Genera Pleurothallidinarum: the era of Carlyle Luer

Abstract

AbstrAct. The era or Carlyle Luer, which currently comprehends the forty-two years since the publication of the first Icones Pleurothallidinarum in 1975, has witnessed a true revolution in the knowledge and understanding of the species belonging to the subtribe. When Luer came into the scene, after more than two hundred years of Pleurothallidinae history, there were just about 4,000 published taxon names in the subtribe, including 52 generic names and barely 1,650 accepted species. Today there are 12,133 published taxon names, including 164 generic names, and 5,114 currently accepted species belonging to the subtribe. This means that during the Luerian era published taxa, accepted or otherwise, were tripled. During this period the rate of species description has been about 85-90 species per year, and there is nothing suggesting this rate will slow down anytime soon. If this trend is maintained, as we believe it will, by the year 2026, the subtribe will include close to six thousand accepted species.

A reappraisal of Neotropical Vanilla. With a note on taxonomic inflation and the importance of alpha taxonomy in biological studies

“…The vast majority of species belonging to very large genera (i.e. Bulbophyllum Thouars, Epidendrum L., Lepanthes Sw. and Stelis Sw.) have been described in relatively recent times (Karremans & Davin 2017). However, Vanilla differs from those genera in four key aspects: a) Vanilla is a highly valued crop and has historically been given much attention botanically, horticulturally and commercially; b) Vanilla species are very conspicuous, they have massive plants with large showy flowers; c) Vanilla species are found in the lowlands, augmenting connectivity and reducing isolation; d) And most importantly, Vanilla belongs to one of the oldest orchid lineages, which have conserved an extremely slow diversification rate (Givnish et al 2015).…”

Colombian Orchidaceae: A Catalogue of the Pleurothallidinae

“…The cited studies find that close to 35% of all Colombian orchids are members of the Pleurothallidinae subtribe, which is the largest subtribe in the Orchidaceae , Pérez-Escobar et al 2017, Pridgeon 2005. This exclusively neotropical group has one of the highest evolutionary diversification rates in the orchid family (Pérez-Escobar et al 2017), and grows at a rate of little less than 100 new species recognized per year (Karremans & Davin 2017). About half of all the Orchidaceae species described yearly in the world belong to this subtribe.…”