Subject: grass taxonomy

From: [email-masked] (Esch)
Date: 28 Aug 1996 20:43:06 -0400

My current reference is Hitchcock's Manual of the Grasses of the United
States.  This 1950 manual is still the best I can find.  I wonder if the
classification is dated:  2 subfamilies (Festucoideae and Panicoideae)
with the 14 tribes in each.  What other classification systems have been
proposed since Hitchcock?  Any opinions would be greatly appreciated.
Bob Esch

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1996 10:04:06 -0700

There is no current replacement for H&C just yet, though there is work 
being done on a replacement. It's due out "next year" or so, I believe.  
It's also *huge*, and may be split into separate volumes.  This will make 
it fairly difficult to use for the majority of botanists, and at ca. 
$100/volume I'd bet few of us bother with it.

H&C is very dated, as you might imagine since Watson and Crick had their 
DNA work published in '54.  All of their work is based on morphological 
analysis, rather than isozyme or PCR analysis.  Except for a few 
blunders (like putting Lolium in with Triticeae rather than Festuceae), H&C 
did pretty well though.

If you want to get a more uptodate view of the grass phyla, find a copy 
of Gould's text on Grass taxonomy (I don't have the name with me.)  This 
is out of date too, but much closer.