[Taxacom] Linnaean names - posted on behalf of Dr Charlie Jarvis

[Steve Cafferty]

Dear Colleagues

To coincide with the tercentenary of Linnaeus’ birth, the Linnaean Plant Name Typification Project will, in May 2007, be publishing a major work entitled Order out of Chaos - Linnaean Plant Names and their Types. This will be the culmination of the work of many years and will, apart from much new explanatory material, also include individual records for all Linnaean names that relate to binomials that fall under the remit of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature. For each of these names, the place of publication, stated provenance, type collection and place of type designation, current name etc. will be provided, together with relevant explanatory notes. 

During the last two years, an intensive programme of data checking has been under way in order to include previously overlooked references etc. and, for example, to explain and account for the type choices that are being accepted in the Project’s publications. The Linnaean Project’s website (http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/projects/linnaean-typification/databasehome.html) has recently been updated and now includes much revised information (although in a more restricted form than will appear in the book). Many of you have been kind enough to point out errors and omissions in these online records since this database became available in this way and I am writing now to ask for your assistance in scrutinising these data ahead of their incorporation into the book. 

In order to improve the quality of these data, I would like to ask if you might be able to find time to look at the online database records for Linnaean names in those plant groups with which you are familiar, and let us know of any errors or omissions. It is inevitable that some relevant references containing type designations will have been overlooked, and we would be delighted to hear of any you may know of. If you do have comments, please can you send these, if at all possible by 16 October 2006, to my colleague, Katherine Challis (k.challis at nhm.ac.uk) who is currently collating such matters. 

Many thanks for your help

With best wishes 

Sincerely

Charlie

Dr Charlie Jarvis

Collections Information Group
Department of Botany
Natural History Museum
Cromwell Road
London SW7 5BD, U.K.
email: c.jarvis at nhm.ac.uk