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Family???
editCould someone please explain the lede in this article? As I read the ref given, plus one or two more recent publications, either the Camphorosmoideae are in the Chenopodiaceae, or in a new family comprising (mainly) the "Amaranthaceae/Chenopodiaceae alliance". Now, if I understand such things correctly (which is highly doubtful) that "alliance" as a new family, should bear the name of the least recently described family. That seems to be fairly painless, because I think there are more Amaranthaceae than Chenopodiaceae, but Chenopodium and Amaranthus both seem to have been described in the same year. Over to the taxonomists, and welcome to it! But in the most recent article I have found so far, (Molecular phylogeny of Camphorosmeae (Camphorosmoideae, Chenopodiaceae) etc etc) the title seems pretty unambiguous in speaking of Chenopodiaceae, and the authors seem to be thoroughly familiar with the by now well-worn subject of why the families could/should be merged. (Chenoparanthaceae, anyone?)
Help, please, someone? JonRichfield (talk) 16:49, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
And of course...
editOh, and of course, this plays hob with the umpteen articles dealing with the various genera in those families. More fun than toothache!
- As explained under Amaranthaceae, molecular genetic studies revealed, that the Chenopodiaceae are paraphyletic: They only are a natural taxon, if Amaranthaceae are included. As the name Amaranthaceae is older, this should be the valid name for the two merged families. This is used by APG II system, which wikipedia has adopted for sorting. That's why in wikipedia Chenopodiaceae taxa are now under Amaranthaceae.
- All scientists working on Chenopodiaceae are aware of the paraphyly of this taxon, but keep using this name "for the time being". A proper taxonomic revision would lead to thousands of new combinations. Another possibility would be to separate the subfamily Polycnemoideae, so that the remaining Chenopodiaceae would be monophyletic and could be treated as a separate family.... --Thiotrix (talk) 08:20, 20 June 2012 (UTC)