I submitted a database proposal earlier today to change the plant Calathea (Goeppertia coccinea 'Freddie') to Genus: Goeppertia 'Freddie', with Calathea as a synonym. My proposal was declined with the following explanation:

"You can't list the genus Calathea as a synonym unless every Calathea species is now regarded as a Goeppertia species."

We have 3 pages of Goeppertia species in the database, with the majority of them listing Calathea as a synonym: https://garden.org/plants/sear...

When I purchased my Calathea (Goeppertia coccinea 'Freddie') in 2016, it was labeled Prayer Plant, Calathea coccinea 'Freddie' so I thought it was likely that the accepted scientific name would now be Goeppertia coccinea 'Freddie'? Should I leave my photos at the entry for Calathea 'Freddie' or move them to the species entry for Goeppertia coccinea ... or just leave it as is and try not to confuse my old brain anymore than it already is?

You can list a Calathea species as a synonym for a Goeppertia species if it has been reclassified as such, but you can't list the genus Calathea as a synonym for Goeppertia unless the entire genus has been reclassified. The genus Calathea still exists. Furthermore, some of the Calathea species have been reclassified as species of the Ischnosiphon and Maranta genera, so it certainly is not a synonym for Goeppertia in all cases.

Whoever added the cultivar entry for Calathea 'Freddie' should have included the species so that it could have been edited along with the species entry. The admins can't know whether a cultivar name should be reclassified unless the species name is present. I have edited the 'Freddie' entry and corrected the genus by adding the Calathea species as a synonym and the Goeppertia species as the accepted name.

Calathea (Goeppertia coccinea 'Freddie')

Edited to add that my changes to the name of the cultivar entry now make the final paragraph of your post somewhat incomprehensible, so anyone reading this and feeling confused should know that you were asking about the entry listed as Calathea 'Freddie,' which is now listed as Goeppertia coccinea 'Freddie.'

zuzu said: Furthermore, some of the Calathea species have been reclassified as species of the Ischnosiphon and Maranta genera.

Oh no, even more confusion for this older lady! Ischnosiphon is a new one to me, I've never heard that name.