Talk:Fraxinus dipetala

Proposed merge of Fraxinus parryi into Fraxinus dipetala
Plants of the World Online shows this as a synonym of F. dipetala. Since there's so much info in this article, I thought it best to tag for merge rather than simply boldly redirecting. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 21:26, 19 June 2022 (UTC)


 * POWO is not necessarily the authoritative source on plant taxonomy and most authorities focused on California and Baja California (Jepson, SDNHM's botany department, CNPS, and NatureServe) all consider this species distinct. Toyonbro (talk) 16:37, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I dont understand what you are pointing out. I would agree with PMC, since its a synonym. BloxyColaSweet (talk) 21:51, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm leaning against a merge. Perhaps F. parryi isn't a distinct species, but it has also been treated as a subspecies or a variety, and the sources that synonymize it don't seem to be taking treatment at an infraspecific rank into consideration as a possibility.

Kew (WCSP) recognized F. parryi in 2012, as can be seen at the entry for The Plant List in the taxonbar of the F. parryi article. Kew (POWO) doesn't currently recognize F. parryi, and cites Wallander for the synonymy. Wallander only mentions F. parryi as a synonym, with no discussion for the basis of this decision. Wallander sampled 2 specimens of F. dipetala from California, and one (as F. jonesii, i.e. F. parryi) from Baja. These 3 samples form a polytomy in Wallanders cladogram. Wallander's genetic work is insufficient to settle the question of whether F. parryi is a distinct species.

iNaturalist has flagged F. parryi for merging for 5 months now. In my experience, taxa I've flagged at iNaturalist get resolved within a day or two. So it seems folks at iNaturalist aren't entirely comfortable with merging. And if you look at their map of observations, F. parryi and F. dipetala are quite allopatric.

There are a couple problems with the current situation. The species list at Fraxinus includes F. parryi, but is sourced to Wallander and another publication that doesn't recognize F. parryi. And the range map at Fraxinus dipetala shows significant range in Baja. Plantdrew (talk) 16:33, 20 January 2023 (UTC)