Habitat Zones?
J.E. Shields (Thu, 25 Mar 2010 14:35:26 PDT)

Hi Alani,

Right, including Hymenocallis, to name one of my favorites!

I would hypothesize that botany professors and their PhD students need to
delimit their areas of specialization to something doable in 4 or 5 years,
hence Habitat Zones. People writing Floras also need to set practical
limits to the geography they cover. I wish FNA covered Mexican geophytes.

Genera may be widely distributed, but the species seem to be much less
so. I am interested in Hymenocallis species and Hippeastrum species from
wherever they grow. I limit my interest in African Amaryllidaceae more or
less to what is found in the Republic of South Africa and Namibia. Even
then, it takes 4 greenhouses to hold what I am interested in.

Jim S.

At 05:19 PM 3/25/2010 -0400, you wrote:

"The Flora of North America seems to stop at the Mexico-USA border.
Where are all our experts when you need one?"

Which part of the North American flora stops at the Mexican United States?
There are many genera that bridge that artificial line. Oaks, pines, maples,
magnolias, Mahonia, all occur on both sides and in some cases the same
species and there are plenty of others that don't range widely in the
northern United States but occur throughout the southeast and southwest U.S.
If I have the correct greatest diversity of Pinus and Quercus species in the
world is found in Mexico. Another interesting twist, the cycad genus,
*Ceratozamia
*represented by several species in Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize is
represent in fossil form from Alaska. Seems to me there is a fairly amount
of moving around.

Alani Davis

*************************************************
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