An Introduction to the Botanical Type Specimen Register

10
literature citations, to any one of these collections
would be enormously useful in itself. Each new
institution to be added to such a base would en-
hance the catalog greatly and move it one step
closer to the goal of a worldwide union registry.
The U. S. National Herbarium is one of the
score of major herbaria with more than two million
specimens, and its type collection of 65,000 or more
specimens certainly constitutes a significant initial
data base. Furthermore, not only is this type col-
lection separate from the main herbarium and
easily accessible, but it also has an associated file
of cards on which are recorded pertinent data from
the original publication (see “Source of Data”).
Without this large, ready-made card file and with-
out computer technology, which permits the crea-
tion of a union register on a much more flexible
and dynamic basis than would otherwise be pos-
sible, the Type Register doubtlessly would never
have been conceived or started. The Botanical
Type Specimen Register is in the first instance,
therefore, an index (catalog, register) of the U. S.
National Herbarium’s own type collections. The
thousands of man-hours that have gone into the
creation and maintenance of the National Her-
barium’s type collection and card file have paid off,
of course, to the many who through the years have
used the type herbarium on the Smithsonian prem-
ises. By computerizing this information the Smith-
sonian’s Department of Botany now makes it
possible for taxonomists at large to benefit from
thl:, accumulated data and enormous manpower
in iestment.
Scope of Register
The Register is designed to handle taxa typified
by specimens, namely, taxa of the rank of species
or below, and it encompasses all infraspecific taxo-
nomic levels recognized by the ZCBN. In the fu-
ture, modifications in design may be desirable if
not essential to accommodate cases in which the
type is not a specimen but a description or a figure.
For the present, however, the object is to register
specimens, and for this reason data collection usu-
ally begins with the specimens and proceeds to the
literature rather than the other way around. There
are good reasons for arguing on the one hand that
registration should proceed from the specimen to
the taxon and on the other hand that the process
S!vlITHSONIAK CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY
should be reversed, proceeding from the taxon to
the specimen. No doubt this publication will stim-
ulate debate on these alternatives; meanwhile, it
should be made clear that primarily the first ap-
proach is being taken.
\Vitlz one exception, only the original names of
newly described taxa, i.e., taxa being described to
science for the first time, are included. The one
exception is a wholly new name for a previously
described taxon necessitated because all other possi-
ble names and combinations would violate the
international rules. New combinations involving
previously published epithets are excluded rigor-
ously insofar as they are Enown to be combina-
tions; in such cases, only the basionym is entered
into the Register. In one sense, therefore, the Type
Register is a basionym file. This approach has been
taken because it is the only feasible way in the
foreseeable future to create a stable file with fixed
points of reference. Eventually, viewed in the long-
est terms, it will be necessary to link the Type
Register to a much vaster name list that shows all
possible synonymy connections among basionyms
and combinations and thus makes it possible to
trace the nomenclatural history of a particular spe-
cies, for example, from modern usage back to origi-
nal usage. This is far too much to expect of the
Type Register in itself, however, and for this rea-
son the design of the Register allows for no syn-
onymy except for orthographic variants. If a
taxon originally was published under a generic or
specific name with a spelling that later was cor-
rected, then the original spelling is indicated in a
special field, while the accepted spelling is shown
in the main taxon field; for example, many species
have been published in the genus Penstemon under
the spelling “Pentstemon,” and this spelling is in-
dicated in the orthographic synonym field, as neces-
sary. IVithout this approach, the same genus would
alphabetize in different parts of the file (e.g.,
Aplopnppus vs. Haplopappus).
Only validly published names are included, but
the names need not be legitimate, as defined by the
ZCBN (see also hfcVaugh et al., 1968).
Taxonomically and geographically, the Register
is limited only by the availability of data and op-
erational resources. The present machine file in-
cludes only vascular plants and primarily flowering
plants, but it could be expanded at any time to
include cryptogamic groups if the data and the