I’ve made no secret of my skepticism about the dandelion microspecies; but like a good scientist, I am willing to consider the evidence. On the observations page for Section Taraxacum, there are 126,751 observations. By far the majority are identified as Taraxacum officinale (strangely, the Taxonomy…

[image] jasonhernandez74: Is there a source that would tell me which lineages are apomictic and which are not? Do you mean within dandelions specifically? Technically yes; the original description of each species will probably say if it’s sexual or asexual, and other sources may as well, it’s…

[image] jdmore: Of course “ordinary means” change over time, and distinctions can exist independently of our ability to perceive them right away. But that said, I think this has de-facto been the concept most broadly used by taxonomists and non-taxonomists alike, and served as a decent proxy for…

[image] sedgequeen: Dandelions have no respect for our human need for neat categories. true. but dandelions don’t use iNaturalist, and humans do. and humans have need for categories if they want to create a crowdsourced biodiversity database.

In Stace’s New Flora of the British Isles, 2nd Edition, the author writes briefly about the fact that 229 microspecies, most of them asexual, have been found in the British Isles, then reaches a more or less practical conclution: “In this work, the microssp. are not treated in full but are aggregat…

Microspecies have also been chosen as the basic unit in some other genera where apomixis occurs, such as Crataegus, Rubus, Erigeron, and Hieracium; it’s not just Taraxacum. Based on a quick check of the number of species in each genus on iNaturalist, I’m pretty sure iNaturalist follows with those as…

Yeah 9 sections are known from the British Isles. 7 introduced sections were identified from BC in Bjork’s paper, I’m not sure how many sections are represented by the native species there. Flora of North America recognises species in 6 sections, but only a couple species in each section. More sect…

[image] charlie: Me and my kids are a genetically distinct strain, are we a separate species of human? No, because you are not apomictic. When you reproduce, your genetic material combines with that of another strain. [image] sedgequeen: I’ll message you Curtis Bjork’s address. You can s…

[image] upupa-epops: Apparently later “generations” of leaves are more variable and consequently less reliable, which is frustrating… If you cultivate a dandelion you will notice that later leaves are different from spring leaves. This made me doubt about the reliability of the spring leaves …

I do not know much about section Taraxacum since a comprehensive treatment is lacking. Regarding section Palustria, the diagnostic characters are numerous and regard the shape and the number of outer phyllaries, the presence of pollen, the colour of the stigma, the shape of the achenes and, in the e…

then shouldn’t we have microspecies as a hierarchical designation beneath species and keep the species level ID as well?

That wouldn’t work because there is no higher species ID; in those genera, distinctive apomictic populations are considered full species. Maybe “(micro)species” would be more precise. Using the term “microspecies” just clarifies that it’s a situation where using normal species concepts (particularly…

About those dandelions

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About those dandelions

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