Talk:Limnanthes floccosa

Four or five subspecies?

Some of the references list five subspecies, in all cases limnanthes floccosa floccosa and limnanthes floccosa bellingeriana are being treated as separate subspecies. Almost all taxonomy sites accept both synonomously so I stated "four" instead of "five" in the article and listed the more common name in the subspeces list. Zab (talk) 07:52, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

See my revision of the page for the taxonomy. The rules of nomenclature are complicated, but the name Limnanthes floccosa refers to all the subspecies. However, when you say L. floccosa subsp. floccosa you are referring to only those plants that are not one of the other subspecies. Subsp. bellingeriana is not recognized by the Jepson (yet, that might change soon), but the Flora of North America recognizes it.

Sometimes the same population or taxon is given two names (essentially by mistake). Then those names are synonyms. Or if you subsume one taxon into another, the obsolete taxon becomes a synonym of the main taxon. In this case, subsp. floccosa is a subspecies. Everyone seems to recognize three others (californica, pumila, grandiflora). If bellingeriana is removed from floccosa and becomes a recognized subsp. then it would be added to the list. (And FNA has done this, so I would argue it is official.) If not, it would be synonymous with floccosa, but floccosa would not be the same as bellingeriana. They would not be interchangeable names. You would simply ignore the obsolete name bellingeriana. I hope this makes some sense. I happy to explain it more or provide refs if you want to investigate this further.Michaplot (talk) 18:51, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Woolly or Wooly?

USDA PLANTS uses two Ls, the references cited from those two Oregon.gov pages use two Ls, and the correct spelling is two Ls. Only pages citing Oregon.gov directly seem to use one L indicating that somebody misspelled it there (which looks to be the case). I think we should use two Ls on the wikipedia article. EDIT: apparently both spellings are ok but I think the two Ls should be used because it is official. Zab (talk) 16:14, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I always thought it was one L, but if Oregon.gov says it has two, then it probably does. LITTLEMOUNTAIN5 ^review! 21:05, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Oregon.gov doesn't have 2 Ls, they have 1 (feds have two Ls). I have already emailed them Oregon because they are the ones with the inconsistency. Zab (talk) 02:09, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh sorry, I read that wrong. Thanks for emailing them, that should clear it up. LITTLEMOUNTAIN5 ^review! 20:52, 29 April 2009 (UTC)