The Plant List

[Hoy]

Botany is namely a science, its results are therefore ephemeral, subjective and relative.

A curious view of science.

I think Great Moravian has a point here. A scientific statement can never be proved but falsified. This is the difference between a religion with its dogmas and science. The result is science evolve and religion does not.
What is accepted as a "scientific truth" today may be deficient or wrong in the future.

[Pascal B]

The plant list is in my view an ambitious but good initiative. It combines the existing databases in such a way that it makes cross-referencing possible and thereby gives the option to decide for oneself as well as being a quick and easy "general status" check of a plant name.

The only real problem one could have is with the "accepted" bit as this is a rather arbitrary concept. Names are proposed, validly published according to the Code of Botanical Nomenclature but then the question arises whether the author of the specific name was "right". This is and shall always be a problem in taxonomy, no matter what list is produced or initiative is started. Are the arguments put forward by the author valid, logic etc... How many other "experts" follow the treatment of the author, how does one asses whether a name is accepted?. There are no general rules for that nor ever will be, it is not science in the sense that there are predictable and verifiable outcomes.

For a person who is not an expert in the field, that assesment is very difficult and the plant list "makes a choice" for them. The plant list has chosen to base the "accepted" on the basis of acknowledgements of that name in literature, a logical choice as it usually goes that way in real life. To me it is a bit unclear how they "weigh" the importance of the references but it does list the literature that accepted or not accepted and subsequently gives the option to look further. In my view the best solution under the circumstances unless someone else is able to come up with better criteria to judge when a plant name is "accepted".

But of course those more familiar with a genus will disagree with some of the accepted names, there is nothing new to that and that was already the case without the plant list. They tried to quantify the term "accepted name" in such a way that it is accessible to the non-expert, it is at least better than what was available before and it won't make much difference to the experts of genera because they will have their own ideas anyway.....
If one disagrees with the reference that is mentioned under the "accepted by" no doubt one also disagrees with the endresult.

Whether one can quantify "accepted" or wants to is another discussion.

[Great Moravian]

Taxonomists writing checklists and floras simply use names without accepted attribute, and explain or comment
their decisions. The reason is finding the truth. Clerks enjoy in making unsupported authoritative decisions
presented as final, accepted, stamped. The reason is issuing commands.
Nevertheless, the topic is not worth of continuing, plants and not names are our hobby. I simply wanted to
inform you about the clerical nature of all lists of accepted officially stamped names.
No generally accepted names exist in taxonomy.

[Martin Baxendale]

Is it possible that the botanists responsible for compiling the list know that the people who will be using it on the ground in plant conservation around the world will be working in or for bureaucracies which, by their usually formal, rigid, rules-driven natures, tend to demand absolutes - such as "This is THE ACCEPTED fact" - rather than more tenuous and variable, maybe conflicting information. So the botanists knew that the list had to be expressed in certain (perhaps not very scientific) definite terms if it was going to be a tool that bureaucracies would accept and use?

[Gerry Webster]

Botany is namely a science, its results are therefore ephemeral, subjective and relative.

A curious view of science.

I think Great Moravian has a point here. A scientific statement can never be proved but falsified. This is the difference between a religion with its dogmas and science. The result is science evolve and religion does not.
What is accepted as a "scientific truth" today may be deficient or wrong in the future.

Statements in a science can be neither proved or falsified. The falsificationism  of Karl Popper is best regarded (as Rom Harré has argued) as a 'moral rule' rather than as an epistemological claim. While it is true that  statements in a science may be historically contingent, this does not justify the melodramatic claims of Great Moravian ("subjective", "relative")   

[Great Moravian]

My claims are not melodramatic but precisely reflecting reality.

[zephirine]

Just in form of a wink, in the middle of this "philosophical" discussion, from a so-called "scientist", but also from a woman...
I remember a TV program by Stephen Hawkins about the origins of the Universe, where he stated that without some imperfection during the first instants after the Big Bang, the universe (and ourselves) would never have existed!
May this "Plant List", how imperfect it may be, lead to some kind of interesting results too, even if tiny in the Science universe, dear Great Moravian!  

[gote]

#1: I still do not understand why the staff of Kew is composed by clerks. By the way, I refuse to believe that clerks are inferior.
#2: In my meaning of the words, "generally accepted" means accepted by a majority. I still do not understand why that is impossible or does not exist. It does not mean the eternal and ultimateh truth of anything.  (Is this all a semantic misunderstanding??)
#3: Anyone who looks at the list will find that it A: gives author and publication for the names B: Adresses the degree of generality.
#4: I think that it is a little melodramatic to state that the staff of two of the worlds greatest botanical gardens are mere clerks.

Hoy:
The fact that a scientific statment may change does not mean that it can not be accepted by most people as correct today. The approach that nothing can be proven is meaningless. If the Great Moravian were true to his belief he could not use a name on any plant because it might be changed in the future. We could also say that it is unproven that Napoleon is dead since this is another statement that can only be falsified.

Göte.

PS
I think that it would be well if we tried to avoid insulting people wholesale - be they clerks or taxonomists.

PPS
I find the list very useful as a statement of what most people seem to believe today and this belief is sufficiently similar to a truth
 

[Great Moravian]

#1: I still do not understand why the staff of Kew is composed by clerks. By the way, I refuse to believe that clerks are inferior.
#2: In my meaning of the words, "generally accepted" means accepted by a majority. I still do not understand why that is impossible or does not exist. It does not mean the eternal and ultimateh truth of anything.  (Is this all a semantic misunderstanding??)
#3: Anyone who looks at the list will find that it A: gives author and publication for the names B: Adresses the degree of generality.
#4: I think that it is a little melodramatic to state that the staff of two of the worlds greatest botanical gardens are mere clerks.

Hoy:
The fact that a scientific statment may change does not mean that it can not be accepted by most people as correct today. The approach that nothing can be proven is meaningless. If the Great Moravian were true to his belief he could not use a name on any plant because it might be changed in the future. We could also say that it is unproven that Napoleon is dead since this is another statement that can only be falsified.

Göte.

PS
I think that it would be well if we tried to avoid insulting people wholesale - be they clerks or taxonomists.

PPS
I find the list very useful as a statement of what most people seem to believe today and this belief is sufficiently similar to a truth
 

Göte,
You misunderstands me. I tried to persuade you about correctness of different names for a particular plant,
depending on the adopted taxonomic treatment. Different taxonomic treatments can describe reality
equally faithfully, and several taxonomic treatments together provide ideal insight.
Generally accepted doesn't mean accepted by majority. Scientific results cannot be obtained by voting nor
by authoritative decision, but merely by subjective perception of available information.
The scientific staff in Kew  works on other important problems, it is dehonesting
to present lists of accepted names as their principal achievement.

[Rafa]

Totally agree Great Moravian,

These lists help to know how many names recived the same plant through the Botany History by different authors. Accepted doesn't means Correct.

For example, recently I visited a Crocus locality in Cádiz. The plant was currently named Crocus serotinus subsp. clusii, but it hasn't any relation with this species. The plant is in fact Crocus clusii J. Gay, so why I have to use C. serotinus subsp. clusii? and from now, why to use subsp. salzmanii if there is only C. serotinus without subspecies?

So IPNI, o KEW or any other could say C. serotinus subsp. clusii, but I preffer to use C. clusii because I KNOW both species.

If we talk about Narcissus genus...... more than 80% in RHS Narcissus Names, are wrong to me. In fact many names are no longer valid for the authors that published their species.

[TheOnionMan]

There is a discussion going on along similar lines on Alpine-L, here is my initial take on The Plant List:
http://mailman.science.uu.nl/pipermail/alpine-l/2011-January/034725.html

[Diane Clement]

There is a discussion going on along similar lines on Alpine-L, here is my initial take on The Plant List:
http://mailman.science.uu.nl/pipermail/alpine-l/2011-January/034725.html

and here's mine (with apologies to Alpine elves for cross posting):

I had hoped that The Plant List would be a a fuller version of the current Kew checklist which can be seen here:
http://apps.kew.org/wcsp/prepareChecklist.do;jsessionid=DC5C3DA3C9B7A806441F261346E20CD2?checklist=selected_families%40%40047160220082312474
I have found the Kew list a very good reference as it lists synonyms and basionyms and the names go down to subspecies level.  If you type in a genus, you get a useful list of published names.  Unfortunately, it is only available for monocots and a few dicot families, such as Campanulaceae which has undergone a fairly significant overhaul. 
 
I had hoped that The Plant List would complete this job and present the material in the same way.  Unfortunately it doesn't.  I have not yet had time to fully review what it offers, but for the bit I have looked at, I cannot understand what is going on and the tiny bit I looked at is inconsistent in itself, and also does not agree with IPNI.  I have taken a look at Cyclamen, a fairly small genus with which I am very familiar.  Firstly, there seem to be two lists for the genus Cyclamen.  If you go in from the home page and go to Primulaceae, then to Cyclamen, you land on this page
http://www.theplantlist.org/browse/A/Primulaceae/Cyclamen/
which lists 23 species, starting with C abchasicum and later on other no longer valid names such as C adzharicumC circassicum.  clicking on C abchasicum tells us that this name is the accepted name of a species in the genus Cyclamen. 

Strangely, there is a second page for the genus, we need to go back to the home page and put Cyclamen in the search box, that takes us to a different page
http://www.theplantlist.org/tpl/search?q=cyclamen
 
On this page, we have at first glance a more useful list.  There are synonyms which are "greyed out" so you can see then at a glance.  So I took a look at C abchasicum which is now listed twice, once "greyed out" (as a synonym) and again, this time in bold (an accepted species).  The greyed out name C abchasicum when clicked, leads us to the statement "This name is a synonyn of Cyclamen coum ssp caucasicum" (which is what I thought all along) and references this to IPNI.  The name in bold C abchasicum when clicked leads us the statement "This name is the accepted name of a species" and references this to Tropicos. 
 
So how can we make any sense of this?  There are several other issues with the genus Cyclamen e.g C elegans, confusum and rhodium perhaps these are just not up to date? but then I agree with Gary that maybe the list was released too early. Can anyone explain if I am missing something or defend what has been included.  My experience with it so far would lead me to doubt being able to make any use of it at all.     

[gote]

Göte,
You misunderstands me. I tried to persuade you about correctness of different names for a particular plant,
depending on the adopted taxonomic treatment. Different taxonomic treatments can describe reality
equally faithfully, and several taxonomic treatments together provide ideal insight.
Generally accepted doesn't mean accepted by majority. Scientific results cannot be obtained by voting nor
by authoritative decision, but merely by subjective perception of available information.
The scientific staff in Kew  works on other important problems, it is dehonesting
to present lists of accepted names as their principal achievement.

I apologize for reverting late to the thread but I have had other things to attend to like half a meter of snow.

It seems that there is a semantic problem involved here. In some languages the word ’general’ has a flavour of the absolute and of finality that it in English has not. In English it means ’Most but not necessarily all’. In fact, by using the word, the speaker implies that he indeed suspects or knows that exceptions do exist. A list of Generally Accepted Names means that a majority of those involved accept these names. It does not mean that they are some kind of ultimate truth. I suggest a visit to http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/generally

I do not imply that the staff of Kew does nothing but producing lists - however, it seems obvious that their organisation stands behind the list so the harsh words against against the list, and those who compile it, spills over on them as a group.

Scientific plant names do exist. We all use them. They exist if and only if they refer back to a published description. Unless all copies of the original publication have been destroyed, it is possible to prove the existence. That we call them scientific has no philosophical meaning - it means that they are not the vernacular and that they conform to certain rules. It is not possible to falsify that the name exists if the description can be found and the rules have been followed.

It is also usually possible to prove that a certain specimen fits the description - or not - as the case may be. If a specimen has three anthers and the description says “three anthers” this can be proven and not falsified.

The fact that a certain scientific name exists does not mean that it necessarily is a good and meaningful one. The name (with its description) circumscribes a group of specimen. This grouping seemed useful to the original auctor of the name but others may have different opinion. When more knowledge is available, (with time or from others) there might be reasons to change the grouping. More rarely it is found that the description was invalid because of not conforming to the rules. Thus it happens that a name should be abandoned or the description amended. Obviously, names are in a certain flux as science progresses.

It is necessary to make the distinction here. The names are a framework or tool just as mathematics is and cannot be falsified. The application of a name can be falsified. We have to distinguish between dogmas, names, hypotheses and theories. The fact that aritmetic cannot be falsified does not make it invalid.

The list can have errors but, as I read it, it does adress the degree of acceptance and it points to the original publications.

Cyclamen abchasicum Kolak. is NOT the same as Cyclamen abchasicum (Medw.) Kolak. ex Pobed. This seems to be one of the unfortunate cases when the same name has been applied to two different taxons and with more than one description. I think the list is quite clear here. It states on an intermediate confidence level that:

#1: There is one taxon that should be called Cyclamen coum subsp. caucasicum (K.Koch) O.Schwarz. and which has been erroneously called Cyclamen abchasicum (Medw.) Kolak. ex Pobed.

#2: There is another taxon that should be called Cyclamen abchasicum Kolak.

Whoever wants to dispute this can follow the threads including visiting the herbaria where the type specimen are stored. Ambiguities such as this are precisely what the list is supposed to help solving.

Re Crocus serotinus subsp. clusii. The list tells us that it is Brian Matthew who is responsible for the transfer from Crocus clusii J. Gay.  Anyone who has valid reason to doubt the transfer can ask him about his reasons and try to persuade him that he was wrong - or that Crocus clusii J. Gay exists as a separate species. It may well be that Brian has found that all herbarium specimen available to him labeled as Crocus clusii J. Gay in fact were misnamed forms of serotinus - not knowing that Crocus clusii J. Gay is still around.
A first approach could be to search the Kew Bulletine 32: 46 (1977). where the reasons might be given.

Cheers
Göte


 

[fermi de Sousa]

Well, the Plant List has helped me find synonyms for 3 more of the packets of seeds confiscated by AQIS (Australian Quarantine Inspection Service). They aren't on the "allowed" list under their current names - but they are allowed under the "older" names! I'm hoping to see these released to me!
In this case we are dealing with clerks rather than scientists!
cheers
fermi

[Lesley Cox]

The same applies here Fermi. Relatively few Narcissus e.g., were allowed through happily but once the taxonomists started splitting and reassigning, there are heaps that MAF won't recognise even though they were previously acceptable under "old" names. Lots more work for you and me to do and the seed even older by the time it reaches us.