Quote:
Originally Posted by Bud
You must be right, Andrew....there is a lot of renaming and reclassification going on and I am not surprised that Cadetia is now back to Dendrobium.
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It's an issue with how the taxonomists are interpreting the DNA evidence. Both the 'lumpers' and the 'splitters' agree that Dendrobium relatives like Cadetia, Flickingeria, Diplocaulobium etc have evolved as specialised lines within Dendrobium
sensu lato. A group in Australia has argued to keep Cadetia etc and split Dendrobium up into lots of smaller genera on the basis that it's not scientific to maintain huge genera like Dendrobium whilst at the same time allowing other more closely related taxa to be split off into separate genera. Those arguing to keep Dendrobium intact based on the ICBN rules regarding conserving names and avoiding unnecessary splitting, which includes Kew, have accepted that they have to put Cadetia etc back into Dendrobium in order to keep Dendrobium monophyletic.
Hybrid Mode
