B. Papp szerk.: Studia Botanica Hungarica 34. 2003 (Budapest, 2003)

Debreczy, Zsolt; Rácz, István: A re-assessment of the new taxa of firs (Abies Mill.) reported from Mexico in 1995

VIEWS AND SPECIES IN TAXONOMY This paper does not aim to overview the convoluted problematics of the species concepts and taxonomy, however, we briefly touch the problem regarding the taxa which were published by us from Mexico, and draw attention to the fact that to lump species without further thorough (if possible, population) study often does not solve the initial problem while hinders possible conservation of a genotype. The Flora Neotropica Monograph 75 on Pinus (FARJON and STYLES 1997) did not accept any of the four pine taxa we proposed and described, although we studied all species of the Mexican pines very carefully before we published them. Also, the well compiled "World checklist and bibliography of conifers" (FARJON 1998) lists only Abies hidalgensis as valid among the firs we described in the 1995 paper, while the rest were considered synonymous (Abies neodurcingensis - A. durangensis, Abies zapotekensis = A. guatemalensis, Abies lowiana var. viridula = A. concolor, Abies guatemalensis var. longibracteata = A. guatemalensis, Pinus yecorensis = P. pseudostrobus, P. y. var. sinaloensis = P. pseudostrobus, Pinus oaxacana var. diversiformis - P. apulcensis, Pinus lawsonii var. gracilis = P. lawsonii, Pseudotsuga menziesii var. oaxacana = P. menziesii). While on one hand we very much agree that taxonomists should accept/assign a much wider range of variability from/to a taxon (actually the study of a population of offsprings in different climates would be ideal before the description of a taxa), that to avoid the labyrinthine fragmentation of the species, it often the case that a lumper's view may cause more damage to species knowledge and conservation than add to it. The discovered Oaxacan Pseudotsuga menziesii var. oaxacana, e.g. can be considered as P. menziesii (as did the mentioned checklist), however, its different morphology (of which we obviously cannot separate out what is climatic adaptation, pheno- or genotypic changes, but will, however, appear in a larger populations in cultivation, particularly in a different climate) and resistance to ecological factors may not support the drop of its variety rank. Its different growth and hardiness also may disappoint the applied botanical field, just to mention a single factor, which supports the distinguishing name and may indicate a higher rank of difference than a simple "provenance". The name P. menziesii var. oaxacana therefore may survive as a distinguished taxon, just like that of the continental race/taxon of P. menziesii, the "var. glauca" which "secretly" survives in practice for many good reasons (appearance, growth, hardiness, etc). One could easily say that the long bracled Guatemalan Fir (Abies guatemalensis var. longibracteata) with exserted bracts - formerly known only from the Tacaná volcano (A. g. var. tacanensis - there, however, also with recurved leaf margin) is not enough for distinguishing it from the typical A. guatemalensis. In-