Separating Nomenclature and Classification (use of rank the rank of forma, etc)

[MARK at]

I have just caught up with the discussions on the use of
infraspecific ranks and wanted to back up some of the comments
made.

During the preparation of the Prometheus taxonomic model (Pullan
et al.,Taxon 49(1): 55-75 (2000)) we thrashed out these issues, and
resulted in a model that truely separated nomenclature from
classification. Thomas Lammers rightly comments that these are
distinct and should be treated as such.

We also arrived at the same decision as IPNI, in that names below
the rank of species are, for nomenclatural purposes, trinomials,
irrespective of how they were published. Susan Farmer gave more
details on this, again confirmed by Thomas Lammers.

In Prometheus we link the infraspecific epithet to the specific
epithet, which itself is linked to the generic name (these are termed
'name elements' in our model). This three-level hierarchy necessary
for the construction (concatination) of the name, and is the only
hierarchy present on the nomenclatural side. Other links (to other
infraspecific names, to infra generic names, or to names above
genus) purely convey classification information. This data SHOULD
NOT be included in the nomenclatural side (even ascribing a name
to a family), but represented in the classification side of the
database. The exception to this is that there needs to be a
nomenclatural link the highest rank (to the kingdom etc.) to
indicate which code you should be using, ICBN, ICZN, etc. So to
answer Curtis Clark, the various ranks of infraspecific 'names' are
not hierarchic for nomenclatural purposes, but they should be used
in a hierarchy when constructing a classification.

Regards Mark Watson and Martin Pullan

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Dr Mark F.Watson
Umbelliferae/Apiaceae and Flora of China

Royal Botanic Garden
Edinburgh, EH3 5LR
SCOTLAND, U.K.

Telephone: 0131 248 2828
Facsimile: 0131 248 2901

Electronic Mail: m.watson at rbge.org.uk
Institute Homepage: http://www.rbge.org.uk
Umbellifers Homepage: http://www.umbellifers.com
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