Mononeuria, Minuartia, Arenaria -- groenlandica
As I write July 1, 2024, I note that within the last 30 years, what is now called Greenland Stitchwort (Mononeuria groenlandica) has had at least five different names. i.e., three different scientifc names and two different common names.
Somewhere around 2000, I first learned it as Minuartia groenlandica, or Mountain Sandwort. At the time, that represented a recent scientific name change from Arenaria groenlandica, to differentiate it from a European species. Newcomb's Wildflower Guide (Little, Brown and Company, 1977, p. 276) lists the plant as Arenaria groenlandica.
Gilman's New Flora of Vermont (New York Botanical Garden Press, 2015, p. 281) includes it as Minuartia groenlandica, Mountain Sandwort, as does Ted Elliman's and the then-New England Wildflower Society's Wildflowers of New England (Timber Press, 2016, p. 90).
It's only relatively recently that it has been called Mononeuria groenlandica and Greenland Stitchwort.
GoBotany is still calling it Minuartia groenlandica, rather than Mononeuria groenlandica!
https://gobotany.nativeplanttrust.org/species/minuartia/groenlandica/
Just another comment on how confusing botanical identification can be, but interesting that while the genus name has changed three times, the species appellation, groenlandica, remains constant! :-D
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And just after I posted this, @trscavo, in another thread, wrote:
"I'm afraid another name change is blowing in the wind:
https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:77137484-1"
Yikes!
@cgbb2004 thank you for posting this. It will be useful to link to in comments and so forth.
Thanks, @trscavo! Just this morning, I had an epiphany, long overdue, that I could use journal posts to keep track of some of the historical stuff I include in comments to other iNaturalist participants. Your journal posts about places you visit and research you do have been an inspiration.
Yes, the journal is very useful for things like this. Stuff in the comments of observations tends to get lost.
Thank you for summarizing these name changes. As you pointed out, in this case at least the species appellation has remained unchanged. This is just one of many, many examples of plants for which either the genus or species name has changed, sometimes repeatedly, over the years, while the other name has remained fixed.
There have been some other interesting cases in which the genus name has become the species name, or vice versa, for example Dalibarda repens becoming Rubus dalibarda, Polygonum persicaria becoming Persicaria maculosa, Chrysanthemum leucanthemum becoming Leucanthemum vulgare, and Ranunculus ficaria becoming Ficaria verna.
Most confusing of all is when both names change, for example Habenaria fimbriata becoming Platanthera grandiflora, Dentaria laciniata becoming Cardamine concatenata, Tovara apoensis becoming Persicaria filiformis and, most confusing of all, Solidago ptarmicoides = Solidago asteroides = Aster ptarmicoides = Oligoneuron album!!
It is refreshing to realize that while taxonomists tie themselves in knots debating and changing plant names, the plants themselves don't care at all what we call them, and just keep on growing and blooming... :-)
Oh, my goodness, Tom @tsn -- what interesting examples! I had to read that last one aloud a couple of times just to hear those 29 syllables roll off the tongue!
Personally, I very much enjoy learning about the names of plants. When I create a wikipedia article, the first section I write is the Taxonomy section. (For example, see the taxonomic sections of Trillium crassifolium and Trillium scouleri.) To understand the name is to understand the history of the taxon. Every plant has a story.
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