In identifying mistletoes (largely for Australia), I find a frequent problem arising from the use of the undifferentiated common name “Mistletoes” for Tribe Visceae. The majority of Australian mistletoe species fall into Family Loranthaceae, which does not contain Tribe Visceae. When an observer sees a stem parasite and types in “mistletoe”, the list options include:
Leafy Mistletoes (Genus Phoradendron)
Sandalwoods, Mistletoes, and Allies (Order Santalales)
Mistletoes (Tribe Visceae)
Showy Mistletoes (Family Loranthaceae)
Mistletoes (Genus Viscum)
Leafy Mistletoe (Dendrophthoe falcata)
It is common for an observer of a plant in Family Loranthaceae to select Tribe Visceae from the list, mistakenly thinking the group covers all mistletoes, when in fact, it covers only about one-third of mistletoe species. Sometimes, an identifier will choose Tribe Visceae for a mistletoe initially identified in Family Loranthaceae, thinking that they are agreeing, not disagreeing. This leaves a lot of observations stuck at a higher level (Order Santalales) because there are few active identifiers to outweigh the wrong ID. For context, more than one-third of Loranthaceae observations are from Australia, a fraction much higher than the proportion of species found here.
Although I could just flag the taxon with a suggestion for a change to the common name, I’m not sure what suggestion is best. Tribe Visceae has around 80,000 observations, only 1% of which are in Australia, so many future observations outside will be affected by a change in the common name. I would like to get community input before making any specific suggestion.
Possibilities I can think of include:
(a) omission of the common name, leaving only “Tribe Visceae”, as occurs with “Tribe Lorantheae”;
(b) addition of an English adjective, as occurs with “Feathery Mistletoes”;
(c) addition of a Latin-based adjective, such as “Viscum Mistletoes”; or
(d) use of a fully Latin “common” name, such as “Viscum Tribe”, as occurs with “Olax Family”.
As far as I can see, any of these changes will discourage observers or identifiers from choosing Tribe Visceae from the list unless they have a reasonable understanding of that taxon. It does leave, however, the possibility of choosing Viscum, Phoradendron (as sometimes occurs for Australia, although this is an American genus) or Dendrophthoe falcata. Some of these taxa might also benefit from a change in the common name. For example, Phoradendron could be renamed “American Mistletoes”, which would also avoid an overlap with D. falcata. However, my main concern is with Tribe Visceae; any changes in observer or identifier behaviour following changes to that taxon could be noted before other changes were made.