About IPNI

The International Plant Names Index (IPNI) is a database of the names and associated basic bibliographical details of seed plants, ferns and fern allies. Its goal is to eliminate the need for repeated reference to primary sources for basic bibliographic information about plant names. The data are freely available and are gradually being standardized and checked. IPNI will be a dynamic resource, depending on direct contributions by all members of the botanical community.

IPNI is the product of a collaboration between The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, The Harvard University Herbaria, and the Australian National Herbarium

NEWS - October 2008

• Thank you for your help with tracing references that we've been unable to obtain. We have been able to add some missing names and make some corrections as a result. The list has been now been updated (2 Oct 08) and a few additions made.

• Please let us know if you come across scanning errors, particularly in plant names. There are still a lot lurking there. Here are a few examples of some that have been corrected very recently: japonioa (japonica), peliocephalum (poliocephalum), andamancnsis (andamanensis), tasbiroi (tashiroi), scheuchxeri (scheuchzeri).

• Statistics page reformatted to make it easier to read. Check here for numbers and categories of names added to IPNI.

• Are you a new plant name author? Find out how to create the standard form of your name by reading our page on information for plant name authors.

• See links page for a selection of sites that you may find useful, like electronic sites of Botany, Plant Biology and Science Journals, BPH-2 online, ICBN (2006) and more.

• A 7th supplement to Stafleu and Cowan's Taxonomic Literature, 2nd edition, was published in July 2008:
  
  Dorr, L.J. and Dan H. Nicolson. Taxonomic Literature. A selective guide to botanical publications and collections with dates, commentaries and types. Supplement 7 (F-Frer). [ISBN 978-3-906166-65-0]

• Add IPNI quick search to your browser's list of search engines. A SEARCH TOOL is available which works with Firefox or IE7 and is simple to install. Learn more about it. Click here to install.

• If you're unable to get IE7 or Firefox you can use the handy browser buttons in IE6. These buttons show up at the top of your browser near the address bar and act as quick access links. See updated installation instructions.

• Generic names in current use have been assigned to the appropriate Brummitt family (see Understanding the data). Standardization of the remaining generic names continues.

TIPS

October 08

• Want to see new names added since last year, last month, last week or yesterday? You can do this by searching by additional terms. Search must be limited by at least one term, like family, genus, author. Find out more.

• A hyperlink on author or publication title in the detailed search results indicates standardized format.

• If you find IPNI useful, please mention it when citing sources of information. It can be cited as 'The International Plant Names Index (2008). Published on the Internet http://www.ipni.org [accessed 1 March 2008]*. *[Replace this date with the appropriate date for your use of the database]

September 08

• IPNI's focus is purely nomenclatural. No opinions are given on what are currently accepted names or synonyms. [See link to find a selection of sources of current names.]

• You can highlight recent additions to the errors table if you use Firefox, by going to the Edit menu, selecting "Find" then adding your criterion, e.g. '2007-08', to the toolbar that appears near the botton of the screen.

• If you have difficulty finding a name which has a compound specific epithet, e.g. Pereskia opuntiiflora, try replacing the connecting vowels with a wildcard. We are working on correcting such epithets. Find out more in ICBN (2006), Art. 60.8 and Rec. 60G.

August 08

• To find recently published names of plants found in Bolivia, for example, use the advanced search page filling in the 'Country' field and the 'Added since' field. [To date 49 new records from Bolivia have been added since 1 Jan 2008.]

• If you are interested in searching only at the rank of genus use Quick Search or, to reduce the number of clicks required, use the browser plugin. Remember that these searches are case sensitive. You could of course, select 'Generic' from the Show Ranks box under Extended Options at the bottom of the search form.

• The search results are sorted by family by default. If you would like them to be ordered by genus, deselect 'Sort by family'.

Tips Archive....

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Page last updated 2 October 2008