It's still frustrating. The second of your IPNI links does not give the status of the name. The first says status illegitimate.

The Plant List entry calling A. angustifolia an accepted name offers a link to "full publication details," and that links to the IPNI saying that A. angustifolia is a synonym of A. longifolia.

http://www.theplantlist.org/tp...

http://www.ipni.org/ipni/idPla...

That is under 'Links' zuzu. The link is to the illegitimate entry of Asimina longifolia Kral.

Look at the info under Record History, each entry there if clicked on gives a reference under the name at the top for the date given. If you click on the first link under history it gives "Asimina angustifolia Rafin", it gives the progression through each update. It's the last link which is the most recent.

The current taxonomic details are found on the bottom link "View this record in TCS-RDF format" but you have to select the latest record under history first. Each record under history will give different details in the TCS-RDF.

So, select "Barker: (A) collation reformatted made on 2011-07-07 16:38:58.0 " under record history which is the most recent, then click the TCS-RDF link.

http://www.ipni.org/ipni/plant...

http://www.ipni.org/ipni/plant...

But it still doesn't give the status of the name in the record history.

Authorship

tn:authorship Raf.

Publication

tcom:publishedIn Autik. Bot. 77. 1840
tn:year 1840

First in time takes priority. The record from 1840 is the one which is accepted and which is listed as accepted in The Plant List. There is no earlier reference in any other publication. It's the "root" publication.

Odd. I would think that the most recent records would take precedence over earlier ones. Otherwise, why would anything have to be updated?

At any rate, for now I'm going to leave our entries as they are because the 2014 and 2016 dates on the Catalogue of Life pages are more recent than the dates cited by all of the other sources. If the CoL data are changed in a future update, our entries will also be changed.

In the meantime, I have contacted the other plant admins to see whether any of them use the IPNI as a source of taxonomic information.

That's not the case zuzu, there's been a lot of taxonomic shakeup in the last few years. Often, the same plant was found at a later date and given either the same name with a different person as author, or a different name. People update records, or not as the case may be, and records are dependant on the person or persons doing that correctly.

The same thing has been happening with diptera, it's always first in time which takes priority. The guy who runs diptera.info is one of the dipterists in charge of updating records on fauna Europa, he admits that the records don't always get updated, people in charge of these databases are often busy people with other jobs.

I came across Asimina Adans on Tropicos, as mentioned on Kew. All dates are listed there.

http://tropicos.org/Name/40020...

As the CoL uses the IPNI it does look like they don't update the site.

On the IPNI home page under TIPS it reads....

"IMPORTANT: IPNI does not have information on what are currently accepted names and what are taxonomic (i.e. heterotypic) synonyms. Find this information in floras, monographs, checklists, revisions etc."

zuzu said:
At any rate, for now I'm going to leave our entries as they are because the 2014 and 2016 dates on the Catalogue of Life pages are more recent than the dates cited by all of the other sources.

The IPNI last update for A. longifolia is January 2016. It states the name is illegitimate. The CoL uses the IPNI.

HamiltonSquare said:On the IPNI home page under TIPS it reads....

"IMPORTANT: IPNI does not have information on what are currently accepted names and what are taxonomic (i.e. heterotypic) synonyms. Find this information in floras, monographs, checklists, revisions etc."

The currently accepted names may have changed since the last update. The IPNI is nevertheless live, but any changes take time to verify so that is not always reflected for some time (as stated earlier). It's a sort of disclaimer when full research may not have been effected, or possible, so the reader is as much as told "if you want the latest and greatest then look for it yourself and don't blame us if it's wrong". Finding the correct information is as good as the literature available, no better, and an institution such as Kew will have a minefield of old literature from centuries ago, or access to much of it.

Janet, this just shows Adanson's classification of Asimina species and is not useful for our purposes. The status of the names is not stated. It lists both A. angustifolia and A. longifolia, but does not show any relationship between them. The only thing I see regarding status is that A. spatulata is subordinate to A. longifolia var. spatulata (the basionym), and this is contradicted by other sources, so....

As for the CoL using the IPNI, I have no doubt that the IPNI is among the CoL's sources, but if it's contradicted by other, more recent sources, the CoL would ignore it.

Just saw the new post. Thank you, Leslie. That was my suspicion regarding the IPNI. A list of names is useless to me unless it provides me with the current taxoomic status of those names.

JRsbugs said:

First in time takes priority.

That's not entirely accurate. First in time takes priority UNLESS the organism is reclassified.

For example Johann Lehmann named a plant Baptisia minor in the early 1800's The same plant was subsequently described by other botanists who gave it different names (Baptisia texana, etc.), presumably because they were unaware of Lehmann's work or simply thought the plant they were looking was different than the one he described. The "correct" name remained Baptisia minor because the rules of taxonomy demand that the first scientific name given takes precedence. However, research in the mid-1900's indicated that the plant was not a distinct species at all, but rather a variety of Baptisia australis. Consequently, the plant was reclassified and the currently accepted name is Baptisia australis var. minor.

That is in The Plant List Kent.

http://www.theplantlist.org/tp...

That doesn't happen very often?

Publication details for Asimina longifolia on the CoL are linked on the 2010 annual checklist.

http://www.catalogueoflife.org...

The Online Resource linked to the above checklist:

= syn. Asimina angustifolia· Raf.
Rafinesque, C. S. (1840) Autik. Bot. 2 (VI-X): 77.

http://herbarium.botanik.univi...

Asimina angustifolia Raf. on Tropicos uses the same reference as the herbarium linked to CoL but also refers to Lehmann:

Group: Dicot Rank: species Herbarium Placement: Lehmann, lower, E, 98

Authors:
Rafinesque, Constantine Samuel

Published In: Autikon Botanikon 77. 1840. (Autik. Bot.)

http://www.tropicos.org/Name/1...

! = Legitimate

http://www.tropicos.org/NameSe...

Note there is no exclamation mark (legitimate) by the entry for A. longifilia:

http://tropicos.org/Name/40020...

The entry on BHS from 1840:

http://www.biodiversitylibrary...

What I don't get is why the same reference is used on The Plant List as on the herbarium, but is "accepted" on the PL where it is given as a synonym on the herbarium referenced on the CoL. Is there any way the CoL can be contacted to ask this question?

http://www.theplantlist.org/tp...

You're confusing "legitimate" with "accepted." Notice that the three exclamation points on the Asimina species list refer to plants that were published by two different authors. In the case of A. angustifolia, for example, the one "discovered" by Gray is marked invalid (asterisk) and the one discovered by Rafinesque is legitimate (exclamation point). This has nothing to do with the taxonomic status of the name.

Here's what another plant admin had to say when I asked whether anyone uses the IPNI as a source of information. "No. IPNI is not a taxonomic database in the sense the COL or Plant List are, it's a listing of names with publication details. It records synonyms, basionyms, ... but I've never seen a record which indicates a name is accepted. IPNI can illustrate how one name takes precedence based upon publication date, but the treatment by a botanist would explain why."

As for the "online resource" link, it states that this plant's synonym is A. angustifolia. It does not say that the plant is a synonym of A. angustifolia.

http://herbarium.botanik.univi...

Hey guys! I know you're just trying to get the Id correct, but this kind of discussion is going to scare people off. It's like a college Botany class. Most folks don't really want to know how it came to be what it is, or they would do what you're doing, themselves. Just my opinion, and I do appreciate your efforts, but ... I, for one Like to know what these pretty plants are when they aren't familiar to me. I kind of loose interest after a week or more of comparing your notes.

Well, if "illegitimate" means not accepted on the IPNI, then I would expect "legitimate" to mean accepted (in the world of plant naming). Why then would it not have anything to do with the taxonomic status of the name? The reference to Gray I understood, it's not accepted due to Gray putting his/her name to the plant at a later date.

The IPNI is used as a reference resource on the Plant List, i.e. they have to get their information from somewhere. I never expected it to be used solely as a taxonomic database but used as a reference point. At least the Plant List gives links to their references so the viewer knows the full details of the history which is something the CoL seems to lack.

I searched on the herbarium for Asimina longifolia Kral and found some collections from 2001 under Asimina angustifolia Raf. Surely they would list the history of their updates somewhere so the viewer knows which resource has been used historically, otherwise we are left wondering if the update dates are just a general review where "we've looked at the family and changed a few things, but think the rest are OK so we shoved them through".

http://herbarium.univie.ac.at/...

Carol, if there's discrepancies then we need to thrash it out in order to make the database as accurate as possible. It is to do with the naming of a plant for ID. You can unwatch? The terrier is at work. And getting little sleep.

Why are you using the 2010 CoL list instead of the dynamic one that gets updated more often?


*edit* just noticed that has already been brought up *edit*

ITIS, GRIN, and the CoL say that A. angustifolia is a synonym of A. longifolia. The Plant List is the odd man out. I trust the first three more anyway, so that's good enough for me.

Janet, You are a terrier, and I do appreciate that you work hard at it. I just feel that some of these "discussions" should be in the background, somewhere. I know that we want the Database to be accurate, but I believe it needs some work. Classifications seem to be all over the board...mixed up with common names. For instance , when I want to see Epiphyllums, I get a few, then I get some other plants that fall into that alphabetical order, then more Epiphyllums. Shouldn't those be under Cactus and succlents, or tropical, or epiphytic plants? Do you see what I mean? There are so many common names. When I look up various orchids on another site, if the name has been changed, it says "see....". It's annoying, but I look at " .... " if I really care, and it gives me a history, as well as a picture. If you've noticed, a lot of the OPs don't respond after these discussions start. They just want the final answer, and to new or casual gardeners, it just frustrates them. I love this site, and want it to be successful. In my opinion, if it starts to get too technical, or boring to us common folks, it won't be. I understand that you "experts" need to feed each other info, but maybe in a tree mail or the sandbox forum, until you all agree? Just a thought.

There is the saying, the blind following the blind. That is, without checking where each source got it information from, resources are usually shared.

I'm banging my head against a brick wall I can see that, personally I prefer to know where, how and when any changes have been made and I'm not seeing that on the CoL. All I'm seeing are some vague references with a date in 2014 for the AnnonBase update which doesn't specifically relate to a certain plant.

So, we are to believe that a guy called Kral identified a new plant which was published somewhere in 1960, and which has taxonomically replaced an already named species which dates from 1840. Great stuff.

Carol, this is the National Gardening Association not just a forum, and I am sure Dave and Trish would like it to be as accurate as possible otherwise credibility is lost. One doesn't pay a fortune for a site in order for people to just enjoy themselves.

The original entry from 1840 in case anyone didn't look at the link, or didn't wait for it to load.



As any detective would tell you, show me the evidence and the history of how Asimina angustifolia became A. longifolia and if it checks out I will believe you. Remember, both sources us the 1840 as a reference.

I checked on the NYBG for specimens, I found from 1957 "Asimina longifolia var. spatulata Kral ( holotype )" with holotype being the first of it's kind being discovered.

http://sweetgum.nybg.org/vh/sp...

If you look at the link for the NYBG on the Tropicos link for A. longifolia, it's the only record on the NYBG of a herbarium specimen.

http://sweetgum.nybg.org/vh/sp...

The references for A. longifilia on Tropicos are all from the 1990's.

http://tropicos.org/Name/16001...

If you go to the mnhn link then to jstor, you get a list of specimens and book references.

http://plants.jstor.org/search...

Syntype of Asimina angustifolia Rafinesque [family ANNONACEAE] (stored under name); Verified by Raf., 1840

Asimina angustifolia A. Gray [family ANNONACEAE]; Verified by [A. Gray (scripsit) W. T. Kittredge, 2012]

Asimina longifolia Kral [family ANNONACEAE]; , 1957

Asimina pygmaea (Bartram) Dunal [family ANNONACEAE];

A "syntype" is according to google "each of a set of type specimens of equal status, upon which the description and name of a new species is based."

http://plants.jstor.org/stable...

A. longifolia is included in the entry as it's obviously the same plant. First "Verified by Raf., 1840" as A. angustifolia.

As already said, first in time takes priority (with an occasional exception).

Show me the evidence that Kral takes priority.

I rest my case.

I find this discussion interesting, and I am truly amazed at the depth of knowledge available on this site. I can just have fun perusing photos and forums, or find in-depth botanical info like this, or anything in between. While I agree this type of discussion might not be of interest to everyone, in my mind this demonstrates what a great resource we have here.

foraygardengirl said:I find this discussion interesting, and I am truly amazed at the depth of knowledge available on this site. I can just have fun perusing photos and forums, or find in-depth botanical info like this, or anything in between. While I agree this type of discussion might not be of interest to everyone, in my mind this demonstrates what a great resource we have here.

I wholeheartedly agree!

While I can not follow all of this (it's over my head) I am picking up tidbits. Those tidbits added to other tidbits I learn along the way can add up & one day I may be able to follow something like this in it's entirety without even having to strain my brain. This is learning.

Edited for punctuation typo.