Botanical Nomenclature

[Beach, James H]

Hi --

Code warriors help!

The recent article in Science "Archaefructaceae, a New Basal Angiosperm
Family" by Ge Sun, Qiang Ji, David L. Dilcher, Shaolin Zheng, Kevin C.
Nixon, and Xinfu Wang, and the earlier article last fall on the same subject
did not include latin diagnoses for either of the two species or for the
family.

Are Latin diagnoses no longer required by the botanical code?

also

Would a code guru kindly explain if it makes any difference to the
legitimacy of the taxa if the articles appear on the net in Science Online
before they are distributed in print? I would assume there is no negative
impact, which date is used formally?

Does anyone know if any of the indexes like the Kew Index or Gray Index or
IPNI have captured in their databases any taxa that have only been described
online?  Even as entries describing them as invalid?

I recall that Barry Hammel at MoBot published a new variety I believe in his
web newsletter 'Leaps and Bounds' a copule of years ago, I wonder if any
index or database picked up on it, - sorry I cannot find the name of it.

Thanks,

Jim Beach
Univ. of Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas