Abstract Key Word?

Curtis Clark jcclark at CSUPOMONA.EDU
Wed Jan 3 12:41:28 CST 1996


At 09:41 AM 1/3/96 -0500, Michael Hubbard (mhubbard at ns1.famu.edu) wrote:
>Mike Ivie asked how to refer to a taxon placed back into a genus in
>which it had been before.
>
>I always refer to this as NEW COMBINATION, using the concept of "new"
>meaning different, not "new" meaning brand new. (I can buy a new car,
>even though it's several years old). Admittedly, this use is not
>particularly enlightening, but it seems to be the way English is.

Maybe this is a difference between the zoological code and the botanical
code, but in the botanical code something is "new" only if it never existed
before, and clearly in this case it did.  If you were to make such a "new
combination", who would be the author?  You, or the person who originally
described it?  For example:

    Ivieia neocalifornica Ross, 1804

moved to Xantusia by Edward D. Cope, as

    Xantusia neocalifornica (Ross), 1875

(if it were a plant, it would be Xantusia neocalifornica (Ross) Cope, with
the author making the change included in the citation)

Now you're "moving it back" to Ivieia.  Is it

    Ivieia neocalifornica Ross, 1804 [the original name]

as I contend, or

    Ivieia neocalifornica (Ross) [Hubbard], 1996

as you seem to imply?

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