linnaeus gets an update

my routine when i post here on STILL blog is to pull up and read the wiki page on my subject before i begin writing. in the ten years since i have started STILL i have noticed a very interesting trend: as genetic testing has become more and more routine, our linnaeus taxonomy of plants, based historically on close observation, are being updated and reclassified with increasing regularity. by example, here is the wiki page for milkweed:

The genus contains over 200 species distributed broadly across Africa, North America, and South America. It previously belonged to the family Asclepiadaceae, which is now classified as the subfamily Asclepiadoideae of the dogbane family, Apocynaceae.

when i started STILL, i rarely saw entries like this. now, i think i see them maybe 30% of the time. sometimes, like above, whole new families need to be created, and sometimes it is just a modification of the genus or species. it’s interesting to think about–an entire genetic mapping of all the flora and fauna of the world has quietly been happening over the past decade.

milkweed in bloom (Asclepias)