[Taxacom] Plant names

[Tony Rees]

However, an important distinction between IPNI, just mentioned, and other
resources such as Plants of the World Online (POWO) and others mentioned
below, is that IPNI is a "nomenclator" and records names (e.g. binomials
for species) and their author, place and year of publication, but does not
attempt to distinguish between current ("accepted") and non-current names,
i.e. include synonymies for any particular taxon, which is where
discrepancies can arise on account of varying taxonomic opinions now, or
changes in the same through time. These are however attempted to be tracked
by taxonomic catalogues, of which POWO is one, Tropicos is another, and
Catalogue of Life is a global synthesis of source - though for the latter
one should check which secondary taxonomic compilation it is using for any
particular sector, in case it is one that you do not prefer, or is simply
out-of-date or not "expert assessed". All/any of these may agree or
disagree, or be "incorrect", at any particular time, either because they
contain errors (occasionally), follow different preferred treatments, or
have become outdated by recent work. Which to follow? My "go to" is mostly
POWO at the moment, but I also check this against recent literature and
other resources to check that it is offering what appears to be the current
or consensus view, and if something does look current or correct, use my
own judgement and/or contact the POWO editors in case they have missed
something.

Regards - Tony

Tony Rees, New South Wales, Australia
https://about.me/TonyRees
www.irmng.org


On Thu, 11 Feb 2021 at 03:31, Tom Schweich via Taxacom <
taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> wrote:

> I have a similar issue, in that the agency I primarily work with uses
> the USDA plant symbols, yet some plants I am finding on their lands are
> not listed by USDA, or are listed as a synonym. I generally use the
> names from Flora of North America, since my collections are nearly all
> North American.   That should work with North American knotweed since
> that volume is published
> (http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=126398). For
> those taxa not listed in USDA Plants, I put "XXXX" in the USDA symbol
> field of the data I send to the agency.  I think the closest thing to a
> global catalog would be the International Plant Name Index (IPNI at
> https://www.ipni.org/). I have used IPNI quite a bit, though mostly for
> tracing historic plant names.
>
> --
> tomas at schweich.com
> http:\\www.schweich.com
> Mobile: 510-701-3418
>
>
> On 2/9/2021 11:28 AM, Joey Slowik via Taxacom wrote:
> > So this may be a simple question. I'm helping with a Knotweed EA and
> > have realized that the recent publications all use a different name
> > than the USDA. The USDA plants database, which is what we are told to
> > use for reference, seems outdated, like 10+ years. And for some names
> > there seems to be no justification but historical use. Is there a
> > reason for this? I usually work with spiders and there is a general
> > consensus on accepted names from the World Spider Catalog. But is
> > there debate in the plant naming world? Is it ok to use old names?
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > Jozef Slowik
> > UAF Cooperative Extension Service
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