In this issue we have decided to use the names for each taxon in I Sorbus i L., as this is the system used in the most recent treatment of the British and Irish taxa (Rich I et al i ., [17]) and in the most recent flora (Stace, [28]), but noting that I Sorbus i in this sense ( I Sorbus sensu lato i ) is certainly not a natural (monophyletic) group. In contrast with other widely recognised genera of Malinae (which are largely monophyletic, i.e. they form a natural group of species that are more closely related to each other than they are to species in other genera), I Sorbus sensu lato i is problematic, as it is certainly polyphyletic, i.e. it consists of lineages that are less closely related to each other than they are to other genera. We point the reader in the direction of some of the important literature in which the complications and the reasons for them are discussed, beginning with a short account of the group of Rosaceae to which these species belong, Rosaceae subtribe Malinae. Rosaceae subtribe Malinae Previously treated as Rosaceae subfamily Maloideae (for a discussion of this, see, e.g., Rich I et al i ., [17], and references therein), Rosaceae subtribe Malinae are now generally considered part of subfamily Amygdaloideae (see, e.g., Sun I et al i ., [29]), sometimes incorrectly called subfamily Spiraeoideae. [Extracted from the article]