TAXACOM Digest - 7 Nov 1995 to 8 Nov 1995

[Joseph Laferriere]

William A. Hayes, II, responding to my posting on Latin descriptions,
said,

"We definitely do not want our taxonomic
descendants looking upon us as buffoons...as in Joseph's yellow flower
example. Then, again, buffoonery to us may have been perfectly good
science to them. I guess it is all in your temporal perspective."

Indeed. I was not trying to portray this kind of thing as having been
buffoonery. The type of description my example was imitating was from a
time before priority rules had been invented at all. Thus the authors had
no idea anyone would pay much attention to names they mentioned in
passing like that. Names still get created the same way today, by people
using them informally in print like that, but we consider them nomina
nuda and pay no heed.