E.L. Greene

[Curtis Clark]

At 10:47 AM 4/3/02, Richard Jensen wrote:
>In defense of E.L. Greene, many of his taxa are still "good" species and some
>that were consigned to synonymy have been "resurrected."

I had been thinking about that, too; one of my study subjects is
Eschscholzia, a genus of fifteen species and subspecies, and more than one
hundred synonyms, most of Greene's coinage. But of the fifteen accepted
names, seven are Greene's, and were I to find something new, I'd need to
look at Greene's types to make sure it wasn't already named.

Greene was exceedingly good at seeing difference (and quite poor at
recognizing similarity). In hindsight, his was a shotgun approach, but even
with a shotgun (*especially* with a shotgun), some of the pellets find the
mark.


--
Curtis Clark                  http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/
Biological Sciences Department             Voice: (909) 869-4062
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