User talk:Bulbman

Welcome and query
Hi, welcome to Wikipedia editing (at least under the name 'Bulbman'). Thanks for your improvements to the Alan W. Meerow article, which, as noted, originated as a translation of the Spanish article with all the problems that entails. Starting from revising the Asparagales article, I've been working on the families of the Asparagales. The Amaryllidaceae article is much better than some of the others, so I had left it aside. A big question is whether to go wholeheartedly for the APG3 families, and relegate Amaryllidaceae to Amaryllidoideae. As a bulb enthusiast, I'm very reluctant to do this; I find amaryllids and allioids to be quite distinct horticulturally. As you obviously know about this area, do you have any views? Peter coxhead (talk) 10:08, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi Peter. This is Alan Meerow as you have probably guessed. I was surprised to stumble upon the stub about me, so I decided I would start fleshing it out a little during isomniac moments. You are perfectly OK leaving them as separate families, since the AGP III classification for Amaryllidaceae sens. lat. is still "optional." The issue can be mentioned with citation of AGP III and then the rationale for treating the families as separate entities in Wikipedia. I, for one, have no issue with the larger family, though I find some more recent family mergers of Mark Chase and company rather unfortunate. Moreover, the discussion of Amaryllidaceae in Chase, Reveal and Fay (2009, Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 161: 132–136) is shoddy scholarship, as they conveniently ignore every one of my publication except one with their names on it. As you might guess, we are not the best of friends, Chase, Fay and I. But it was Jim Reveal who really disappointed me in his being a part of that paper. Bulbman (talk) 12:42, 25 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I did wonder who would know when Alan Meerow started his present post! I created the article through one of the dangers of Wikipedia editing: you start on one thing and end up doing yet more. I subscribe to a UK magazine called the New Plantsman. There was an article about Eucrosia, a genus I hadn't heard of and which isn't in the bulb books I have, so I looked on Wikipedia, only to find there wasn't much there and that many of the species were missing. As part of starting articles on the missing species, I was entering the botanical authorities and noticed that there wasn't an article for 'Meerow' – there's a project to have an article on every botanical and zoological authority. I will fill in a bit more of the Eucrosia when I get hold of your monograph (the library at my institution appears to have 'mislaid' volume 12 of Systematic Botany at the moment). Is there anything more recent on the genus?


 * Turning to APG3, there are two issues. Firstly, actually they don't allow the broader families to be 'optional'; APG2 does, but the APG3 paper is pretty firm: "In the earlier versions ... alternative circumscriptions were permitted for some families. However, this seems unnecessary and more likely to cause confusion than clarity." Secondly, while there's no compulsion to follow a particular system if there are good reasons to the contrary (I notice that Clive Stace, whose Flora is the definitive work for the British Isles, has recently chosen to keep some paraphyletic families while following most of APG3), there is a consensus on Wikipedia to follow APG3. What are the family mergers you find more unfortunate? Peter coxhead (talk) 18:33, 25 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, you right about AGP III - I forgot about that, or perhaps I wanted to suppress it. Anyway, I can send you a PDF of the Eucrosia monograph if you send me your email address (send it to alan.meerow@ars.usda.gov).  Other than Eucrosia mirabilis being rediscovered (I saw it in Ecuador last year - it fairly common around Vilacabamba, and grows sympatrically with E. stricklandii var. montana), and a species that I described from Peru with Abundio Sagastegui, E. calendulina, there is not much new.  Eucrosia tubiflora is probably really a Stenomesson.  Getting back to unfortunate families - their concept of Asparagaceae is untenable, and most other monocot systematists feel similarly. Xanthorrhoeaceae has proponents and opponents.  My issue with the synopsis of tribes of Amaryllidaceae subf. Amarylloideae in that same Bot. J. Linn. Soc. article is that Fay (who Reveal told me wrote that part), uses a an antiquated tribal system.  Dee Snijman and I are preparing a rejoinder as an update to our classification in Families and Genera of Flowering Plants.Bulbman (talk) 03:28, 27 January 2011 (UTC)