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Questions and Answers: 2022

Question: Hello, in today's Plant of the Day (Symphyotrichum lanceolatum), the lead description indicates there are "two subspecies and several varieties." …

• Question

  Hello, in today's Plant of the Day (Symphyotrichum lanceolatum), the lead description indicates there are "two subspecies and several varieties." In layman's terms, could you explain what a subspecies is and how that differs from a variety? Does this have anything to do with a plant's geographic location, unique habitat, or particular genotype? Several folks in my wild plant group are curious about how the terms are applied. Thanks very much!

  Answer

  Dear sldz22, the problem is that there is no universally accepted definition of subspecies or variety and different authors use them completely differently or interchangeably. The only rule to know is that when both are used in a species, subspecies is a higher rank than variety. That all written, a slight majority of authors do use subspecies for infraspecific taxa that have (1) largely different ranges or (2) different ploidy levels (i.e., different numbers of sets of chromosomes). That is what I have done in the Flora Novae Angliae manual. If the above conditions are true, then the rank of subspecies is used, otherwise, it is variety that is used. There is a discussion of this in the introduction of Flora Novae Angliae. Best wishes.