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 - November 2011

• 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) will constitute effective publication. See the draft rewording of the Code for full details. (Also available in Chinese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish)
  
  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 this year.

• Data improvement continues. Specific and infraspecific epithet edits made during the course of a month are summarized in a table here.

TIPS

Nov 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.

Oct 11

• Some basionym links are incorrect. A bug has caused this to happen when the basionym has a homonym. We are working on correcting, but if you notice an incorrect link, please let us know

• Use of wildcards when searching the Authors Database is strongly advised, especially if including a forename initial in the search. If your search is unsuccessful, try adding a wildcard to both ends of the surname.

• 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.

June 11

• Try out our handy prototype bibliographic tool. Just a few clicks will take you from a detailed IPNI plant name record to the protologue page in BHL.
  Give it a try and let us know how you get on. We can help you get going if necessary. Details here.

• See the errors table for a selection of the sorts of corrections being made.

• The IPNI database is live. Additions and edits to the data become visible as soon as the editors submit them.

Tips Archive....

 

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Page last updated 3 November 2011