Hyacinthaceae

Mary Sue Ittner msittner@mcn.org
Sun, 28 Feb 2010 16:32:37 PST
This family seems still to be in flux and isn't even considered a 
family anymore universally since it is now included in 
Asparagaceae  by some. If you look at the Kew database you will see 
that they are not accepting a lot of the proposed Scilla changes. 
Some are being used and some not.

In J. Manning, P. Goldblatt & M.F. Fay, "A revised generic synopsis 
of Hyacinthaceae in sub-Saharan Africa, including new combinations 
and the new tribe Pseudoprospereae", Edinburgh Journal of Botany 
60(3): 533-568 (2004) the authors proposed sinking Albuca along with 
Dipcadi, Galtonia, Neopatersonia, and Pseudogaltonia  into 
Ornithogalum. Further work by researchers at SANBI, the Missouri 
Botanical Garden and Kew has not supported all of these changes and 
Albuca, Dipcadi, and Pseudogaltonia  have been reinstated.

Having recently been lucky enough to be on one of Cameron McMaster's 
botanical tours in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, with John Manning, 
we talked about this. There was some friendly resistance to 
recognizing the "Galtonia" species we saw as Ornithogalums. 
Apparently now that Albuca has been reinstated, Manning is now 
proposing moving some of the species that were in Ornithogalum into 
Albuca. The yellow and white ones with green stripes are now to be 
Albuca. We saw a number of plants that fit in this category. It seems 
like it wasn't that long ago that I was giving the proposed 
Ornithogalum names for Albuca species and now I need to learn the 
proposed Albuca names for some of the Ornithogalum species. They 
continue to be listed in most data bases as Ornithogalum.

An Australian on our list, Julian Slade, in the past has been a 
wonderful resource for the name changes for Hyacinthaceae. If he 
reads this post, perhaps he could provide us with some up to date information.

Mary Sue


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