Comments on: The Acacia name change – botany and emotion

By: Science, sentiment and territorial chauvinism in the acacia name change debate « Christian Kull

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:23:57 +0000

[...] is a topic on which we wrote several blogs last year in the run-up to the Melbourne IBC conference (1, 2, 3). We review the acacia battles as a manifestation of long-standing struggles in science [...]

By: tony

tony — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 10:06:12 +0000

This is highly simplistic. If Acacia was a European genus, then we would probably have 30 000 varieties recognized. A variety is a variation within a species. A species is a group of plants which interbreed with one another and not other species. I would not be surprised that if the same criteria were carefully applied across both genera, that the Beeches may well have less than 8 species or that Acacia would have a very lot more than 1000! Strictly it is the plants that “decide” on what a species is and scientists merely document this. The two problems are that some scientists “read” more finely than others and that some plant groups havent quite “decided” who they breed with.

By: Anon

Anon — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 05:45:19 +0000

The case for subdividing the Genus Acacia is far from compelling. The past 100 years of Acacia nomenclature has not inhibited taxonomy of the group. Confidence in the taxonomists arguing for change is tribal. Funding for future taxonomic study will become increasingly difficult for in- depth study. It was hard enough to persuade the Australian government to launch the Flora of Australia back in the 1950/60s. Eucalyptus taxonomy has been soow sloow and underfunded with the foresters largely responsible forprogress. M.Ian H. Brooker and David A. Kleinig deserve an A.O. for lifting the taxonomic game.

By: Eugene

Eugene — Sat, 14 May 2011 04:52:46 +0000

Although Christian Kull notes that “scientists have compelling evidence that the genus acacia should be split into three genera” that view represents one point-of-view held but some (maybe even many) in our contempory world. Take the time and read Frank White’s ochlo species paper (and by the by the Frank White I knew must be writhing in his grave right now with all these futile arguements and gerrimanderings going on) and you will see that his view was that by splitting genera into a whole bunch of new and much smaller genera leads to less exciting questions regarding evolution. Instead of splitting acacia into more genera why not keep it as one big genus(which, by the way, has served us well thus far on the planet) and investigate questions of evolution of the differences. Wolf-Achim Roland has summed it up quite nicely for Fagus, yet in acacia we are tearing at each other and the genus – for what end.
Make Melbourne a place that bring people together rather than tearing them apart as has been done by Brummitt and Maslin at Vienna.

By: Wolf-Achim Roland

Wolf-Achim Roland — Fri, 13 May 2011 15:34:58 +0000

Thanks for your good article. I also honor emotions. And the compromise from Mr. Brummit seems to be a possibility to lead “the world” out of this impending axe-fight.

Let me comment on the species numbers. I am not a botanist, but a chemist. My hobby are the trees and I have two main specialities: the Acacias (which are not at home in Europe) and the beech trees (which are the main tree species in Middle Europe).
There are strictly spoken only eight beech species worldwide. If you are generous: Make it twelf. But there are over one hundred varieties. These varieties show very different form and/or different color/s of the leaf, different growth habits, even some modification in the bark – and all kind of combinations of these features. They are very well documented in two books by Mr. Gerhard Dönig. And you can find pictures of Fagus sylvatica ‘xyz‘ all over the web.
On the other hand the Acacias, where each small difference (not only in flower or fruit) leads to a new species.
As there is no Government regulation as to what a plant has to show to become a separate species, the scientific community decides, what it wants.
Curiously in the case of beeches, botanists decided to keep the number of species extremely low, in Acacias its the opposite. Thats what I learned as an “amateur”.
Wolf

By: J. B. Friday

J. B. Friday — Thu, 12 May 2011 07:52:05 +0000

Auwe! More work for us foresters to learn new names.