[Taxacom] Why stability? - Revisited

[Stephen Thorpe]

@Paul: That wasn't my attitude! My "attitude" had nothing directly to do with types. Rather, I was trying to point out that many species are distinctive enough to be able to be recognised again, on the basis of having seen just one specimen. That specimen need not be a type. It need not even be a described species. The point is that since you can't really get a "circumscription" out of a single specimen, it is quite possible to identify species without there being any kind of "circumscription"/"concept" involved.

Stephen

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On Mon, 4/5/15, Paul van Rijckevorsel <dipteryx at freeler.nl> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Why stability? - Revisited
 To: "TAXACOM" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
 Received: Monday, 4 May, 2015, 11:56 PM
 
 I was a little uneasy why Stephen
 Thorpe's attitude
 that taxa are defined by types is so alien to me.
 
 But it is very straightforward: from the very first
 the 'botanical' Code has laid down that nomenclatural
 types are not necessarily the most typical or 
 representative element of a taxon (that is, holding 
 only the type, it is not possible to predict with any 
 degree of confidence what the taxon exactly looks 
 like: the type is only the type) .
 
 For plants there does exist a situation where the whole 
 unit is determined by a reference specimen, namely in 
 the ICNCP (Cultivated-plant-Code), resulting in names 
 of the type Hydrangea macrophylla 'La France'.
 
 The ICNCP deals with a field of considerable complexity 
 (and which does benefit from regulation), but taxonomy
 is not involved.
 
 Paul
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