Taxacom: botanical names with racist history

[Paul van Rijckevorsel]

On 23/07/2024 03:06, David Campbell via Taxacom wrote:

[...] Given that the taxonomic usage seems to be based on an
     old geographic term, faulting the taxonomic names for later
     derogatory use seems excessive. A note that these names reflect
     the geography and not the racism would seem more in order, [...]

First, these are not necessarily based on an old geographic term, 
forexample, /caffraria/ will be geographic, but /caffrorum/ isn’t, at 
least not grammatically. Secondly, the argument would seem to fit best 
in cases of names based on Rhodesia versus names based on Cecil Rhodes, 
that is, cases of names based on formal names (of countries, etc) that 
are now obsolete. For informal designations, this would seem to quickly 
become very iffy. Paul