Inflorescence - Peduncle

[Paterson, Trevor]

This issue is a very old chestnut:

Unless people suscribe to a shared terminology (i.e. agree shared  definitions of  structures, states, measurement units etc.) they will never be able to share  and compare data meaningfully.

We have a paper coming out in Taxon soon about this, and a rather more technical/computer modelling paper available online:

Paterson, T., Kennedy, J.B., Pullan, M.R., Cannon, A., Armstrong, K., Watson, M.F., Raguenaud, C., McDonald, S.M., Russell, G.: A Universal Character Model and Ontology of Defined Terms for Taxonomic Description. Proc. Data Integration in the Life Sciences (DILS 2004) (ed. E. Rahm) in: Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics 2994 (2004) pp63-78

http://www.dcs.napier.ac.uk/~prometheus/prometheus_2/publications/Paterson_etal_DILS.pdf
  


Trevor Paterson PhD 
t.paterson at napier.ac.uk <mailto:t.paterson at napier.ac.uk>  

School of Computing 
Napier University
Merchiston Campus
EDINBURGH
EH10 5DT
Scotland UK

tel:          +44 (0)131 455-2752 

www.dcs.napier.ac.uk/~cs175
<http://www.dcs.napier.ac.uk/~cs175> www.prometheusdb.org <http://www.prometheusdb.org>  



>-----Original Message-----
>From: Taxacom Discussion List [mailto:TAXACOM at LISTSERV.NHM.KU.EDU]On
>Behalf Of Richard Jensen
>Sent: 06 December 2004 16:06
>To: TAXACOM at LISTSERV.NHM.KU.EDU
>Subject: Re: [TAXACOM] Inflorescence - Peduncle
>
>
>Curtis Clark wrote:My general tendency is to call everything 
>basal to the
>pedicels and
>
>> terminal to the first foliage-leaf-bearing node the 
>peduncle, but it's
>> worth noting that the stalk of a grass spikelet, tecnically 
>a peduncle,
>> is usually called a pedicel.
>
>If the stalk of the individual spikelet is a pedicel, then 
>what is the stalk
>of the entire inflorescence?  And, what about grasses that have
>single-flowered spikelets, e.g., Zizania?  Is the stalk of the 
>spikelet then
>a pedicle and the stalk of the inflorescence a peduncle?
>
>A grain of wisdom would come in handy about now.
>
>Dick
>
>Dick
>--
>Richard J. Jensen              | tel: 574-284-4674
>Department of Biology      | fax: 574-284-4716
>Saint Mary's College         | e-mail: rjensen at saintmarys.edu
>Notre Dame, IN 46556    | http://www.saintmarys.edu/~rjensen
>