Is there such an abbreviation??

[Peter Rauch]

On Fri, 29 Sep 2000, Michael Gerdes wrote:
> sp. denotes species.
> spp. is all inclusive (Past, Present, Future) species

As others have noted, those are simply/only singular/plural in
meaning.

> The reason I am trying to find such an abbrev. deals directly
> with the seed industries in the united states. When moving seed
> back anf forth across the borders random samples of the lot are
> tested for certain noxious weed seeds.  They would like to
> excude certain species which were in the past once of the same
> genera.

It seems that the answer to your question isn't going to be as
simple and elegant as sp/spp might appear to afford.

The problem you describe is more demanding than that --from both
the economic and taxonomic basis. Names change, and opinions vary
(even at one moment in time), as others also have noted. So, if
you _really_ want to be explicitly clear and unambiguous about
which species of seeds are included in a sample, you would have
to name them explicitly, and/or indicate whose classification(s)
you are using as the source of those names (opinions). And, for
good measure, the agencies would keep vouchers of those samples
on permanent record as well.

Peter