Anyone into succulents?

[Silas_Sancona]

3 minutes ago, Tracy said:

Nice find Nathan.  On a side note, I'm trying to retrain myself to use the new genus/species name for the tree Aloes.  So Aloe dichotma is now Aloidendron dichotomum.  I get the change in the genus name, but still don't quite understand the changes to all the species portion from ending in "a" to ending in "mum".  So Aloe ramosissima became Aloidendron ramosissimum.  Any insights into the changes in the species portion when they split off a genus like this?

Doh! ...I completely blanked out about the taxon swap, lol.. 

Thinking Kew would probably be the best people to answer that question but notice something similar has been done across other plant/ animal Genera as well.. IE: Handroanthus that were split from Tabebuia  being one of the more obvious..  Handroanthus impetiginosus  vs. Tabebuia impetiginosa..  for example.  Some of the changes to both the Genus and/ or species epithet could revolve around the Aloidendron and " Mum" end of the species name being the first name used when discovered / documented, before a more recent change to Aloe  ..Before reverting back to the older name.  Know the revolving door is far from being closed though.. Expect a lot more changes will occur as DNA sequencing continues to solves open- ended questions, let alone ones that are re analyzed, or perhaps analyzed - in depth - for the first time.

...That's just a blindfolded, shot in the dark guess though..

[Manalto]

My understanding is that the gender of the word endings of the genus and specific epithet (species) must agree, i.e., feminine with feminine, masculine with masculine, hence Handroanthus impetiginosus (m) becomes Tabebuia impetiginosa (f). I was taught to italicize both words (or underline them if writing by hand or if italics are unavailable), capitalize the genus and put the specific epithet in lowercase. (I don't recall the distinction between "species" and "specific epithet" but was taught to use the latter when describing names). These rules may have changed since I learned them in the early 2000s, and I've seen cases where the gender rule is violated but tolerated, maybe because of popular use? There may be exceptions to the specific epithet-lowercase rule. I'd like to do it correctly (especially in a plant forum) so I'm off now to go look it up. As a last resort, read the directions!

Found this, in that most esteemed and scholarly of sources, Wikipedia:

"The International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN) is the set of rules and recommendations dealing with the formal botanical names that are given to plants, fungi and a few other groups of organisms, all those "traditionally treated as algae, fungi, or plants".^{[1]: Preamble, para. 8} It was formerly called the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN); the name was changed at the International Botanical Congress in Melbourne in July 2011 as part of the Melbourne Code^[2] which replaced the Vienna Code of 2005.

Carl Linnaeus's garden at Uppsala, Sweden

Title page of Species Plantarum, 1753

The current version of the code is the Shenzhen Code adopted by the International Botanical Congress held in Shenzhen, China, in July 2017. As with previous codes, it took effect as soon as it was ratified by the congress (on 29 July 2017), but the documentation of the code in its final form was not published until 26 June 2018."

 

 

 

 

Edited June 16, 2022 by Manalto

[Tracy]

My Latin is lacking to identify gender suffix in the names, but it makes sense.  I was aware that genus is capitalized and species is lower-case but italicized was a new one e for me.  Thankz for the research& sharing!

[Manalto]

9 hours ago, Tracy said:

My Latin is lacking to identify gender suffix in the names, but it makes sense.  I was aware that genus is capitalized and species is lower-case but italicized was a new one e for me.  Thankz for the research& sharing!

The italicization requirement was driven home years ago by my favorite professor, Dr. Laurence Crockett, at The City College of New York. He was all you could hope for in an instructor and then some: brilliant, knowledgeable, demanding, enthusiastic and funny. Well beyond retirement age, his energy and curiosity were inspiring. Anyway, one of his handouts was a New York Times article about Rhapidophyllum hystrix, the southeast US native Needle Palm. (I think the title of the article was something like " A Palm for Alaska?") In the margin of the handout he had scrawled, "No italics!!! And in the revered NY Times!" I have Dr. Crockett to thank (or blame) for putting me on the quest for palms that are sufficiently cold-hardy to survive in my current living area. I tried Needle Palm in Connecticut but had neither the focus nor the information to keep it alive.

I went to Catholic school, so had some basic Latin instruction but it's pretty well rusted-over. This much I remember. Many botanical names end in either "us" (masculine) or "a" (feminine), not unlike some Romance languages (French, Italian, Spanish) where the adjective (specific epithet) changes gender (transgender adjectives, how au courant!) to "agree" with the noun (genus).  So, in Spanish you'd always say "sombrero negro" (black hat) and never "sombrero negra." When it comes to "buenos dias" i just have to reach for the cerveza.

Edited June 18, 2022 by Manalto

[Tracy]

Circling back around, based on your explanation Aloe is a female genus and the new Aloidendron   genus is male.  I should have caught this year's ago.  I was doing botanical name tags for some of my garden plants and somehow put down Encephalartos cupida  which should have been cupidus . Possibly I was confusing it with Cycas cupida  which was also on my list of tags.  So I now have learned Encephalartos & Dioons are male genra whileCycas, Zamia, Lepidozamia  and Ceratozamia are all female.  I still haven't corrected that tag....have a few more requiring updates with the move of Kentiopsis to Chambeyronia.

[GottmitAlex]