Hope you will like reading this!! All taxonomists and botanists must have heard of the term TYPE and TYPIFICATION.
When you describe a plant or animal for the first time, you have to refer to a specimen, which according to ICBN [Vienna Code (Article 37.4)] for plants, should be a specimen in any form preserved at any herbaria in the world. And you have to mention this information along with the name of the herbaria and the voucher number in the manuscript you have published using the word "type" or "holotype" or "holo" etc. But during early times, there was no such provision and people used to describe new species without citing any specimens. Hence in ICBN there is an option of LECTOTYPIFICATION. In this you designate a type or nomenclatural type for the particular taxa. This procedure is called Lectotypification and the specimen is called Lectotype and then there are rules for designating the lectotype. >From 1735 onwards, Carl von Linné, Latinized as Carolus Linnæus, published his famous work, Systema Naturae in many editions. For those who are unaware, this book contains classification of animals too. By 10th edition in 1758 he had divided Animal Kingdom into 6 groups and he has described human beings in binomials as Homo sapiens but as for most of his plants, he never designated a type for Homo sapiens. So a lecotype for Homo sapiens was designated 300 years later in 1959. Big question is, what was the lectotype for Homo sapiens L.?? Answers is "Carl von Linné" Regards Pankaj -- *********************************************** "TAXONOMISTS GETTING EXTINCT AND SPECIES DATA DEFICIENT !!" Pankaj Kumar Ph.D. (Orchidaceae) Research Associate Greater Kailash Sacred Landscape Project Department of Habitat Ecology Wildlife Institute of India Post Box # 18 Dehradun - 248001, India
