group vs catagory

[John McNeill]

Kipling Will makes a valid point and I see that I was unclear in my
explanation of "culton" relative to "taxon".  The word "taxon" is indeed
a replacement for "taxonomic group" (and "culton" can be thought of as a
replacement for "cultivated taxonomic group"), but I should have said
that *a* taxon (my emphasis) is "any taxonomic group" -- e.g. "the
white-flowered plants are not generally recognized nowadays as a
distinct taxon and instead are treated as a culton, being assigned to
the cultivar, 'Alba'"   The terms "taxon" and "culton" thus allow one to
discuss a taxonomic group without specifying any particular taxonomic
(or "cultonomic") category -- the white-flowered plants above, might
have been named in the past as "var. _alba_", "forma _alba_" etc. etc.
John McNeill
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      John McNeill, Director Emeritus, Royal Ontario Museum,
      100 Queen's Park, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2C6, Canada.
      Telephone and fax number:  416-586-5744
      e-mail: johnm at rom.on.ca
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______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: group vs catagory
Author:  Kipling Will <kww4 at CORNELL.EDU> at Internet
Date:    14/12/98 9:18 AM


Since there seems to be a good many readers interested in precise use of
terms, I wanted to point
out that in a recent post the following was written:


<Just as "taxon" means "taxonomic group", and is the term to cover all
such, e.g.
<species, genera, familiae etc.,


The terms group and category are confused. A taxonomic group is just that,
a group (with
more or less definite boundaries) such as Pterostichus stygicus,
Pterostichus, Pterostichini or Carabidae. A taxonomic category is the
level, e.g., species, genus, tribe or family. No matter how you define a
genus group, the genus category is a level between family and species that
contains one or more species. See Blackwelder, 1967,  _Taxonomy; a text and
reference book_. New York, Wiley. , for many clear examples as to why this
is important. Also, I would recommend this reference to anyone interested
in systematics/taxonomy. The text includes issues regarding the kinds of
types and the process of naming etc. Of course some things have changed in
the last 22 years, but the notions of philosophy and terminology remain
potent. If more people would read his clear discussions on many topics we
would see fewer errors of this type in journals such as Systematic Biology
and Cladistics.

have a great day
kip