New nomenclature
New nomenclature.
Reorganization of the seeds catalogue in 2003 was received much better than I expected. So many customers commented that the lumping of several genera into one genus and the change of status of many species to a variety has removed so much dead wood and made the selection of seeds a lot easier.
(For new customers: The list was reorganized to be in tune with the latest nomenclature and 2nd edition of CITES “Cactaceae checklist”, as compiled by David Hunt with the assistance by members of the International Organization for Succulent Plant Study and published in 1999 by the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew.)
Echinopsis now includes:
Acanthocalycium, Acantholobivia, Lobivia, Pseudolobivia, Soehrensia and Trichocereus.
Parodia now includes:
Brasilicactus, Eriocactus, Notocactus, Wigginsia.
Sclerocactus now includes:
Ancistrocactus, most Echinomastus, Glandulicactus, some Hamatocactus, some Neolloydia, some Pediocactus.
Eriosyce now includes:
Neochilenia, Islaya, Chileorebutia, Delaetia, Horridocactus, Neoporteria, Pyrrhocactus.
Mammillaria now includes:
Bartschella, Dolichothele, Krainzia, Oehmea, Phellosperma, Solisia.
Turbinicarpus now includes:
Most of Gymnocactus, some Neolloydia, Normanbokea, some Pediocactus, some Pelecyphora, some Hamatocactus.
Echinofossulocactus is now Stenocactus.
Thelocactus now includes:
Some Echinomastus, some Gymnocactus, some Hamatocactus.
I wanted to make a list of the old names and what they are in the new taxonomy, but I still didn’t have time to do it. I hope I will have it available next year. Succulents will be done sometime in future. And I don’t think I will ever be persuaded to change Oreocereus fossulatus into O. pseudofussulatus, v. fossulatus – “pseudo” means false, not true. The International Organization for Succulent Plant Study is asking me to call “false fossulatus” as the true species and the real fossulatus to be a variety of “false fossulatus”.
I feel confident I got it right with genera and species, and this nomenclature will be valid for many, many years. I am fairly confident that I got right most of the varietas and formas, but I am certain, there are many, many errors.)
Besides the CITES checklist, I consulted numerous other references, because hundreds and hundreds of names that are in just about every cactus seeds/plants list were left out of the check list. Many of the plants were never fully described. (Karel Knize, according to his field numbers index, named 435 species, but properly described only 8 and further 6 descriptions are not valid, leaving 419 with nomem nudum).
When I found no other reference to a name but a seeds list, I changed the fonts to italics in the printed form of the seeds list. But when I move the spreadsheets from Lotus to Microsoft and save it in htm format (to make it suitable for uploading it onto my website), all the italics revert to roman fonts. To change the names back to italics would involve much work. At the moment I cannot justify allocating so much of my productive time to tasks that will not earn me any income.
Plant growers just want a label with a name to hang onto a plant - a name that will mean the same thing to a Patagonian, a Mongolian and a Danish gardener. Linnaean system of taxonomic classification and nomenclature was supposed to do that, but nature doesn’t follow botanists’ theories. New discoveries and ideas will trigger reclassifications of various magnitudes. The last one was in 1999 published as “CITES Cactaceae checklist”. Though I know it is many years away, I can’t wait for the final re-classification, which will be based on DNA analysis of plants and I am convinced there will be many surprises.
2007 update
Late last year I finally received “The New Cactus Lexicon”. It is in two volumes, weighs 4.5 kg and costs AU$250 + postage (AU$110 by air, or $53 by sea mail). Planned as a successor to Backeberg's Cactus Lexicon, The New Cactus Lexicon is the most scientifically authoritative conspectus of the Cactaceae published for nearly a century. You can read about it at http://www.cactuslexicon.org/index.html
When I reorganized my seeds list in 2003, little did I expect that 2 years earlier, they did another reorganization and I was following an outdated version. Some of the genera they lumped together in 1999, they unlumped it 2001, scrapped some old genera and created new ones. Some of the changes they made in 1999 surprised me and caused my eyebrows to rise, but I trusted their work – they are the experts and they know what they’re doing. After paging through a few sections of “The New Cactus Lexicon” I started reorganizing my list again, did a few changes, but after a while I gave up – what’s the use – in a few years they will mess it up again. Seeing the changes they made in 1999 and in 2001, I really wonder just how do they justify the changes. I will wait until they will re-classify it according to DNA research. Now I understand why most seeds and plants sellers ignore the taxonomists.
So, What Exactly Is A Succulent?
by L. Maynard Moe
I am a field botanist (taxonomy and ecology) by training and only recently became interested in cacti and (other) succulents. After reading popular gardening and collecting books, and talking with other collectors, I realized that my notion of a succulent plant and the collector's notion are not the same. Maybe others in our club share this confusion, so here is an article that may be informative.
Many are quite familiar with the term 'succulent," but misconceptions abound. Comments such as "This aloe plant is in the succulent family," or "I don't grow cacti, I only grow succulents,' reveal some of these misunderstandings. Of course, our own society's name, "Bakersfield Cactus and Succulent Society," as well as some books such as 'Succulents: the Illustrated Dictionary," which do not include cacti, contribute to this confusion by implying that cacti are somehow different from other succulents. The basis for this confusion appears to be a misunderstanding of the term 'succulent," which is a descriptive term, not a scientific classification. Generally a succulent is a plant that has developed (through evolutionary adaptation to water stress) swollen, water-storing tissues which protect it from desiccation. This includes plants such as pickleweed (Salicornia) adapted to high salinity, as well as cacti and aloes which are adapted to hot, dry climates.
Note that the definition of succulent does not specify what organ of the plant has the water-storing tissue. There are three broad categories of succulents - leaf succulents, stem succulents, and caudiciforms - depending on the part of the plant that is succulent. Most species in the stonecrop family (Crassulaceae) are leaf succulents. These include such common plants as Sedum (stonecrop), Sempervivum (hen-and-chickens), Aeonium (aeonium) Crassula (Jade plant), Dudleya (live forever), and Echeveria (hen-and-chicks). Very interesting plants that display highly specialized succulent leaves are members of the ice plant family (Aizoaceae). These include such genera as Argyroderma, Cheiridopsis, Conophytum, Faucaria, Lithops, Titanopsis, and Trichodiadema. Some of these, such as Lithops and Conophytum, have no stem and consist of a pair of succulent leaves. Some are called "living stones."
Most (but not all) species in the cactus family (Cactaceae) are stem succulents as are many species in the genus Euphorbia (Euphorbiaceae) and some species in the milkweed family (Asclepiadaceae). These plants often have reduced or absent leaves and the stem is photosynthetic. Caudiciforms are also stem succulents but differ in that the stems are not photosynthetic. Instead they have a swollen base, or caudex, which is usually the lower part of the stem but may also be the exposed upper part of the root. Several plant families have species that are caudiciform such as ponytail palm (Beaucarnia - Liliaceae), dorstenia (Dorstenia - Moraceae, the mulberry family, elephant-foot (Dioscorea - Dioscoreaceae, the yam family), cissus (Cissus - Vitaceae, the grape family), pachypodium (Pachypodium - Apocynaceae, the dogbane or oleander family), adenia (Adenia - Passifloraceae, the passionflower family), oxalis (Oxalis - Oxalidaceae), geranium (Pelargonium - Geraniaceae), and othona (Othona - Asteraceae, the sunflower family).
Some plants cross boundaries and are succulent in more than one way. For example, some Cassulas and Anacampseros (Portulacaceae, the purslane family) have both succulent stems and leaves, and some Anacampseros and Trichodiadema (Aizoaceae, the ice plant family) are caudiciform with succulent leaves.
By convention some plants that display succulence are not considered succulents, such as impatiens and some orchids even though they have fleshy stems and leaves. Plants with fleshy underground bulbs (lilies, daffodils, tulips), corms (gladiolus, freesia, crocus), rhizomes (iris, calla) or tubers (dahlia, begonia, potato) are also not considered succulents. An exception is pregnant onion (Bowiea) which has a large, green, above-ground bulb and is often found in succulent collections.
It appears that this confusion stems from the collector's interest in unusual plants adapted to warm dry conditions as opposed to interest in plants merely having succulent tissues. So, collectors have one notion of what a succulent is, and botanists have another notion of what succulence is.
A comment on distributions: Most succulents are from tropical and subtropical dry regions and do not tolerate cold. In addition, one would expect succulents to occur in all of the world's deserts. However, desert regions of Asia and Australia have few species, whereas the Americas and Africa have many. In fact, the region with the greatest diversity of succulents is South Africa which contains roughly half of the world's succulent species. Mexico probably has the second greatest concentration, most of which are cacti (there are no native cacti in Africa).