Names may change again - Laelia

can you imaginge if they changed the names of organs as fast as they did orchids... tracyotomy could mean castration

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Ron, I feel your frustration with all of this and it would be certain death if they changed things like this in the medical profession. And I applaud all of you who are so "into" this wonderful experience of orchids and names and the geneology and just all of it....just for me I love their beauty whatever their names might be.....

H

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An orchid a day keeps the Doc away

Ah crap. Just when I was starting to get used to all those crazy new names. I haven't changed any of my tags yet--and I've noticed that most vendors are still using the old names too. I understand the importance of classifying the orchids properly etc etc, but at some point aren't we just splitting hairs, or roots or sepals.

Howard I do too but I am at the point of this hobby where I am starting to breed chids. It becomes more important then.

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I am diagonally parked in a parallel universe.

Thanks, Ron. When I first started with phals, I was very curious as to how these guys reproduced. It isn't very hard to read about this and try your hand at it. And Voila...a pod, but then the hard part....flasking and remembering did I cross this with that or that with the other.....needless to say, while my interest was peeked I stopped playing around. That isn't to say I have some plants I'd love to reproduce and I realize the importance of names....for me with so many NOID's in the phal world it is not an easy thing....I'd love to see some of whatever it is you create!

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An orchid a day keeps the Doc away

Hopefully, you will in the near future. My first cross is about at blooming size...It is C. walkeriana var alba "Pendentive' AM/AOS x L. anceps. This year I ventured to do 4 crosses(2 of them Bl Richard Mueller crosses) and 2 selfings of species

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I know you'll post some mighty nice pics when the time comes!!!! Love to see them

H

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An orchid a day keeps the Doc away

Although I do mostly ecological research I am a coauthor on a systematic phylogeny for some mushrooms. It was a lot of fun to learn how species are related just as it is to some to track the lineage of a named cross.

The thing is that because of the way the system (ICBN) works you don't have to ever change any tags. The published synonymization provides a permanent reference that identifies that your tag indicates the species that is currently called something else. The species is represented by a type specimen in an herbarium and that label will not be changed. I am currently currating my second fugus collection in a university herbarium and none of the collections will be renamed unless they were mis-identified originally. Good taxonomists will do all that they can to limit the number of name changes while sticking to the code - e.g. if the type species of a genus is the only one that doesn't fit, you can rename the type and keep all the old names for the rest. I teach taxonomy of mushrooms and can field ID a vast number of species. Keeping up with the name changes is interesting because it helps me understand the natural groupings - if I forget the new arrangement it is no problem because if I know any name for the species I can look up the current one. If it were not for this system, we would have over 15000 agaricus species because that was what Fries named everything he found with gills in the 1700s

Now, that is VERY interesting, Myco!

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An orchid a day keeps the Doc away

That is interesting information Mycologist. It is refreshing to know that some areas of botany have it pretty much straightforward and avoid complications as much as possible.

Although I have to admit, it sounds a bit bland compared to the cloak & dagger mystique involved with orchid taxonomy lol.
I'm sure Ron and the rest of us would like to get rid of the intrigue as much as we can though.

Here are some of the things that orchid botanists have to contend with (these are true by the way):

CITES: It is ok for a developer to raze acres of woodland habitat (and EVERYTHING in it) in order to build hotels and buildings. But whoever is caught moving endangered species from that condemned habitat to safer grounds outside of the native country will face arrest, fines and prison time.
Note that CITES regulates international trade of "endangered species" and not legally bound to conservation.
You can kill an endangered species in its own soil and you are fine. Try to take it outside the country for proper conservation and you are doomed!

From a CITES high ranking official (UK): "Just how do we know if an orchid species is actually rare or endangered? Hell if I know. Appendix I and II were authored by animal taxonomists and lawyers, the three botanists who were on the original panel resigned."

And some of the genus reclassifications are not even due to newly discovered characteristics that break them away from their existing genus (That would have been a legitimate reason in my opinion).
Some genera are just outright renamed because it was determined that "someone else" should have been credited for the genus name.

What I dont understand is why there is so much mud on the policies regarding orchids. Trees and other terrestrial dicotyledon plants do not seem to suffer from so much politics. The fauna side of CITES seems to have its act together.
My only guess is that orchid fever trumps everything.

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