Never thought I would be able to contribute to this list, but since we're talking botanical nomenclature, and since we're being pedantic... If you want to standardise botanical names you want to follow the standard that matters most in botanical nomenclature, the ICBN, including its recommendations.
- Author citations are not there to make a name look more scientific, but are an essential part of a scientific name. They make the name unique; without authorship they not necessarily are. Officially, a scientific name without authorship is not a scientific name.
- Pinus pinus is not an autonym, but a tautonym. In botanical nomenclature tautonyms are not valid.
- Autonyms do serve a purpose: Acacia dealbata Link. subsp. dealbata indicates a different taxon than Acacia dealbata Link.
- Autonyms do in fact have authors, namely the author(s) of the earliest infraspecific name of the same rank (with the same parent). While authors of infraspecific autonyms are rarely used, you'll need to cite them for 'infrainfraspecific' autonyms. So, Garovaglia powellii Mitt. subsp. powellii, but Garovaglia powellii var. muelleri (Hampe) During (var. muelleri was created as an authonym of Garovaglia powellii subsp. muelleri).
- Just because botanists often cite authors after both the specific and infraspecific epithets doesn't make it right, in fact it's wrong. The authorship of a specific name has got nothing to do with the infraspecific name; you might as well cite the author of the generic name too. So, Centaurea apiculata subsp. adpressa (Ledeb.) Dostál, not Centaurea apiculata Ledeb. subsp. adpressa (Ledeb.) Dostál (it is also 'subsp.', not 'ssp.'). Unfortunately, also Index Kewensis (in IPNI) cites authors of specific names in infraspecific names; TROPICOS (or APNI), fortunately, does not.
- One also should only use the lowest-ranked infraspecific epithet: Garovaglia powellii var.muelleri (Hampe) During, not Garovaglia powellii subsp. muelleri (Hampe) During var. muelleri. Centaurea affinis Ledeb. subsp. affinis var. affinis is not a name but a classification, albeit a very shallow one.
Sorry for the lecturing.
Niels
Niels Klazenga Pacific Dunlop Research Fellow/Bryologist National Herbarium of Victoria, Royal Botanic Gardens Birdwood Avenue South Yarra, VIC 3141 Australia Tel: (03) 9252 2369 Fax: (03) 9252 2350 e-mail: Niels.Klazenga@rbg.vic.gov.au
Jim Croft 11/19/10 4:17 PM >>>
Also gently, botanists generally don't do Pinus pinus or Pinus pinus pinus. We do Pinus patula var. patula (or Pinus patula subsp. patula). These are autonyms that are not published as such but come into existence 'automagically' when another variety or subspecies is described. They do not actually serve any useful purpose other than to alert you that there are other varieties or subspecies in this species to be aware of and that you are not dealing with them in this case.
In the hypothetical instance above, you could assume that 'Pinus patula' referred to Pinus patula var. patula and you might be right. But it might also refer to the the range of variation covered by the other varieties as well. To resolve this you really need some other contextual information such as whether you are dealing with broader concept or the narrower one before or after the other components were excised from or added to the mix.
If you were goign to invent a taxonomic and nomenclatural system from scratch, with the benefit of hindsight and the absence of legacy practice, there is no way on earth you would ever do it like this... :)
jim
On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 3:06 PM, Paul Murray wrote:
It has just been gently explained to me the Pinus pinus is not an
autonym, although Pinus pinus pinus is. I suppose this underscores the point that IT people building systems and webpages out of this data will tend not to get it right if just given the data fields.
On 19/11/2010, at 1:08 PM, Paul Murray wrote:
some quick additions to my previous mail in haste:
I am referring to the new Darwin Core as referred to be Tony, not
the ontology/tdwg vocabulary which predates the latest Darwin Core.
When dealing with hybrid formulas and informal conceptual hints like
sensu strictu/latu a full namestring is also useful. For determination derived artifacts like cf. or aff. darwin core has an identificationQualifier term: http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/index.htm#identificationQualifier
And there really is no need for a canonicalName term as I suggested
below as we have the 3 parts (Genus, specificEpithet, infraspecificEpithet) already as atoms.
This is an issue we are struggling with now. Getting from the data
items and flags to a correctly laid out name string is not at all trvial.
For botanical names, if the third term of the name is not a ssp, then
you need the rank:
A-us b-us var. d-usThere may also be a hybrid mark, which may appear .... actually, I
need to confirm this: I think it may appear right at the front, or it may appear in front of the terminal epithet - I'm not sure whther it replaces the rank code or has to appear on one side of it:
X A-us b-us var. d-us A-us b-us var. X d-us A-us b-us X var. d-usTo correctly compose botanical names, there is a rule that is
different from the zoological rule: for autonyms, the botanists prefer that the authority string appear after the "root" name, not after the whole name:
zoological - Vombatus ursinus ursinus Mike botanical - Pinus L. pinusAnd so you need to know a) is the name an autonym? and b) is it
botanical?
Cultivar names may be introduced with a psudeo-rank of "cv." or by
putting the cultivar name in quotes. Cultivar names are not italicised. And this is not even to begin discussing hybrids and grafts. Oh - and I believe that sometimes zoologists like the family name in square brackets in front of the name. And there's also nomenclatural status/qualifier: "nom. cons." etc.
And so on and so forth. Lord only knows how virologists name their
taxa.
The difficulty is: we want our data to be useable by web
applications, which is why we produce JSON. It's not sensible to expect that every javascript programmer is going to get this stuff right. We cannot simply give enough data that - if you know all the rules - you can get it correct. What we have concluded is that our data needs to have an item in it that will permit a programmer to easily render the name correctly, and that this needs to be separate from the fields as data.
There are a couple of options so far:
- an array or RDF "list" of components, each component being an
object with a string and some sort of indicator as to whether it should be italicised or not
- a format string into which the components of the name are
substituted.
For instance: the format string for a subspecies might be "{G} {s}
{e}" (e for epithet), wheras that for a form or variety would be "{G} {s} {r} {e}". We would wind up with - hopefully - a manageable list of formats.
- an XHTML literal (rdf:parseType="literal"), making use of span
elements and css classes to permit finer control over formatting. XHTML is the applcable standard for formatted text.
We would use tags where appropriate, so that with no css at all the
scientific name still comes out correctly. Thus:
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