Re: Re: Dasylirion ID

Angela,
I just returned from hearing a talk on the genus Dasylirion by David
Bogler of the Missouri Botanic Garden. He did his Ph.D. dissertation at
the University of Texas on this genus, and we used his taxonomic
treatment in our book for this group. His talk was great, but I am even
more confounded by some of this group than before. He now maintains that
there are two species, D. quadrangulatum and D. longissimum, and I am
bit uncertain on the distinctions between the two, although D.
quadrangulatum is much larger and looked more like plants that are sold
here under the name D. longissimum. You are right to be suspicious of D.
glaucophyllum simply on the blue-green leaves, there are vast
populations of D. wheeleri that are very blue-grey and almost as pale as
D. cedrosanum. He swears he is going to publish a monograph soon on thsi
group based on both his dissertation (unpublished) and his continued
work on them. We can only hope. Best regards,
Mary Irish


angelopalm69 wrote:

>  Thanks Mary for your reply. My question born from the fact that here,
>
> in Italy, there's a lot of confusion in the nursery trade, on the
> names of these plants. For what I know, D.serratifolium is a smallish
> plant, pratically trunkless, with a short spike too. I have not seen
> one (true) on the flesh, but Catania BG has one that fits with these
> features. Instead acrotriche is a large plant, with often decumbent
> trunks, as I have seen on very old specimens here and there in the
> south of Italy. But nurseries call it serratifolium, probably because
> for us Italian the name means with serrate (margins) leaves, thus
> easy to connect with that plant. For the same reason the blue ones
> are called glaucophyllum that means with blue leaves, but I am pretty
> sure they are wheeleri, even because old plants are that large you
> say and have that spines too. Other confusion on D.quadrangulatum or
> longissimum. I have find more then one people insisting on tell me
> there are two different species and the best of these has also spoken
> of another species D triangularis !!!! And another common mistake
> here is to call Nolina longifolia as D.longifolia (also grammatically
> wrong as it should be longifolius)
>
> For Tom, the mix that works for you for the blue Encephalartos will
> work well for Dasylirion too. However, they don't have fleshy
> taproots but fasciculate.
>
> Angelo
>
>
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