution, or interspecific, possibly intergeneric, even inter-kingdom transfers of genetic material. For instance, the human genome is full of relict viruses. How do you want to handle that? This just shows how far Mother Nature will go to frustrate human attempts to organize things into neat pigeonholes. Jim Shields (a.k.a. Jim S; i.e., not Jim W and not Jim McK) in central Indiana (USA) At 05:00 PM 1/23/2004 -0500, you wrote: >I'm bored! Let's get some good fights going here! Let's start some threads >on 1) the definition of geophyte and 2) species concept. > >To start, I'll stick my neck out and offer these (perhaps outrageous) >propositions: > >1) with respect to geophytes, not all bulbs are geophytes > >2) with respect to species concept, living things don't exist as species, >they just exist > >Fire up your blazing keyboards! > >Jim McKenney ************************************************* Jim Shields USDA Zone 5 Shields Gardens, Ltd. P.O. Box 92 WWW: http://www.shieldsgardens.com/ Westfield, Indiana 46074, USA Tel. ++1-317-867-3344 or toll-free 1-866-449-3344 in USA