Talk:Muscari

Leopoldia

Can you please provide references for Muscari s.l., Muscari subg. Leopoldia and Muscari subg. Pseudomuscari that contradict WCSP. Your current edits are both contradictory, close to being taxonomic nonsense and without references very, very close to OR. Pehlivan & Özler (2003) is too out of date and country specific and Speta is also very out of date. By the way, as an example, Leopoldia is also accepted by COL. Andyboorman (talk) 21:29, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

In the taxonomy of Muscari there are two controversial issues:

• Typification: Garbari & Greuter 1970 and Speta 1982 accept the typification of Muscari with Muscari botryoides by Britton & Brown 1913 (which is not unproblematic due to the mechanical mode), D. C. Stuart (1965 and 1980) accept Muscari muscarimi (now replaced by M. racemosum in a highly ambiguous way), based on the treatment of Kunth 1843 who left only this species in Muscari, thus contradicting the circumscription of the genus given by Miller 1754. This typification is especially influential in Turkey and in other oriental countries, leading to Muscari subg. Botryanthus and Muscari subg. Muscari (case 1) or Muscari subg. Muscari and Muscari subg. Moscharia (case 2)
• Circumscription of the genus: Muscari s.l. supported by Stuart, and Speta, or the subdivision in Muscari s.str., Leopoldia and Pseudomuscari by Garbari and Greuter 1970, accepted by WCSP.

Sources are cited, just read them. The concept of WCSP is far from new, going back to Garbari & Greuter 1970 (adding additional species described as Muscari under Muscari (also such given by the author as Muscari subg. Leopoldia e.g. M. mirum and M. babachii, and with Pseudomuscari it is the same, e.g. M. kurdicum) and those described as Leopoldia under Leopoldia; generally Scilloideae treatments in WCSP are in a state inspiring little confidence.). To my knowledge the splitting concept is not backed by results of morphological (see Speta 1982) and molecular investigations (see Pfosser & Speta 1999). Franz Speta was known to prefer small generic units; nevertheless he did not accept splitting here. Greuter did not use Leopoldia and Pseudomuscari in more recent publications. The question goes back: can you provide more recent publications with molecular evidence supporting Leopoldia and Pseudomuscari? To my knowledge, nothing substantial on a genus-wide scale has been published since 2000.

One database copying from the other does not make up-to-date research results. There are enough recent floras and checklists not accepting Leopoldia and Pseudomuscari over the whole range of the genus: Flora Gallica, Flora Iberica, Vascular Plants of Greece an annotated Checklist, Türkiye Bitkileri Listesi, Index synonymique de la flore d'Afrique du Nord, New Flora of the British Isles 3rd ed., Rothmaler, Exkursionflora für Österreich etc. etc.

Taxonomy of such a genus cannot be made in one day, and today I worked a lot more on it than I intended. --RLJ (talk) 23:13, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

At the moment Muscari s.l. is an opinion, as is Muscari s.s. Acceptance of one view or another is a matter of preference until more work has been undertaken, as existing phylogenetic and combined morphological and molecular studies are weak and based upon limited sampling (see Pfosser & Speta 1999 3 species). All floras cited above trace their circumscriptions to Speta and so will have the same strengths and weaknesses. In addition, Leopoldia is still found in research resulting in a number of combinations that have no equivalence in Muscari see Böhnert, T. & Lobin, W. 2017. Leopoldia neumannii sp. nov. (Asparagaceae, Scilloideae): a new species of Muscari sensu lato from Greece. Willdenowia 47(2): 179-185. DOI: 10.3372/wi.47.47210 for the latest example and a brief statement of the current status of the controversy. Unfortunately the structure of WS makes it difficult to accommodate this situation, where a genus is needed for combinations with no equivalence, but also could be considered a synonym.

• More work is needed throughout Scilloideae, but as it is completed and leads to accepted changes Kew are incorporating this into their web site (WCSP), so it is a bit of an ongoing mess. Life was simpler when Speta was the only game in town! Andyboorman (talk) 14:27, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Recently WCSP has merged Leopoldia with Muscari. --RLJ (talk) 12:02, 2 March 2022 (UTC)