Talk:Cistus

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Of the list recently added, the following are not recognised as valid in the texts I have:

C. acutifolius
C. albanicus
C. albissimus
C. asperifolius
C. borgeanus = C. libanotis
C. braunii
C. brevifolius
C. campsii
C. canadensis
C. canescens = hybrid C. albus x C. incanus
C. capensis
C. chinamadensis
C. clausonii
C. confusus
C. coridifolius

Could you please provide reference to your sources? Thank you! Iorsh 21:37, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hi Iorsh - I used the New RHS Dictionary of Gardening and Bean's Trees and shrubs hardy in the British Isles. Both agree on "about 20 species" in their descriptions of the genus; although they don't either claim to give descriptions of every species, together they describe 18 named species. Adding 15 more A-C only would suggest a grand total of something like 80+ names; is this from a list of names described, including those treated as synonyms? (such as IPNI) or from a source which uses a very different species concept? - MPF 11:38, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've been trying the following method: taking all the Cistus records in IPNI (there are about 500), and removing those that are marked as synonims of smth else. Indeed, this method is expected to yield about 80 species, but it's main problem is that one can't say anything about its degree of reliability.

Regarding your sources - I have some similar books, and all of them have different and partial lists of species (although all do claim total about 20). Their main problem is that they usually don't give any citations, so one can only rely on the quality of work of some particular author. But provided he had to describe hundreds of genera just to compile one single book, one should not expect he paid proper attention to each and every word in each description. So far I didn't encounter any reliable publication which would deal specifically with Cistus, and which would explain and substantiate thoroughly its position on the scope of species in this genus.

I will try to write some note regarding this issue in the article. Iorsh 12:56, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

While doing some research for another article, I found the following statement: "The Family Cistaceae evolved in the region (Andalucia) and twenty of the thirty local species are endemic." [1]. The citation is from a website for natural history tours so I have hesitated to include it here, but I was wondering if anyone has found any further support for origins of Cistaceae in southern Spain, or that there are at thirty local species of Cistaceae in Andalucia, including twenty endemics.

Also, I have not seen rockrose and sunrose used interchangably; instead I have seen rockrose refer consistently to plants in genus Cistus, and sunrose to genus Helianthemum (which leads me to think the proper title for this article is Cistaceae). Tom Radulovich 15:31, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'm not quite happy too with the inclusion of three (however related) genera in a single article. We should probably confine its scope to Cistus, and possibly mention that Custus can sometimes be confused with Halimium, or called a sunrose instead of rockrose, etc... Iorsh 15:55, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Circumscription of Cistus

A reasonably good circumscription of the genus Cistus is given by Ellul et al. (2002). This source is not original - it claims the information is due to Dansereau (1939) and Greuter et al. (1984). But since I don't have the latter two available, I set the former as the source in the article. If someone has access to any of them and can verify the list - please do so, and change the reference accordingly. Iorsh 17:20, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hi Iorsh - Dansereau I don't know; from the article you cite, it is a 90 page monograph, but how reliable it is I don't know. Greuter et al. 1984 is the Med. Checklist, an authoritative checklist of the plants of the Mediterranean region, compiled from numerous sources and checked critically (i.e., they examined each listed taxon to determine acceptability). I've not seen the Cistus section of it, but have got other parts (the Pinophyta section). It is very reliable; if they say 19 species, I'll accept 19 species. As an aside, Greuter is probably Europe's (the world's?) most highly regarded living botanist. - MPF 18:03, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

So I shall meanwhile go with Ellul. If you have the chance to see Greuter, please verify the correctness of the species list and replace the reference. Unfortunately, my institution doesn't have it. (I myself never refer to sources I didn't read.) Iorsh 20:02, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I'll see if I can get hold of it, I seem to remember the local Uni library has it; in the meantime, I'm happy to go with Ellul - MPF 21:53, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)