Anigozanthos and NCU

[Piers Trehane]

In message  <Pine.SUN.3.91.951025113559.16790A-100000 at quord.agric.nsw.gov.au> fletchm at agric.nsw.gov.au writes:

>In ascribing a new fungus occurring on the genus Anigozanthos [Haemodoraceae]
>I have a problem with the correct genitive singular ending. The root,
>"anthos", is Greek and neuter. The copout is to treat it as masculine and
>use "-oris" or "-eris" (as in corpus or genus). If one sticks to the
>neuter, is the ending simply "-i"? I look forward to opinions from the
>classical scholars amongst us.

On the gender:

Actually, the _real_ cop-out is to the use the gender indicated in Greuter
et al., NCU-3 Names in Current Use for Extant Plant Genera, (Regnum Vegetabile
129) : 57. 1993.

This gives the gender as masculine.  One of the principle aims of the NCU
project is to save the enormous waste of man-hours that has hitherto been
spent on resolving questions such as the one posed above.  One of the reasons
that these questions often take so long to resolve is that "classical scholars"
often disagree amongst themselves on these matters.

I would urge all those concerned with such matters to use the NCU standard
whenever it is possible.   NCU-3 is not perfect (nor does it pretend to be)
but its ideals are sound.

Piers
--
Piers Trehane
"Index Hortensis Project"
piers at indhort.demon.co.uk