A zoologist asks: botanical names practice

[Frederick W. Schueler]

Mary Barkworth wrote:

> I know of no good reason for citing the date of publication. I do see a
> good reason to state what references you used for identifying the plants
> (even if you just knew the plants you could cite some work that others
> less knowledgeable could use.

* amen. It's always seemed to me that it would be a more useful practice
to cite the authority you're following for the application and extent of
a name, rather than a ritual account of the original authorship, which
doesn't directly point the reader to a particular publication and isn't
necessarily related to the species limits that are meant to be
associated with the name and its type specimen. Pseudacris triseriata
(Weid) - does this mean I include P. maculata in the same species or
not? Who can tell - but surely that's the contemporary question about
any use of this name? P. triseriata (Platz, 1989) on the other hand,
states explicitly what species limits you endorse.

fred.
------------------------------------------------------------
           Bishops Mills Natural History Centre
Frederick W. Schueler, Aleta Karstad, Jennifer Helene Schueler
      RR#2 Bishops Mills, Ontario, Canada K0G 1T0
   on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44* 52'N 75* 42'W
     (613)258-3107 <bckcdb at istar.ca> http://pinicola.ca
------------------------------------------------------------
subscribe to the Eastern Ontario Natural History list-serve
by sending "subscribe eobm-nat" in the body of a message to
<majordomo at mail2.storm.ca>
------------------------------------------------------------