Salvia forskaohlei by any other name . . .

Fellow Pedantic Plantspersons - 

We must not loose sight of the fact that botanical nomenclature
does not follow standard logic.  Often, a proper noun used to
create one of this names can be misspelled or otherwise corrupted
into something resembling little the original source.  The fact
that the person's name in question over S. forskaolei might be
more properly spelt to reflect the original Swedish has no bearing
on whether or not it is the correct botanical spelling.  All that
matters is the spelling used in the original publication of this
species (even if it contained a typographical error and was not
the intention of the describing botanist!).  An example of this
is the genus Huernia, a South African Stapeliad.  It was originally
intended to be named Heurnia by the botanist.  The typsetter made
the spelling error in the most important parts of the publication
which oringally described the species (the botanist was furious).
But according to the rules of botanical nomeclature, the name had
to stay mis-spelt!  There is now a genus of snakes which bears the
generic name of Heurnia.

To figure out what is perhaps the more common spelling of this
species, I used an Internet search engine (AltaVista) to check for
a few spellings - here are the results:

S. forskaohlei  - 22 'hits'
S. forskaohlii  -  0   "
S. forsskaolii  -  3   "
S. forskohlei   -  0   "
S. forsskaole   -  0   "
S. forsskalii   -  0   " (except for Herbarium Forsskalii, for
                         Pehr Forsskal, at the Univ of Copenhagen)

I could probably gone on coming up with variations of this spelling
but chose not to  ;-).  Seems clear that either S. forskaolei is the
name which is the most proper and is therefore the most used (at
least in cyberspace) or it is the more rampant mispelling!!

We often find these disctinctions tedious but it is certainly very
frustrating to see that you find no information about a species merely
because you missed the spelling by one letter!!  This is especially a
problem with computer searches where you cannot see what is 'around'
the term you were using in your search!  So, if you'd like to find the
MOST information on this species, you can see which spelling to use.

As frustrated as the rest of you,
Sean O.
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index