About IPNI

The International Plant Names Index (IPNI) is a database of the names and associated basic bibliographical details of seed plants, ferns and lycophytes. 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 - July 2012

• From 1 January 2012 electronic material published online in Portable Document Format (PDF) with an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) or an International Standard Book Number (ISBN) constitutes effective publication. See the draft rewording of the Code for full details. (Also available in Chinese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and now also in French, Turkish & Arabic)
  
  We want to make sure that IPNI captures all relevant nomenclatural novelties, whether published online or in printed form, and are developing a strategy for tracking electronic publications.  For example, we are subscribing to RSS feeds to track online publications.
  
  IPNI users can also play a vital role in keeping us informed of electronic publications.
  
  Please let us know if you publish or find names in an online publication by sending us a link to the relevant site.

• Find out about some of the other forthcoming changes to the Code of Nomenclature following decisions taken at the XVIII International Botanical Congress held in Melbourne in July 2011.

• Taxonomic Literature II (TL-2) is now available online.

TIPS

July 12

• Names at infra rank published before 1971 weren't recorded in IK. There's no need to report these to us unless there are nomenclatural implications, e.g. the name causes an isonym or later homonym not recorded as such in IPNI. We will be pleased to hear about missing names at all ranks that were published from 1971 onwards. Please contact the editors.

• When searching the authors database use a wildcard after the first letter of the forename if you are using that field in your search. Find out why.

• In records of new combinations, the author of the basionym doesn't appear in parentheses before the author of the new combination in names published in IK before 1931.

March 12

• IMPORTANT: IPNI does not have information on what are currently accepted names and what are taxonomic (i.e. heterotypic) synonyms. Find this information in floras, monographs, checklists, revisions etc.

• See new names just added by searching by additional terms . Search must be limited by at least one term, like family, genus or author.

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

November 11

• Use wildcards (% or *) when searching for a plant name to return all names that may be near-homonyms or have a spelling discrepency of some kind.

• Our statistics tables are automatically updated whenever we update the static webpages - usually around the beginning of each month.

• You can track the changes a record has undergone by clicking on the 'View Record history' link in detail view and comparing the previous versions.

Tips Archive....

 

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Page last updated 3 July 2012