I will refer to my post regarding the use of plant lists without actually trying to check the sources on which these plant lists are based, so as not to repeat myself:
http://garden.org/thread/view_...
I realize that to keep the database here in some kind of reasonable shape one has to refer to a list, but it seems highly inconsistent to not allow a plant variety that just about every expert in the Agave world will recognize as separate to have its own database entry, but then to allow separate entries for the oodles and oodles of cultivars, hybrids, and such that I also for the live of me cannot find in the CoL... and many of which are often mistakenly entered: For example: Agave parryi 'Ohi Kissho ten Nishiki' based on the picture associated with in the database is a form of Agave potatorum not Agave parryi. Agave parryi 'Hammer Time' which gives as synonym agave leopoldi, is not a synonym of Agave xleopoldi cv. 'Hammer Time', that name should actually be Agave xleopoldi cv. 'Hammer Time', that plant has nothing in common with Agave parryi except for also being an Agave.
I have looked for the source of why A. parryi var. truncata was declared a synonym and to me it seems exactly what I argue in the post I refer to: the list that Kew and the CoL use in which the Agaves are listed was compiled by 3 people, none of which I have ever come across in popular or scientific literature directly related to Agaves. Kew actually lists more sources and even a more recent source where this name is accepted vs. the source that declared it a synonym, but clearly has decided to follow its own compiled list over the lists compiled by other institutions. The most recent treatise compiled by someone who is a known expert in the field: Fritz Hochstätter even elevates A. parryi truncata to the status of subsp.:
http://issuu.com/fhnavajo/docs.... Three of the big US based botanical institutions that maintain large collections of Agaves (The Phoenix Desert Botanical Garden, The AZ Sonoran Desert Museum, and the Huntington Botanical Garden) all recognize A. parryi var truncata as a scientifically accepted plant name.
