Albuca

Mary Sue Ittner msittner@mcn.org
Thu, 08 Dec 2005 19:34:52 PST
Dear Linda,

I'm not sure how to answer your question about whether all Albucas are now 
Ornithogalums. As Jane wrote, Manning and Goldblatt do seem to be lumping a 
lot of South African genera. Ornithogalum was already a large genus before 
<http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…>Albuca, 
<http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…>Dipcadi, 
Galtonia, Neopatersonia, and 
<http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…>Pseudogaltonia 
were to be added to it. In South Africa when we visited and looked at 
plants in the field there were Ornithogalums that I thought were Albucas 
until told otherwise because they looked like the Albucas I was familiar with.

On the other hand we heard that Speta was splitting Scilla which like 
Albuca is in the same family into many new genera which is going in the 
opposite direction at the same time. Some of those proposed changes I 
understand from Julian Slade who follows all of this could change again 
with some of the new genera (Fessia, Pfosseria, Zagrosia - possibly also 
Alrawia, Othocallis, and even Puschkinia)  being sunk into Hyacinthus.

It does seem like Manning and Goldblatt are very highly respected in South 
Africa and often what they propose is accepted.

We have discussed on this list that we can choose to go along or not and as 
long as you include the name of the person who published the specific 
epithet you are always correct. Unfortunately for most of us gardeners that 
is not information that most of us pay much attention to. I think it 
becomes increasingly difficult to know if we are talking about the same 
plant if it goes by many names. I try to add the synonyms to the wiki if I 
can figure out what they are.

If you are interested in Albuca I hope you have checked out our wiki page 
as Albuca was one of our topics of the week and Julian Slade provided us 
with a very complete introduction. Perhaps he will comment on Linda's 
question if he is reading this.

>Mary Sue, are all Albuca now Ornithogalum? or is this still in the proposal
>stage.


Mary Sue 


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