1) Senecio rivularis and Tephroseris crispa? Which is correct? 2) Populus italica or Populus nigra var.italica? Why so much tinkering with names? 3) Malus pumila or Malus domestica? Is there a difference? Malus pumila being a name to cover all apple hybrids? 4) On the photo is a species called Juniperus sabina (that's what I was told). In Tree Guide by Johnson and More there is a Juniperus foetidissima, eng. Stinking juniper. Here in Croatia, we call J.sabina a stinking juniper. I'm confused whether these are the same species?
2) Populus italica or Populus nigra var.italica? Why so much tinkering with names? Yes, same. Why so much tinkering - often (as here) because of differing opinions as to whether two slightly different plants are different varieties or subspecies of the same species, or are different species. Also sometimes because an author may describe a species as new because he/she didn't know that someone else had already named it earlier. 3) Malus pumila or Malus domestica? Is there a difference? Malus pumila being a name to cover all apple hybrids? Yes, same. Malus domestica is actually an invalid name. 4) On the photo is a species called Juniperus sabina (that's what I was told). In Tree Guide by Johnson and More there is a Juniperus foetidissima, eng. Stinking juniper. Here in Croatia, we call J.sabina a stinking juniper. I'm confused whether these are the same species? No, different. J. sabina is a low-growing shrub, native from the Alps east to central Asia, while J. foetidissima is a tree (to 20m tall) native to extreme southeast Europe and southwest Asia. The latter also differs in larger cones 7-13 mm diameter usually with a single seed (rarely 2 or 3), compared to 4-8 mm diameter with 2-4 seeds in J. sabina. Juniperus foetidissima, southwest Turkey:
1) Senecio rivularis and Tephroseris crispa? Which is correct? These do appear to be synonyms, I've found reputable texts which cite Cineraria crispa Jacq. as a synonym of both: Flora Europaea: http://rbg-web2.rbge.org.uk/cgi-bin...SPECIES_XREF=rivularis+&TAXON_NAME_XREF=&RANK= SysTax: http://www.biologie.uni-ulm.de/cgi-bin/query_all/details.pl?id=106604&stufe=A&typ=PFL As to which is correct, sorry, don't know. It may well depend on taxonomic opinion as to whether the genera Tephroseris and Cineraria are sufficiently distinct from Senecio to be accepted or not. I'm not sufficiently well up on Asteraceae taxonomy to know the answer.
thank you, especially for #3 and #4! btw, do you know where I can find more info on Malus domestica being invalid name? Something like those papers you sent me, but no need for such an elaborate text; few sentences will suffice (eg. who named it, when).
Here's the one on apples: Mabberley, D. J., Jarvis, C. E. and Juniper, B. E. (2001). The name of the apple. Telopea 9 (2): 421-428. http://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/72786/Tel9Mab421.pdf (pdf file) Another synonym sometimes seen for the Apple is Malus sieversii.
There are of course some species which vary in growth form within the species; the best known for our area is Pinus mugo with shrubby subsp. mugo in the Balkans, Carpathians and eastern Alps, and tree-form subsp. uncinata in the Pyrenees and western Alps. But with those two junipers there are numerous other differences as well as the growth habit.
