aba: fungi imperfecti

[RIDLEYG at fri.cri.nz]

>Why not just give it ONE name, and describe all of its known
>states? Two names is misleading and confusing. If a fungus
>has no known sexual state, just give it a name and say ;
>"no known sexual state" or "sexual state unobserved as yet"
>or something like that. If both states have been observed
>call it X and describe its perfect and imperfect states.
>To lump fungi as different as asco's and basidio's together
>under one classification, just because we haven't seen their
>sexual states, is silly. Come on, let's all take a stand and
>refuse to recognize the deuteromycetes. There are no such things...
 

I do not follow this argument at all? And what do you mean just give it a name, 
surly that is what the deut's are. You make an isolation and obtain an asexual 
state but can not find a sexual form, it appears to be a new species so you go 
to the deut's for a name, a tag, a handle, what ever you want to call it, its a 
means of filing information in a retrievable system. Fifty years later someone 
finds the sexual state, proves the connection between sexual and asexual state, 
it to is a new species so the finder gives it a new asco name. The asco name 
takes precedence and the asexual just become a synonym. What is the problem with
that. 

If you find a new species with both sexual and asexual forms present then you 
give it the asco or basidio name, and make a reference to the deut or form genus
that the asexual form is referable to. No competent taxonomist would propose a 
new asexual binomial as well as the sexual.

We have to be practical and realise the first function of taxonomy is 
information retrieval. And if two names allows this to occur than two names 
there will have to be.



-----------------------------------------------------------
Dr Geoff Ridley                                   
Mycologist/ Forest Pathologist

New Zealand Forest Research Institute          
Private Bag 3020                                  
Rotorua, New Zealand

e-mail: ridleyg at fri.cri.nz
Phone:  +64 7 347 5899
Fax:    +64 7 374 5333