lechugones

08:55 Dec 26, 2016 

If "dandelion-flowered" means plants whose flowers look like dandelions, then it would include the sow thistles that Canarians call lechugones, but it would also include not only true dandelions, which they call diente de león or dienteleón, but also, for example, Canarian members of the genus Hypochoeris, which are called lechuguillas; they include cat's ear, Hypochoeris radicata, which is found in the Canaries, where it's called lechuguilla de halcón, and is notoriously easy to mistake for a dandelion. Therefore it's broader than the ST term.

20:10 Dec 25, 2016 

I see nothing to suggest that the author's thinking in terms of taxonomic levels here. When they say "lechugones como Babcockia platylepis", they simply mean "lechugones such as, for example, Babcockia platylepis". To me there is nothing there to suggest that "lechugones" is seen here as the name of even a genus, let along a subtribe or tribe. It's simply a group of plants that have the common name "lechugones" in the Canaries: in taxonomic terms, as far as we know from the evidence available, a group of similar species all belonging to the same genus. As for "familia", it seems obvious to me that it's not being used in its formal taxonomic sense, but simply means "groups of related plants".

The idea that this author, or indeed just about any author I could imagine, would be using "lechugones" in its "etymological" sense to mean Lactuceae seems to me exceedingly implausible. I don't think it's even worth considering. And I don't understand why you are suggesting "dandelion-flowered Composites". That term would include all sorts of things, including, of course, dandelions, that are not "lechugones". There's nothing to justify such a broad term.

17:07 Dec 25, 2016 

As I read it, the only species mentioned here that is regarded as a lechugón is Babcockia platylepis. The mish-mash simply reflects the variety of plants one finds in the same area. Personally I don't feel the need to consider a higher taxonomic level than the genus here, but certainly more information about what the author means by lechugones would be helpful, if available.

14:15 Dec 25, 2016 

Yes, I think it's clear that the author isn't a professional (or isn't writing as one). So it's always a bit hard to double-guess what they might mean. I'm not saying this should be translated at the tribe level, just that that's the narrowest level where I can find a name I'm confortable with. You might well be right re genus but, if it mattered, I'd pass some test cases above that level to the author. They have after all given a mish-mash of species, mabe genera, and a family. So who knows what they really mean (perhaps they don't themselves).

11:16 Dec 25, 2016 

Even confining it to Sonchus may be spreading our net too wide. First, there are plenty of sow thistles that are not found in the Canaries at all. And more to the point, there are Canarian sow thistles (e.g. the famous and misnamed “Canarian tree dandelion" Sonchus canariensis) that do not seem to be called lechugones. But I don't think there is a narrower English term available that includes all the plants involved.

11:16 Dec 25, 2016 

I did my best to do so, given the limitations of Internet resources, and found four species that have or can have that common name, though only one of them, Sonchus bupleuroides (formerly Sventenia bupleuroides), the plant that the Canarian regional government presents as the lechugón, is always and only called that. There may be others, but we haven't got any evidence that there are. What these four plants have in common, taxonomically, is that they all belong to the genus Sonchus, the sow thistles.

There is no evidence, and no reason at all to suppose, that "lechugones" refers to any plant outside that genus. Your suggestion that it refers to the Hyoseridinae subtribe is entirely unsupported, and actually easily refuted, since the Canarian species that belong to that subtribe but to genera other than Sonchus have other common names: e.g. Hyoseris radiata (estrella) or Helminthotheca echioides (raspasaya de Canarias).

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11:16 Dec 25, 2016 

I think it's important to mention, first, that this is a description of Canarian flora, not any other flora, and that the author is not a professional taxonomist, or at least is not writing like one. This is clear, for example, from the use of the obsolete generic name Babcockia, which was placed within Sonchus as long ago as the 1970s, a conclusion confirmed by all recent molecular studies, and above all by the reference to "otras familias como Limonium o Globularia", which are of course genera, not families. It is inconceivable that a professional taxonomist would have written this. Indeed, this phrase, which you use (I hope in jest) to suggest that lechugones might be a family such as Compositae, can actually be taken as evidence that it’s a genus, as I suggest, equivalent to Limonium or Globularia.

But actually there is no reason to suppose, a priori, that lechugones refers to a taxon: to all and only the members of a particular genus, subtribe, tribe, etc. The only way of discovering what it does refer to is to investigate which plants are called lechugones in the Canaries.

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11:14 Dec 25, 2016 

Happy Christmas to you too!

Our task here is simple, though not easy. We must try to determine what the author is referring to in using the term lechugones, and then try to find an English equivalent. If possible, we want a term of a similar kind, a common name, not a technical scientific name, and it should be a term that includes all lechugones and doesn't include anything else. If we ignore the latter requirement, it's quite easy. We might as well just put "flowers" and have done with it. But of course we can't ignore it. So we are going to need to set the generic level as low as possible without leaving out anything that the author regards as a lechugón. And I think it's obvious that the author doesn’t have big "lechugas" in mind in this context.

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