[Taxacom] Save Order Bromeliales!!!

[Kenneth Kinman]

Hi Eric,              
       From what is presently known of the phylogeny, Bromeliales is
indeed close to Commelinales (Liliales is more distant, so any
similarity to Bromeliales would be a mixture of convergences and
plesiomorphies).     
       Bromeliales (only a family in APG) is at the very base of APG's
bloated Order Poales, so Order Bromeliales actually splits off right in
between the Commelinales-Zingiberales group (on the one hand) and the
traditional Poales on the other hand.  
       What would make perfect sense to me would be to keep Bromeliales
and Typhales as separate Orders and then the rest of the families could
remain in their Poales.  Some people might think such a Poales is still
too large, but it would at least be a workable compromise that would
offend a lot fewer endusers.                                
             ------------Ken Kinman                          
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Eric Gouda wrote:
Hi there, 
This subject is of interest to me as you would understand. With the risk
of saying very stupid things, I want to learn something here, so I give
it a try. 
As a mainly traditional Bromeliad specialist looking at morphological
characteristics of the plants, with little knowledge about phylogeny, I
do not understand the relationship of Bromeliales and Poales in any way.
To my feeling it is more close to Liliales (genera like Chlorophytum) or
even to Commelinales if I look to some "primitive" looking species of
Brocchinia! What I do understand is that with the little data used of
the whole genome, the most likely trees are chosen (calculated). What I
also have learned is that from molecular research of the Britain Flora,
most taxa that we have considered to be species has a gene flow with
other taxa (if I remember well about 80% of the what we think are
species), which means that reality is less likely a tree (model) but
more likely a spider web at least at some point. 
At what perspective can I look to this new APG development? 
Best, 
Eric Gouda