Hi all,

This sub-thread about what to call the "parts" of a taxon name highlights yet
another confusing disconnect between the languages of botany and zoology. I
spend part of my time working on biodiversity informatics projects involving
both botanists and zoologists. You would not believe the unproductive coding
errors this little difference in terminology has caused.

Frank, as Richard points out, what you call "common language" is not common at
all in botany. The dependent parts of taxon names, meaning strings which are
meaningless in themselves unless paired with the name of the parent taxon, are
epithets. Hence:

Poa annua (species name), annua (specific epithet) Heliomeris longifolia var. annua (varietal name), annua (infraspecific epithet,
or more precisely, varietal epithet)

In botany, it is not only confusing but simply incorrect to call an epithet a
"species", "species name" or "specific name". This distinction is widely
understood among botanists; confusion between the two is essentially nonexistent
in my experience.

I know the ICBN and ICZN are officially independent, but there are times when I
think it would benefit everyone to standardize at least some of our terminology.

Cheers, Brad

On Feb 24, 2012, at 11:00 AM, taxa...@mailman.nhm.ku.edu wrote: