Yesterday I was invited to submit one of my photos to the Flickr pool on Systematic Botany. Yes, I know. The media ought to be alerted. But I point this out less to draw attention to my photographic prowess than to highlight the fact that there is in fact a Flickr pool on Systematic Botany, and that it is a lot of fun. Exploring the discussion forum led me to an old news item about staff at the National Museum Cardiff and Kew naming a whole bunch of new Sorbus species, and not from some isolated corner of the world either, but England and Wales.
Some of these trees have probably developed recently and are examples of on-going evolution of new species. Others are older types which have been known for some time but are only now described as ‘species’ thanks to modern DNA methods.
Some Sorbus species have economic uses, and the taxonomy is made horrendously complicated by rampant hybridization and apomixis.
Coincidentally, IIALD had a piece on a new scheme “supporting and promoting the development of persistent and openly accessible digital taxonomic literature.” I wonder whether making photographs of plants available through Flickr or some other image sharing site might contribute to this worthy cause.