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Besides POWO (which is often wrong or out-dated when it comes to taxonomy) is this change based on some other publication? Kirschbaum showed that this should be recognized at specific rank. Perhaps a phylogeny has been published that presented evidence to the contrary?

https://www.jstor.org/stable/41971425

Posted by z-bot about 1 year ago

I have no strong feelings either way, just doing an overhaul of Carex taxonomy to both bring us in line with POWO and revise our infrageneric classification system. Please feel free to reach out to POWO at bi@kew.org

Posted by rynxs about 1 year ago

Yes, I feel that Carex bilingsii is fairly distinct. The taxonomic authority cited by POWO is older than the date of publication of the article that elevated it at the rank of species. Govaerts, R. & Simpson, D.A. (2007). World Checklist of Cyperaceae. Sedges: 1-765. The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

All recent North American flora recognize the taxon at the rank of species (Flora of Michigan, Flora Novae Angliae, Flora of Newfoundland, Flore Nordique du Québec-Labrador). I wonder what motivated the decision by POWO.

Posted by elacroix-carignan about 1 year ago

Rolson et al. 2021 in their infrageneric classification of the genus recognizes Carex billingsii as a species too.

Posted by elacroix-carignan about 1 year ago

Yes, I saw that in the paper. I can move it back to species level the moment POWO revises it.

Posted by rynxs about 1 year ago

Why not just move it back to C. billingsii since all recent evidence supports that and POWO is clearly outdated? They don't need to be followed in every single case, especially if they're wrong, and who knows when they'll actually change it.

Posted by z-bot about 1 year ago

@z-bot deviation is a last resort for when POWO refuses to budge on a change the community wants. Our taxonomy should mirror POWO's taxonomy as closely as possible, and taxonomy changes should be run through Rafael at POWO first.

In my experience POWO is actually fairly up-to-date for a service that records every vascular plant species on the planet, but they do make weird decisions sometimes.

Posted by rynxs about 1 year ago

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