Comments on the ongoing saga of Lumpers versus Splitters

  So far as I can see, the lumpers in the case of Opuntia and in that of Echinopsis said (I paraphrase of course) that the flowers are all essentially of the same type so the species in question must all belong in the same genus. The splitters of both genera have largely used nonfloristic morphological differences to keep them separated. The supergenus Opuntia seems destined to be considered a skinned carcass in the hands of the splitters now that Wallace's work has supported their proposed subdivisions. (Amusingly, these are largely the same subdivisions that earlier splitters had proposed.)

  Taxonomic classification based on simple observable morphology has long been something that in practice, at least as concerns portions of the Cactaceae, frequently falls short of being real science. This is due to a variety of reasons, one of which is what can only be termed a good-old-boys network within the world of taxonomy. By "good-old-boy" I refer to a situation where private conversations in a closed "club" can serve in lieu of published reasoning.

  The accounting of the 'reunion' of Echinopsis for example appears to be impoverished if one looks closely. By impoverished I mean that it fell curiously short of the normal taxonomic standards that we expect to be observed for introducing such a revision. If one goes back to the 1974 IOS Bulletin, one finds a very nice general discussion of the logic for the merger, followed by a mere laundry list of the new names (some of which had never seen anything approaching a good description). Later workers took it even farther than had Friedrich, Glaetzle & Rowley; again without publishing more than the name changes. The wealth of mergers following that have more often than not simply been a declaration of synonymity without a reference to any published rationale. This scarcely helps when the experts of the day don't always agree with each other on particulars despite when ostensibly drawing from the same body of experts.

  I have no argument with any of the logic asserting these are all closely related plants - just the poor methodology (combined with an underlying lack of adequate documentation) that was applied in the process of the publication of the synonyms. If not for the understandable sympathy elicited by the inherited multiplicity of bad names, material of unclear origins, and a host of plants with poor to totally inadequate first descriptions (and other problems), plus the fact that this wholesale taxonomic tour de force was done by people we would all agree to be respectable experts, the approach used would not have been tolerated for an instant.

  No matter whether we call the genus Trichocereus or Echinopsis, specific epithets such as macrogona/macrogonus and lageniformis need to be chucked into the trash as bad choices for preservation. To be valid a name must see the proper publication of an acceptable taxonomic description and must not have seen previous used in a muddled of confused sense.

  If basing the study on macroscopic morphology, I would expect that any proposed revisions would go back and forth every so often just as long as anyone with an opinion cares to study the issue in depth and express an opinion.
  I suspect that someday molecular systematics may eventually meaningfully resolve what is related to what and how closely.
  Its beginning to do that, mainly at the generic level, but research has not yet been adequately conducted or at least has not been published as far as the specific and varietal levels within Echinopsis. I have been told that work is ongoing.

  I have little problem with any of the rationales presented for lumping plants into either the supergenus Echinopsis or Opuntia BUT both of them clearly require the creation of subdivisions within them no matter what level of ranking people want to view it at (i.e., whether the level of subdivisions be generic or subgeneric). The pressing need for subgeneric rankings was even stated in the proposal for the "reunion" of the "genus" Echinopsis. The very welcomed work with the former supergenus Opuntia needs duplication within the current supergenus Echinopsis.

  People should not take it all too seriously. Names are simply names and subject to change. The people who insist on uniform compliance in horticultural application based on the most recent utterence of their favorite expert-of-the-day should be gently tolerated, then ignored. As has been noted by others, the plants really don't care one way or the other.