Another fine mess
I stumbled on a taxonomic revision reputedly clarifying certain relationships among Mentzelia section Bartonia including what I and most others in Arizona have been identifying as Mentzelia multiflora. It states that the material in Arizona formerly regarded as M. multiflora is one of three varieties of M. longiloba. (M. multiflora remains, limited to New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming.) Much of the Arizona material in SEINet may have originally been identified as M. multiflora var. longiloba (or ssp. longiloba) but carelessly left off the variety (a common occurrence with other taxa). M. multiflora ssp. longiloba is listed as a synonym in the FNA treatment of M. longiloba. (That treatment was provided by one of the authors of the revision.) POWO excludes M. multiflora from Arizona.
One thing that strikes me about the key in the revision is that it relies on some mighty fine details in features and measurements, things that are difficult or impossible to see in iNat photos. SEM photos of the seed coat? Nope, no pocket SEMs, just as there are no pocket PCR and DNA sequencing kits for the field. Maybe someday... So geography is going to have to suffice, at least for M. longiloba.
As there are no iNaturalist observations of M. longiloba in Arizona (beyond a pair of mine that I changed yesterday) I wanted to run this by some of the working botanists in the region before making changes to the numerous M. multiflora observations in Arizona. @danbeckman, @aspidoscelis, @jdmore, @frankiecoburn, any comments on this revision?
Comments
Ah, there's one other observation from Arizona. I remember looking that one up in SEINet and FNA.
Nothing to add here but thanks for letting me know and consulting me! I'm very, very frequently guilty of not bothering with varieties in my IDs and this is another good example of why I should start to incorporate that further specificity into my practice. There are so many of these taxonomic messes and I mostly stay out of it unless it's a group I've already delved into a lot.
This name has been accepted and in use by many for a while, and needed to be tied into the lexicon for several for years now. Observations on inat and others are definitely in need of revision, as well as likely thousands of specimens in herbaria around the state! Thanks for getting this going Steve!
Just some scattered thoughts to add here...
Looks like POWO is aligned with the 2011 Schenk & Hufford paper, but iNat has only partially caught up. Need to move the varieties of multiflora to separate species, and add the rest of the missing longiloba varieties. Seems like quick and non-controversial changes to me, which I'd be happy to do...
Looks like everything called multiflora in Arizona (at least by you Steve ;-), outside of the Pinacate, is a likely candidate for M. longiloba var. yavapaiensis. (If there were any observations in the northwest part of the state, M. integra (=M. multiflora integra) would also be in play.) And yes, looks like we'll only be able to distinguish varieties of longiloba by geography on iNat.
M. longiloba var. yavapaiensis is currently set to auto-obscure locations based on an S2S3 NatureServe rank. Is anyone concerned about a threat from poaching (or anything else) if iNat locations of this variety are publicly visible? If not, may I turn off obscuration for it?
Okay, Jim, have at those changes! As you say there should be nothing controversial.
Looks like southern and southwestern Arizona hosts the nominative variety. According to Table 1 it can have longer leaves and wider capsules than M. longiloba var. yavapaiensis. Those may help distinguish them in the areas of geographic overlap (around Yuma, Tucson and Cochise County) on the map. Otherwise we may have to just go to species - which is why we're dealing with this in the first place, come to think of it...
As widespread as it is I can't see what threatens M. longiloba var. yavapaiensis. I see no reason not to turn off obscuration.
Ok, have cleaned up M. longiloba, M. multiflora, M. pumila, and other species formerly included therein in the iNat taxonomy. Have at the re-identifications as needed.
Will wait for more response on the obscuration question for var. yavapaiensis before changing obscuration. @sabra2 ?
We have Mentzelia longiloba var. yavapaiensis as an S3 for the variety with about 60 EOs in SEINet (when accessed in 2017 when we did the rank assessment). It is scattered across Arizona with all but 3 counties represented. I don't see a need to obscure this due to being uncommon or stress of collection.
@sabra2 thanks Sabra, I went ahead and changed geoprivacy to open, and updated the ranks and URLs.
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