Talk:Bartlettina

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[edit] Synonym of Eupatorium?

Synonym of Eupatorium? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dysmorodrepanis (talk • contribs) 02:27, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

A large part of the tribe Eupatorieae has been in Eupatorium at one point or another and although I don't know the deal with Bartlettina in particular, it could well be an example. However, if I understand the situation correctly, most current authors like Robinson and King tend to favor a small Eupatorium of only 40-60 species, and if Bartlettina has 37, it couldn't fit in that count. I doubt the dust has completely settled on this one, but molecular data so far seems to back up the breaking apart of Eupatorium (as cited in Eupatorieae - please expand if you have further information). Kingdon (talk) 14:49, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

You're right, Bartlettina is one of the genera segregated from Eupatorium. I'm not quite sure what you are asking about numbers, but the reference to Eupatorium having 40-60 species means the current genus size. There were hundreds of species originally described in Eupatorium.

I'm not great on Asteraceae but there is a little information available from the New Zealand flora (one species of Bartlettina, B. sordidum is naturalised here). This may help, although it isn't from the native range of the plants. The online text here [1] is from a 1988 publication. I don't see a big problem with the accuracy of this stub, unless someone can supply a recent reference that the splitting of Eupatorium has been reversed. The source I've given says 20 species, but the number of species in a genus is always up for discussion.

Solanum dulcamara (talk) 09:41, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks; that is very helpful. I was just trying to sort out the comment "Synonym of Eupatorium?" above and the disputed tag on the page, and finding that this is indeed one of the King and Robinson segregates from Eupatorium suffices. Thanks for the link to Flora of New Zealand - it is ironic to be using a flora from around the world, but if there are any floras for the tropical americas which are online, I haven't run into them yet. Kingdon (talk) 14:26, 28 January 2008 (UTC)