"ex" in authorship was: "fide" in authorship

[Mats Wedin]

This is really rather simple: The tradition has been that if, say, a
monographer of a genus publish a major work (which would be authored
by the monographer), other workers on the same group could be invited
to publish their new species there (and still be the formal author of
the name) rather than in works of their own. These names would then
by clear cases of "in". The same goes for co-authored names in
single-authored books and papers. If, however, the monographer would
find a specimen of a previously undescribed species in a herbarium,
that another worker had given an unpublished name, the monographer
would often acknowledge this by using this name and attributing it to
this other worker (a case of "ex"). The author of the name would of
course formally be the monographer, thus "Smith ex Jones" is
shortened to Jones.

best

Mats Wedin

>This raises another question. The zoological usage of "ex" as "derived from"
>or "credited to" is what one would expect from the Latin "ex". The botanical
>usage "published by" is anti-intuitive, the more so since "Smith in Jones"
>is shortened to "Smith" while "Smith ex Jones" is shortened to Jones.
>
>I have long wondered what is the background of this botanical usage and how
>it came to be. Does anybody know?
>
>Best,
>Paul van Rijckevorsel


--
Dr Mats Wedin, docent, PhD
Senior Researcher (Swedish Research Council) in Systematics
Dept. of Ecology and Environmental Science (Inst. för Ekologi och geovetenskap)
Umeå University
SE-901 87 Umeå
Sweden

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