The Genus Lophiolepis Is at Least as Well Supported as Afrocarduus, Afrocirsium, and Nuriaea. Comment on Moreyra et al. African Mountain Thistles: Three New Genera in the Carduus-Cirsium Group. Plants 2023, 12, 3083

Moreyra and co-authors, in their recent paper published in <i>Plants</i>, presented a desperately needed Hyb-Seq phylogeny of the genus <i>Cirsium sensu lato</i>. Through their findings, they provided a critical assessment of an earlier proposal of ours to separate <i>Cirsium</i> sect. <i>Eriolepis</i> and <i>Cirsium italicum</i> into the genera <i>Lophiolepis</i> and <i>Epitrachys</i>, respectively. While we fully respect their right not to accept our proposal, we cannot remain silent to their arguments that not only misinterpret our findings and statements but are often in direct conflict with their own results that actually support our proposal to segregate <i>Lophiolepis</i>. In addition, as Moreyra and co-authors did not include <i>Epitrachys italica</i> (formerly <i>Cirsium italicum</i>) in their analyses; they have no basis for arguing in favour or against our proposal to separate it as a monotypic genus. Finally, we conclude that the genus <i>Cirsium</i>, as circumscribed by the above-mentioned authors (i.e., including <i>Lophiolepis</i>), is definitively not monophyletic.