Dryandra ser. Aphragma

Dryandra" ser. "Aphragma is an obsolete series within the former genus "Dryandra" (now "Banksia" ser. "Dryandra"). It was first published at sectional rank by Robert Brown in 1830, and was retained at that rank until 1999, when Alex George demoted it to a series. It was discarded in 2007 when Austin Mast and Kevin Thiele sank "Dryandra" into "Banksia".
According to Brown.
"Aphragma" was first published by Brown in his 1830 "Supplementum primum prodromi florae Novae Hollandiae". Brown's arrangement divided "Dryandra" into three groups according to what Brown perceived to be variations in the number of seed separators. He allowed for these groups to be treated at subgenus or section rank, but they are now treated as having been published as sections.
"D." sect. "Aphragma" was defined as containing four species which Brown thought lacked seed separators. The epithet "Aphragma" is from the Greek "a-" ("without") and "phragma" ("barrier"). The placement and circumscription of "D." sect. "Aphragma" in Brown's 1830 arrangement may be summarised as follows:
According to Meissner.
In 1856, Carl Meissner published a revision of "Dryandra". He retained all three of Brown's sections, and the circumscription given to "D." sect. "Aphragma" was much the same, the only differences being the demotion of "D. blechnifolia" to a variety of "D. pteridifolia", and the inclusion of "D. drummondii" (now "B. drummondii"), which had been published in 1848. The placement and circumscription of "D." sect. "Aphragma" in Meissner's arrangement thus looks like this:
According to Bentham.
"D." sect. "Aphragma" was retained by George Bentham in his 1870 arrangement, making it the only one of Meissner's infrageneric taxa not to be discarded. However, Bentham reasoned that the single seed separator in "D." sect. "Eudryandra" was formed by the joining together of the outer seed coat of each seed; and therefore both "D. bipinnatifida", in which there appears to be two plates, and "D." sect. "Aphragma", in which there appears to be none, represent failure of the seed coats to join. On these grounds he transferred "D. bipinnatifida" into "D." sect. "Aphragma". Thus "D." sect. "Aphragma" was redefined as containing those species in which "Outer integuments of the two seeds not connate or readily separable from each other." He also noted that the members of this section have large involucres with many broad bracts, giving them "a different aspect from all others of the genus".
The placement and circumscription of "D." sect. "Aphragma" in Bentham's arrangement is as follows:
Bentham's arrangement would stand for well over a hundred years, with one minor exception. In 1903 Otto Kuntze challenged "Dryandra" on the grounds that the name "Josephia" had preceded it. In the process of transferring "Dryandra" into "Josephia", Kuntze published the name "Josephia" sect. "Aphragma" . This was rejected, however, and "J." sect. "Aphragma" is now considered a nomenclatural synonym of "D." ser. "Aphragma".
According to George.
In 1996, Alex George demoted "D." sect. "Aphragma" to a series within "D." subg. "Dryandra". He did not accept the previous definitions of the series, but nonetheless accepted the basic circumscription as sound; he instead used a range of flower, seed and leaf characters. The placement and circumscription of "D." ser. "Aphragma" in George's arrangement, as amended in 1999 and 2005, may be summarised as follows:
Recent developments.
Since 1998, Austin Mast has been publishing results of ongoing cladistic analyses of DNA sequence data for the subtribe Banksiinae. His analyses have provided compelling evidence of the paraphyly of "Banksia" with respect to "Dryandra"; that is, it seems that "Dryandra" arose from within the ranks of "Banksia". Early in 2007, Mast and Kevin Thiele initiated a rearrangement of "Banksia" by sinking "Dryandra" into it as "B." ser. "Dryandra". This transfer necessitated the setting aside of George's infrageneric arrangement of "Dryandra"; thus "D." ser. "Aphragma" is no longer current. Mast and Thiele have foreshadowed publishing a full arrangement once DNA sampling of "Dryandra" is complete.