Taxonomic Garbage Dumps and the Bryophyte Nomenclator

When ferreting through older literature, you end up having to check to see if the names used then are still used now and if not find the newer name(s) that have since replaced the older ones. There are all sorts of helpful tools for doing this online. I have been partial to the Tropicos plant name database, but increasingly fascinated by the Bryophyte Nomenclator put together by John Atwood and John Brinda. For each taxon you enter, it will spit out the taxonomic heirarchy within said taxon, a list of synonyms and a list of original publications associated with the names given. The site has a synonymy search that gives a topline for the number of valid names and the number of names that have been used. Pasted below are a few examples. Some taxa are extremely bloated due to taxonomic habits grouping most upright mosses, creeping mosses or leafy liverworts under the same genus, while others are bloated due to an unceasing history or revision and reclassification. Whatever the case, it seems like there is a roughly 10:1 ratio of proposed names: currently accepted names. I've been fishing around trying to find a pattern for low ratios-- some verge on 2:1, which is pretty good for 300-ish years since the first bryophyte was assigned a binomial. You can see the 1735 treatment of Bryophytes by Linneaus here (look for "Cryptogamie" and note the OG bryos "Musci").

Bryum•4899 names•272 accepted
Polytrichum•711 names•43 accepted
Sphagnum•3596 names•320 accepted
Didymodon•688 names•91 accepted
Syntrichia•346 names•133 accepted

Hypnum•3679 names•81 accepted
Brachythecium•1060 names•167 accepted

Jungermannia•2454 names•53 accepted
Lophozia•462 names•30 accepted
Scapania•636 names•126 accepted
Lepidozia•487 names•156 accepted
Diplophyllum•83 names•27 accepted
Pleurozia•31 names•14 accepted

Marchantia•318 names•64 accepted
Asterella•122 names•55 accepted
Conocephalum•13 names•6 accepted

Anthoceros•343 names•70 accepted

Publicado el 16 de marzo de 2024 a las 04:43 PM por rambryum