Talk:Lophospermum scandens

Misidentification

There are images of this species in reliable sources available on the web as well as in the article; e.g. here. Unfortunately if you search for "Lophospermum scandens" or one of its synonyms you'll get a lot of results which are clearly not this species; often they will be about some species of Maurandya – quite frequently M. barclayana and not even M. scandens. For example, both of these are said to be Lophospermum scandens 'Mystic Purple':

• [1] – the narrow pointed sepals and the absence of yellow hairs on the folds on the inside of the flower show this is a Maurandya; I suspect a colour form of M. barclayana because the sepals look hairy.
• [2] – clearly a Maurandya as shown by the smooth leaves with an untoothed outline and the absence of yellow hairs on the folds inside the flower; could be either M. barclayana or M. scandens.

Part of the problem is the number of sources (like this) that say that Asarina scandens, Maurandya scandens and Lophospermum scandens are synonyms, which they are not – the first two are, but if L. scandens is placed in Asarina or Maurandya the correct epithet appears to be lophospermum, i.e. either Asarina lophospermum or Maurandya lophospermum.

Armitage's Vines and Climbers correctly notes in the text that Asarina barclayana and Asarina scandens are similar (both are properly Maurandya) and that Asarina lophospermum is also Lophospermum scandens, but then the first image here is labelled "Asarina barclaiana" but is certainly a Lophospermum (note the toothed leaves and hairs on the folds inside the flowers), pretty certainly Lophospermum erubescens (flower colour, length of yellow hairs on the folds).

This is a bit difficult to write about in the article without WP:OR, so I thought I'd put it here as a warning. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:51, 12 August 2014 (UTC)