[Taxacom] Unexpectedly wide discrepancies in cited taxon authorities - examples sought

[Paul van Rijckevorsel]

Yes, this is an aspect that does not get enough attention. A few years
after the Brummitt & Powell book with standard abbreviations for
botany (sensu lato) came out I compiled a list for my personal use
for the conversion of abbreviations as they traditionally are found
in the literature to the new standard. This was a list that was quite
modest in scope and I am sure others could do better, but as far
as I can tell nobody posted such a list?

In botany the question of who must be credited is governed by the
Code, which is retroactive; this means that any change in the
relevant provisions may lead to alterations in authorship. But, again,
there appears to be no list of cases (the alteration of "H.B.K" to
"Kunth" is a prominent one).

What is not mentioned are "isonyms", cases where one and the
same name (same taxon) was published by different authors.
This happened a lot in the early days, when there were
well-known plants which had to be formally named under the
new nomenclature. However, it also happened later. Recently,
my attention was drawn to the case of the "plate-with-analysis" /
"illustration-with-analysis" by Pierre. For a number of the
species he discovered, Pierre had an illustration printed which
he distributed in low numbers to herbaria and colleagues. His
colleagues did not accept the names on these illustrations as
published, and for the sake of getting these taxa named timely
(so that they were known), published names themselves (usually
giving Pierre credit for the discovery, and sometimes using the
same names as proposed by Pierre, sometimes not). These
names are now in use. This feeling that a "plate-with-analysis" /
"illustration-with-analysis" was not a proper way of publishing
names led to the 1905 Vienna Congress laying down the Rule
that "plates accompied with analyses" did not count if published
in 1908 or later. However, under the Code the illustrations by
Pierre (being, probably, all distributed before 1908) would have
to be taken under consideration; also it would be nice to accord
Pierre the official credit for discovery. On the other hand,
obviously, doing so at this late stage would upset a great deal
of existing names (number unknown, but perhaps up to two
hundred? Some of these are well-known). The matter is up
for adjudication now
(http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iapt/tax/2011/00000060/00000001/art00034).
Big mess, but not necessarily all that exceptional, as old books,
that were disregarded at the time, are 'rediscovered' with
some frequency.

Paul


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Tony.Rees at csiro.au>
To: <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Cc: <dmozzherin at eol.org>
Sent: Saturday, March 03, 2012 12:18 AM
Subject: [Taxacom] Unexpectedly wide discrepancies in cited taxon
authorities - examples sought


Dear Taxacomers,

In the process of comparing taxonomic names across multiple lists I
frequently encounter minor discrepancies in cited authorities, as you would
expect (over and above simple abbreviated names vs. names spelled out in
full, presence/absence of initials and ancillary terms, etc.), which I
attempt to reflect in an "authority similarity" portion of my cross mapping
routines for taxonomic names. However there is the occasional spectacular
mismatch for a good reason, which I would like to also account for if
possible, so that taxa which are in fact the same do not get artificially
separated by this process. I have two examples in mind, and am hoping
persons on this list might be able to suggest others if they exist.

The first example is probably symptomatic of a class of authors with
multi-part names, or alternative forms of representation: I am thinking here
of the 19th century naturalist [Francis de] Laporte de Castelnau, whose taxa
are variously ascribed to either Laporte or Castelnau, or sometime both
(i.e. the full name). [Jean Baptiste] Bory de Saint-Vincent is probably
another similar case, being represented either as Bory, Bory de
Saint-Vincent (or St.-Vincent), or just Saint-Vincent.

The second class is exemplified by the taxa described in the 1798 work
"Museum Boltenianum...", originally attributed to Bolten, 1798 but more
recently to Röding, 1798 (or [Röding], 1798) following an ICZN ruling on the
matter: thus for this purpose, the author attributions Bolten and Röding are
effectively interchangeable for data cross-mapping purposes in these cases.

I would be interested in other examples of these classes of "authority
synonyms" which, if sufficiently noteworthy, I could encode into
rules/special cases to be followed before doing the remainder of my
authority matching.

Regards,

Tony Rees
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