I've now glanced at the Martinez-Azorin paper, thanks to Pamela. It is perhaps a bit complicated. The 2004 revision wherein Manning et al. simply lumped everything into one genus, Ornithogalum, is something I just don't find helpful. The Martinez-Azorin approach makes a serious attempt to keep the genera monophyletic, and it gives us more idea of the evolutionary relationships of these genera. This is what a good taxonomy is supposed to do: reflect the evolutionary relationships of the entities within the classification. Manning's 2009 revision is an improvement over 2004, but still seems to me -- and I'm not a specialist -- to fall short. I'm not immersed into Hyacinthaceae, but I like the Martinez-Azorin approach much better. Taxonomy is part and parcel of the biological sciences, and is itself a science. The reason classifications tend to keep changing is that they are intended to reflect our best scientific understanding of the relationships of the species in the groups treated. Our understandings continue to change as we learn more. We should expect them to go on changing as we are better able to analyze the species concerned. After all, we are not yet comparing whole genomes -- far from it, in fact. We have so far looked only at a tiny fraction of the DNA sequences that make up the core of these species. This is not yet the last word. There is also nothing illegal about our continuing to use an older classification scheme if we are more comfortable with it. On the other hand, this new attempt is a very worthy contribution to our understanding of the Ornithogalum and related genera, and it would be worth our while to become more familiar with it. Jim Shields At 08:22 AM 6/14/2011 -0700, you wrote: >Dear PBS, >If any of you wish to receive the Matinez-Azorin monograph revising >Ornithogaloideae, please write to me prvately and I'll be happy to send it >to you. > >Pamela > >Pamela Slate >P.O. Box 5316 >Carefree AZ 85377 ************************************************* Jim Shields USDA Zone 5 P.O. Box 92 WWW: http://www.shieldsgardens.com/ Westfield, Indiana 46074, USA Tel. ++1-317-867-3344