[Taxacom] monoecious/dioecious in plant descriptions

[Jim Croft]

It might be worth bearing in mind that a botanical description applies
(usually) to a taxon rather than an individual plant. But I agree,
putting these terms at the beginning of a description seems the right
thing to do, even though it is a descripion of sexuality, the naughty
bits of which traditionally come later in the description.

With the trend to atomized ontologies and semantically linked data in
descriptions, it really doesn't matter too much where a thin is as
long as it has the right metadata, etc.

But this is probably a matter of tradition and style rather than
substance. People expect a description to flow in a certain order...
but this is a human preference thing and I don't think there is any
technical reason why it has to be so.

jim

On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 6:35 AM, Mary Barkworth <Mary.Barkworth at usu.edu> wrote:
> The first format is best because an individual plant cannot be dioecious. Plants can be unisexual. If a plant is unisexual, so are its inflorescences and flowers but if a taxon is monoecious, its plants are bisexual and its inflorescences could be either unisexual or bisexual but its flowers would be unisexual.
>
> Mary
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Sosef, Marc
> Sent: Sunday, December 04, 2011 11:58 AM
> To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Subject: [Taxacom] monoecious/dioecious in plant descriptions
>
> Dear colleagues,
>
> I stumbled upon the question what the right/correct position is of the words monoecious, dioecious, androdioecious, etc. in a plant description. When browsing through quit some species descriptions, in Floras as well as revisions, it seems there is no consensus at all amongst plant taxonomists. The indication may appear roughly in the following places:
>
> Monoecious. Plants up to 1 m high, ....
>
> Plants monoecious, up to 1 m high, .....
>
> ..... Inflorescence monoecious, axillary, ......
>
> ..... Flowers monoecious, on short pedicels, ......
>
> To me personally, the first, or maybe second option is most appealing, but I am open for any well-defended other opinion. The question is of course, are these terms an adjective, and if so to the species, the plant(s), the inflorescence, the flowers, or what?
>
> best regards,
> Marc Sosef
>
> Netherlands Centre for Biodiversity Naturalis (section NHN), Biosystematics group, Wageningen University Gen. Foulkesweg 37, 6703 BL Wageningen, The Netherlands
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> Taxacom Mailing List
> Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
>
> The Taxacom archive going back to 1992 may be searched with either of these methods:
>
> (1) by visiting http://taxacom.markmail.org
>
> (2) a Google search specified as: ?site:mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom ?your search terms here
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> Taxacom Mailing List
> Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
>
> The Taxacom archive going back to 1992 may be searched with either of these methods:
>
> (1) by visiting http://taxacom.markmail.org
>
> (2) a Google search specified as: ?site:mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom ?your search terms here



-- 
_________________
Jim Croft ~ jim.croft at gmail.com ~ +61-2-62509499 ~ http://about.me/jrc
'A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point
of doubtful sanity.'
?- Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)

Please send URLs, not attachments:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html