Could someone add this please.
https://www.plantdelights.com/...

Here it is:

Agave 'Jumping Jacks'

I have no issue with this being added, but just to get clarification of on the rules governing adding plants to the database. Does this occur in the Catalogue of Life, because I cannot find it? I have been told in the past that plants cannot get an entry unless they are recognized in the Catalog of Life.

I just looked for it there and didn't find it either. It may have another name we haven't found.

These hybrid genera represent an exception to the CoL rule. Most of them are not listed in the Catalogue of Life.

From my perspective there is nothing wrong with having this plant in the database as there I am sure these are being 'mass produced' by tissue culture, but being in the PDN catalog (or in any other nursery's catalog) does not mean the plant has been officially described. PDN is known for marketing many hybrid plants and specific tissue cultured selections under its own designated names, again nothing wrong with that, but again it does not mean that the plant has been officially described.
It has a PPAF designation (Plant Patent Applied For), meaning that the plant's creator intends to restrict plant production and sale to those who he has licensed to do it, which means that he has to demonstrate this plant as something unique, and he has to provide a botanical description to receive a patent, but it is unclear if that description has to be officially published in peer-reviewed literature. So far the only info I can find on the internet is the PDN link.

Thinking back to several discussions I have had regarding including other well known in the trade, but not necessarily officially described plants of a hybrid nature, not being given a database entry because they were not recognized in the CoL, it does make me wonder if the rules have changed or that maybe having a PPAF designation makes a difference? I do not know why having a PPAF designation should matter, but if it does it would be good to know.

OK, I will bring up Aloe x spinosissima... regularly sold as such in many big box stores, and much more info can be found on the internet for that plant than this one. Why does that not get a Database entry?

The difference actually has more to do with practicality. A photo of an intrageneric hybrid that isn't listed in the CoL can be added to the entry for the genus, preferably with the hybrid taxon included in the photo caption, but where would a photo of an intergeneric hybrid go? XChitalpa is a cross between Catalpa and Chilopsis, for example. It isn't listed in the CoL, but we have a species entry and two cultivar entries for it. They can't be added to the Catalpa or Chilopsis entries.

OK, that makes some sense to me, but in this case there are a good number of people these days that consider all three plants mentioned as part of the parentage of the xHansara as part of the genus Agave, making certainly all Manfreda x Agave hybrids intrageneric, and possibly the current plant as well. I do not necessarily buy into that, but you can find plenty of info out there where this is considered as accepted (not sure of the stance of the CoL).

Similarly that would force you to move almost all named Echinopsis hybrids to the generic Echinopsis entry as where those may have been considered intergeneric, right now all those should considered intrageneric given that almost all the possible parent plants are now considered as part of the genus Echinopsis (though that might be changing again).

I get your argument, and I realize that you have to draw the line somewhere so as to not get everyone's back yard Aloe hybrids as separate entries, but it feels a little inconsistent to me, especially since there are separate entries for variegated plants, many of those are also not in CoL and then for many of those plants there is the proliferation of named selections of what essentially is just another variegated plant, that someone decided was slightly different and deserved a name, which if you took all the labels away and put them next to each other few would be able to correctly identify beyond yellow versus white or striation vs. medio-picta vs. edge variegation, some of those are also in the database, but certainly not in the CoL. There is an entry for Agave victoriae-reginae 'compacta', which indeed looks like a pretty distinct version of A. v.-r., but as far as I can tell is not listed in the CoL.

If I take all that then it becomes somewhat weird that a plant which has been known and described as a specific well cultivated hybrid for over 50, if not 100 years, needs to live in the generic entry for the genus.

Thank you, Thijs, for pointing out the problem with XHansara and providing your other observations, which I will try to address. Please let me know if I've missed something.

You are absolutely right about XHansara, described as a cross of Agave, Mandreda, and Polianthes. The species of the latter two genera have been reclassified as Agave species, so I've edited the entry to show the genus as Agave and to add XHansara 'Jumping Jacks' as an also-sold-as name.

This happens when species are reclassified as synonyms for other species and we are always grateful when we are informed of this and we are eager to edit the entries accordingly. If you can find intergeneric hybrids that have become intrageneric hybrids, please let us know.

As for the cultivar entries for variegated plants and other cultivars such as Agave victoriaea-reginae 'Compacta,' these will not be found in the CoL because the CoL does not list cultivars.

The hybrid taxa that are not included in the CoL or our database are hybrids that do not occur spontaneously in the wild. There are several reasons that hybrid taxa are not listed. One is the error you pointed out in the XHansara genus. Even some spontaneous hybrids were once listed but are no longer listed. One popular hybrid taxon, Spiraea x bumalda, is no longer listed in the CoL and no longer warrants an entry in our database even though it is still commonly used by nurseries. It was originally listed because it was a spontaneous hybrid of S. albiflora and S. japonica, but S. albiflora is now a synonym for S. japonica.

The "man-made" hybrids are not listed as hybrid taxa in the CoL or in our database. In some cases, these names came into being because the hybridizer chose to give the new plant a hybrid taxon for its name instead of giving it a cultivar name. In others, the hybrid taxa have been invented by nurseries for marketing purposes.

I don't know the specific reason that Aloe x spinosissima is not listed in the CoL, but I presume it's because it's not a natural hybrid. Perhaps @Baja_Costero, the Aloe mod, can answer that question.

The entry looks good to me. It should be under Agave. I think it's fair to demote xHansara to an also-sold-as name. As Thijs has pointed out, Tony Avent at PDN has a history of coming up with names for things (and not necessarily in a bad way). Let's see how this plays out. I don't know where we draw the lines with inventive naming (through discussion, presumably) but I see no need for an intergeneric entry for xHansara in our database right now regardless, because the parents are all Agave at the moment.

I did put together a reference page for these sorts of close-cousin hybrids in the aloe tribe.

The thread "Intergeneric hybrids in the Aloe tribe" in Cactus and Succulents forum

We can assemble something similar for the agave family if there is sufficient interest/need. Presumably if someone searches for xHansara on the site, they will find this thread and uncover all the gory details. Which makes it useful as a form of documentation.

Aloe x spinosissima is not supposed to be a natural hybrid, as I understand the situation. Correct me if I'm wrong. The subject came up a couple of years ago and we toyed with the idea of creating a cultivar entry named "Spinosissima" just to have an entry for that specific plant. I can't remember the details of that conversation (I think I came out against it) but those images are currently being filed under the generic entry for Aloe, labeled in the comment field ideally. At least that makes them searchable by name with Google, if not within our database. Same for Aloe x nobilis.

I have a question related to this topic. Why is it that none of the orchid nothogenera in the database have an "x" before the name?

Orchids have their own rules, Angelo. The orchid nothogenus and grex do not fit well into our database architecture, so they're handled in a different way. You'll find the same deviations from the rules in other parts of the database as well. Some of the Sempervivum species entries include non-Latin words, for example, and trade names are listed only as alternative cultivar names in the Rose Database because the same rose can have four or five trade names for different countries. It's impossible to have the same strict set of rules for every plant.

Based on this conversation I would like to propose deleting the following unnatural hybrid from the plant database, and using a different name for the various x lomi cultivars, since E. milii x lophogona is a garden hybrid, to the best of my understanding.

Crown of Thorns (Euphorbia x lomi)

I suppose the simplest move would be to merge that entry with the one for E. milii, which already features several hybrids (and I don't think it would be easy to separate them from the true species):

Crown of Thorns (Euphorbia milii)

At the same time, this entry should also be merged with E. milii (or the genus, if we're going to try to sort out hybrids from species here):



There is no cultivar called "Thai hybrid", rather that is an umbrella term, like a common name, used to describe various x lomi type plants which were bred and bred for years in that part of the world, but most not actually named.

I'm not sure what to do about E. x lomi. It is listed in the Catalogue of Life, but the source is Kew, which I personally regard as the least reliable CoL contributor. Is it possible that the E. millii x E. lophogona cross is a natural hybrid as well as a human-assisted one?

I've merged 'Thai Hybrid' with E. millii instead of the genus entry. Merges with a parent plant are a unique headache when the parent plant has a higher plant ID number than the cultivar entry.

I found a nugget referring to "Heidelberger hybrids" on this page

http://www.llifle.com/Encyclop...

which apparently refers to to natural plants found by Werner Rauh in Madagascar, despite the German name. So x lomi would indeed be a natural hybrid, in theory (if only a tiny fraction of the plants in cultivation), and thus that would qualify the x lomi genus for coverage in our database (no idea what Rauh called it).

I left a comment on the entry for that hybrid so that the relevant info is available.

Crown of Thorns (Euphorbia x lomi)

Perfect!