Author citation (botany)
Encyclopedia
In botanical nomenclature
Botanical nomenclature
Botanical nomenclature is the formal, scientific naming of plants. It is related to, but distinct from taxonomy. Plant taxonomy is concerned with grouping and classifying plants; botanical nomenclature then provides names for the results of this process. The starting point for modern botanical...

, author citation refers to citing the person (or group of people) who validly published a botanical name
Botanical name
A botanical name is a formal scientific name conforming to the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature and, if it concerns a plant cultigen, the additional cultivar and/or Group epithets must conform to the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants...

, i.e. who first published the name while fulfilling the formal requirements as specified by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN). In botany, it is customary (though not obligatory) to abbreviate author names according to a recognised list of standard abbreviations. In cases where a species is no longer in its original generic placement (i.e. a new combination of genus and specific epithet), both the author/s of the original genus placement and those of the new combination are given (the former in parentheses).

There are diffences between the botanical Code and the normal practice in zoology
Author citation (zoology)
In zoological nomenclature, author citation refers to listing the person who first makes a scientific name of a taxon available. This is done in a scientific publication while fulfilling the formal requirements under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, hereinafter termed "the Code"...

. For example, in zoology the publication year is given following author name/s and the authorship of a new combination is normally omitted. A small number of more specialized practices also vary between the recommendations of the botanical and zoological Codes.

Introduction

In biological works, particularly those dealing with taxonomy and nomenclature but also in ecological surveys, it is customary to cite the author of a scientific name at least the first time this is mentioned, so as (for example) to be clear which instance of a named taxon is being referred to, especially on account of the presence of homonyms of some names in biology (for example Ficus
Ficus
Ficus is a genus of about 850 species of woody trees, shrubs, vines, epiphytes, and hemiepiphyte in the family Moraceae. Collectively known as fig trees or figs, they are native throughout the tropics with a few species extending into the semi-warm temperate zone. The Common Fig Ficus is a genus of...

L., the fig tree genus, vs. Ficus Röding, 1798, a genus of molluscs). Rules and recommendations for author citations in botany are covered by Articles 46-50 of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN). As stated in Article 46 of the botanical Code, in botany it is normal to cite only the author of the taxon name as indicated in the published work, even though this may differ from the stated authorship of the publication itself.

Basic citation (simplest form)

The simplest form of author citation in botany applies when the name is cited in its original rank and its original genus placement (for binomial names and below), where the original author (or authors) are the only name/s cited, and no parentheses are included. When citing a botanical name including its author, the author's name is often abbreviated. To encourage consistency the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN) recommends the use of Brummitt & Powell's Authors of plant names (1992), where each author of a botanical name has been assigned a unique abbreviation. These standard abbreviations can be found at the International Plant Names Index.

For example in:
  • Rubus
    Rubus
    Rubus is a large genus of flowering plants in the rose family, Rosaceae, subfamily Rosoideae. Raspberries, blackberries, and dewberries are common, widely distributed members of the genus. Most of these plants have woody stems with prickles like roses; spines, bristles, and gland-tipped hairs are...

    L.


the abbreviation "L." refers to the famous botanist Carl Linnaeus who described this genus on p. 492 of his great work Species Plantarum
Species Plantarum
Species Plantarum was first published in 1753, as a two-volume work by Carl Linnaeus. Its prime importance is perhaps that it is the primary starting point of plant nomenclature as it exists today. This means that the first names to be considered validly published in botany are those that appear...

in 1753.
  • Rubus ursinus
    Rubus ursinus
    Rubus ursinus is a species of blackberry or dewberry known by the common names California blackberry/dewberry, Douglas berry, and Pacific blackberry/dewberry. It is native to western North America. This is a wide, spreading shrub or vine-bearing bush with prickly branches that can tip layer to...

    Cham. & Schldl.


the abbreviation "Cham." refers to the botanist Adelbert von Chamisso
Adelbert von Chamisso
Adelbert von Chamisso was a German poet and botanist.- Life :He was born Louis Charles Adélaïde de Chamissot at the château of Boncourt at Ante, in Champagne, France, the ancestral seat of his family...

 and "Schldl." to the botanist Diederich Franz Leonhard von Schlechtendal
Diederich Franz Leonhard von Schlechtendal
Diederich von Schlechtendal was a German botanist born in Xanten. He was Professor of Botany and Director of the Botanical Gardens at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg from 1833 until his death in 1866, and Editor of the botanical journal Linnaea.His most important work was in...

; these authors jointly described this species (and placed it in the genus Rubus
Rubus
Rubus is a large genus of flowering plants in the rose family, Rosaceae, subfamily Rosoideae. Raspberries, blackberries, and dewberries are common, widely distributed members of the genus. Most of these plants have woody stems with prickles like roses; spines, bristles, and gland-tipped hairs are...

) in 1827.

The Latin term "et" can be used in place of the ampersand symbol "&", also the abbreviation of author names is not obligatory, thus the following forms of citation for the above species are all equally correct:
  • Rubus ursinus Cham. & Schldl.
  • Rubus ursinus Cham. et Schldl.
  • Rubus ursinus von Chamisso & von Schlechtendal
  • Rubus ursinus von Chamisso et von Schlechtendal

Usage of the term "ex"

When "ex" is a component of the author citation, it denotes the fact that an initial description did not satisfy the rules for valid publication, but that the same name (with relevant attribution) was subsequently validly published by a second author or authors (or by the same author in a subsequent publication). For example:
  • Andropogon aromaticus Sieber ex Schult.


indicates that Josef Schultes validly published this name (in 1824 in this instance), but his description was based on an earlier description by Franz Sieber
Franz Sieber
Franz Wilhelm Sieber , was a botanist and collector who travelled to Europe, the Middle East, Southern Africa and Australia.-Early Life:Franz Sieber was born in Prague, on 30 March 1789....

. (Note that in Botany, the author of the earlier name precedes the later, valid one; in zoology, this sequence (where present) is reversed).

Usage of the ancillary term "in"

The ancillary term "in" is sometimes employed to indicate that the authorship of the published work is different from that of the name itself, for example:
  • Verrucaria aethiobola Wahlenb.
    Göran Wahlenberg
    Georg Wahlenberg was a Swedish naturalist. He was born in Kroppa, Värmland County.Wahlenberg matriculated at Uppsala University in 1792, received his doctorate in Medicine in 1806, was appointed botanices demonstrator in 1814, and professor of medicine and botany in 1829, succeeding Carl Peter...

     in Acharius, Methodus, Suppl.: 17. 1803


Article 46.2 of the Botanical Code indicates that in such cases, the portion commencing "in" is in fact a bibliographic citation and should not be used without the place of publication being included, thus the preferred form of the name+author alone in this example would be Verrucaria aethiobola Wahlenb., not Verrucaria aethiobola Wahlenb. in Acharius. (This is in contrast to the situation in zoology, where either form is permissible, and in addition a date would normally be appended).

Multiple parts (original plus revising author/s)

In many cases the author citation will consist of two parts, the first in parentheses, e.g.:
  • Helianthemum coridifolium (Vill.) Cout.


This form of author citation indicates that the epithet was originally published in another genus (in this case as Cistus coridifolius) by the first author, Dominique Villars
Dominique Villars
Dominique Villars or Villar is a French botanist. His main work is Histoire des plantes du Dauphiné published between 1786 to 1789, in which about 2,700 species are described, after over twenty years of observation...

 (indicated by the enclosing parentheses), but moved to the present genus Helianthemum
Helianthemum
Helianthemum , known as rock rose, sunroses, or rushrose, is a genus of about 110 species of evergreen or semi-evergreen subshrubs in the family Cistaceae...

by the second (revising) author (António Coutinho
António Coutinho
António Manuel Pinto Amaral Coutinho is a Portuguese immunologist, and the only Portuguese ISI highly cited researcher. He has been Director of the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência since 1998.-References:...

). Alternatively, the revising author changed the rank of the taxon, for example raising it from subspecies to species (or vice versa), from subgenus to Section, etc. (Again, the latter is in contrast to the situation in zoology, where no authorship change is recognized within family-group, genus-group, and species-group names, thus a change from subspecies to species, or subgenus to genus, is not associated with any change in cited authorship).

As indicated above, either the original or the revising author may be of more complex form, as per the following examples from the same genus:
  • Helianthemum
    Helianthemum
    Helianthemum , known as rock rose, sunroses, or rushrose, is a genus of about 110 species of evergreen or semi-evergreen subshrubs in the family Cistaceae...

    sect. Atlanthemum (Raynaud) G.López, Ortega Oliv. & Romero García
  • Helianthemum apenninum
    Helianthemum apenninum
    Helianthemum apenninum, the white rock-rose, is a white-flowering rock rose found in dry grassy and rocky places across large parts of Europe....

    Mill. subsp. rothmaleri (Villar ex Rothm.) M.Mayor & Fern.Benito
  • Helianthemum conquense (Borja & Rivas Goday ex G.López) Mateo & V.J.Arán Resó

Authorship of subsidiary ranks

According to the botanical Code it is only necessary to cite the author for the lowest rank of the taxon in question, i.e. for the example subspecies given above (Helianthemum apenninum subsp. rothmaleri) it is not necessary (or even recommended) to cite the authority of the species ("Mill.") as well as that the subspecies, though this is found in some sources. The only exception to this rule is where the nominate variety or subspecies of a species is cited, which automatically will inherit the same authorship of its parent taxon, thus:
  • Rosa gallica
    Rosa gallica
    Rosa gallica is a species of rose native to southern and central Europe eastwards to Turkey and the Caucasus....

    L. var. gallica, not "Rosa gallica var. gallica L."

Emending authors

As described in Article 47 of the botanical Code, on occasion either the diagnostic characters or the circumscription of a taxon may be altered ("emended") sufficiently that the attribution of the name to the original taxonomic concept as named would no longer be appropriate. In these cases a taxonomic statement to this effect would normally be appended to the original authorship using the abbreviation "emend." (for emendavit), as per these examples given in the Code:
  • Phyllanthus
    Phyllanthus
    Phyllanthus is the largest genus in the flowering plant family Phyllanthaceae. Estimates of the number species in this genus vary widely, from 750 to 1200. Phyllanthus has a remarkable diversity of growth forms including annual and perennial herbs, shrubs, climbers, floating aquatics, and...

    L. emend. Müll. Arg
  • Globularia cordifolia L. excl. var. (emend. Lam.
    Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
    Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de la Marck , often known simply as Lamarck, was a French naturalist...

    ).


(In the second example, "excl. var.", abbr. for exclusis varietatibus, indicates that this taxonomic concept excludes varieties which other workers have subsequently included).

Other indications

Other indications which may be encountered appended to scientific name authorship include indications of nomenclatural or taxonomic status (e.g. "nom. illeg.
Nomen illegitimum
A nomen illegitimum is a technical term, used mainly in botany. It is usually abbreviated as nom. illeg..-Definition:...

", "sensu
Sensu
Sensu is a Latin word meaning "in the sense of".It is used in a number of fields including biology, geology, linguistics, and law. Commonly it refers to how strictly or loosely an expression is used, but it also appears in expressions that indicate the convention or context of the usage.-Sensu and...

 Smith", etc.), prior taxonomic status for taxa transferred between hybrid and non-hybrid status ("(pro sp.)" and "(pro hybr.)", see Article 50 of the botanical Code), and more. Technically these do not form part of the author citation but represent supplementary text, however they are sometimes included in "authority" fields in less well constructed taxonomic database
Taxonomic database
A taxonomic database is a database created to hold information related to biological taxa - for example groups of organisms organized by species name or other taxonomic identifier - for efficient data management and information retrieval as required...

s. Some specific examples given in Recommendations 50A-F of the botanical Code include:
  • Carex bebbii Olney, nomen nudum (alternatively: nom. nud.)

- for a taxon name published without an acceptable description or diagnosis
  • Lindera
    Lindera
    Lindera is a genus of about 80-100 species of flowering plants in the family Lauraceae, mostly native to eastern Asia but with three species in eastern North America. The species are shrubs and small trees; common names include Spicewood, Spicebush, and Benjamin Bush.-Overview:They are dioecious,...

    Thunb., Nov. Gen. Pl.: 64. 1783, non Adans. 1763

- for a homonym
Homonym
In linguistics, a homonym is, in the strict sense, one of a group of words that often but not necessarily share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings...

 - indicating in this instance that Carl Peter Thunberg
Carl Peter Thunberg
Carl Peter Thunberg aka Carl Pehr Thunberg aka Carl Per Thunberg was a Swedish naturalist and an apostle of Carl Linnaeus. He has been called "the father of South African botany" and the "Japanese Linnaeus"....

's "Lindera" is not the same taxon as that named previously by Michel Adanson
Michel Adanson
Michel Adanson was a French naturalist of Scottish descent.Adanson was born at Aix-en-Provence. His family moved to Paris on 1730. After leaving the College Sainte Barbe he was employed in the cabinets of R. A. F. Reaumur and Bernard de Jussieu, as well as in the Jardin des Plantes. At the end of...

, the correspondence of the two names being coincidental
  • Bartlingia Brongn. in Ann. Sci. Nat. (Paris) 10: 373. 1827, non Rchb. 1824 nec F.Muell. 1882

- as above, but two prior (and quite possibly unrelated) homonyms noted, the first by Ludwig Reichenbach
Ludwig Reichenbach
Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach was a German botanist and ornithologist.He was the son of Johann Friedrich Jakob Reichenbach, the author in 1818 of the first Greek-German dictionary. He was the father of Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach, equally a botanist and an eminent orchid...

, the second by Ferdinand von Mueller
Ferdinand von Mueller
Baron Sir Ferdinand Jacob Heinrich von Mueller, KCMG was a German-Australian physician, geographer, and most notably, a botanist.-Early life:...


  • Betula alba L. 1753, nom. rej.

- for a taxon name rejected (normally in favour of a later usage) and placed on the list of rejected names forming an appendix to the botanical Code (the alternative name conserved over the rejected name would be cited as "nom. cons.")
  • Ficus exasperata auct. non Vahl

- this is the preferred syntax for a name that has been misapplied by a subsequent author or authors ("auct." or "auctt.") such that it actually represents a different taxon from the one to which Vahl's name correctly applies
  • Spathiphyllum solomonense Nicolson in Amer. J. Bot. 54: 496. 1967, "solomonensis"

- indicating that the epithet as originally published was spelled solomonensis, but the spelling here is in an altered form, presumably for Code compliance or some other legitimate reason.

Value of author citations

As stated in the Introduction, the most valuable initial function of author citations in biology is probably to distinguish between homonyms, in other words taxa which coincidentally share the same name but in fact represent different entities; in these situations the inclusion of the taxon authorship is sufficient to distinguish between them in most cases. Additional benefits of knowing the authorship of a taxon name include grouping of taxa by describing or revising author/s, thus permitting (for example) the study of a given biologist's nomenclatural activity through time (although this is easier in zoology than botany since the year is normally omitted in botanical citations); and, in many cases, to point in a preliminary way to the work in which the original description or new combination was published - again easier in zoology than botany on account of the publication year being normally included in zoological citations, but available one step removed in botany via recourse to resources such as Index Nominum Genericorum (for genus-level names), the International Plant Name Index, Index Fungorum, and similar compilations of both nomenclatural and bibliographic information for botanical taxon names.

See also

(specific to botany)
  • Botanical name
    Botanical name
    A botanical name is a formal scientific name conforming to the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature and, if it concerns a plant cultigen, the additional cultivar and/or Group epithets must conform to the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants...

  • Botanical nomenclature
    Botanical nomenclature
    Botanical nomenclature is the formal, scientific naming of plants. It is related to, but distinct from taxonomy. Plant taxonomy is concerned with grouping and classifying plants; botanical nomenclature then provides names for the results of this process. The starting point for modern botanical...

  • Specific name (botany)
  • International Code of Botanical Nomenclature
  • International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants
    International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants
    The International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants regulates the names of cultigens...

  • International Plant Names Index
  • International Association for Plant Taxonomy
    International Association for Plant Taxonomy
    The International Association for Plant Taxonomy promotes an understanding of plant biodiversity, facilitates international communication of research between botanists, and oversees matters of uniformity and stability in plant names . The IAPT was founded on July 18, 1950 at the Seventh...

  • Correct name (botany)
    Correct name (botany)
    In botany, the correct name according to the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature is the one and only botanical name that is to be used for a particular taxon, when that taxon has a particular circumscription, position and rank. Determining whether a name is correct is a complex procedure...

  • List of botanists by author abbreviation

(more general)
  • Scientific classification
  • Binomial nomenclature
    Binomial nomenclature
    Binomial nomenclature is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin grammatical forms, although they can be based on words from other languages...

  • Hybrid name
    Hybrid name
    In botanical nomenclature, a hybrid may be given a hybrid name, which is a special kind of botanical name. The ICBN provides the following options in dealing with a hybrid:...

  • Nomenclature Codes
    Nomenclature Codes
    Nomenclature codes or codes of nomenclature are the various rulebooks that govern biological taxonomic nomenclature, each in their own broad field of organisms...

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