The WFO Plant List is an implementation of a subset of the rules and recommendations outlined in the International Code of Nomenclature for Algae, Fungi and Plants (ICNAFP).

This is a narrative description of how we have modelled the ICNAFP. Our main concern is the management of complexity. This is addressed in two ways. Firstly we only manage data that is specifically related to the names and their placement in the taxonomy. We do not, for example, model data about literature. Secondly we do not seek to implement the whole of the ICNAFP but only enough to build a working checklist of the worlds plants. The ongoing cost of maintaining complexity is very high and this is always taken into account.

Contents

Terminology

There are a few terms that we use in specific ways.

  • Backbone - a checklist that is being used to organise data, such as descriptions or occurrences, in another system.
  • Checklist - a list of plant names some or all of which have been placed into a classification.
  • Classification - used interchangably with taxonomy.
  • Placement - the act of specifying where in the taxonomy a name should reside.
  • Nomenclature - the rules regarding the validity of names.
  • Taxonomy - a hierarchy of taxa. Used interchangably with classification.

Separation of Names and Taxa

The core principle that informed the design of Rhakhis was the separation of nomenclature from taxonomy. This is a consequence of applying the rules of the ICNAFP. Names are created via nomenclatural events (being validly published either for the first time or in a new combination) and bound to a type specimen (possibly via lectotypification). Taxa are created by authors using combinations of descriptions (characters) and example specimens. Names are bound to taxa via the rule of priority, the first published name who’s type specimen falls within the taxon is the accepted name of that taxon (barring special instances of conservation).

Analogy #1: Each name is written on an index card. The card contains all the information of when and where that name was published and what the type specimen is. There are around 1.5 million of these index cards stored alphabetically. To build a taxonomy the name cards are taken and placed into a hierarchical set of folders, one folder for each taxon. Each folder has a key card which is the accepted name for that taxon. The other cards in the folder are the synonyms. Placing the cards in the folders does not affect what is written on them but what is written on them may govern which folders they can be placed in. e.g. If the genus part of the name does not match the genus folder in which it is placed as an accepted name.

Analogy #2: Each name is a Christmas tree decoration in a big box waiting to be hung on the tree. The taxonomy is the Christmas tree. We are all collaborating in decorating the tree!

Aside: Taxon Concept Model

If you are familiar with the Taxon Concept models that were proposed at the turn of the century and the subsequent Taxon Concept Schema TDWG standard this approach will be familiar to you. From one perspective Rhakhis is not a taxon concept based approach as only a single classification is currently modelled and no attempt is made to delimit the taxa, either by listing specimens or with descriptions. From another perspective it is a taxon concept based approach because their is an implied delimitation of the taxa based on the types of the names placed in them as well as the taxonomic references provided. The Plant List API takes more of a concept based approach because it stores each copy of the taxonomy that is published and maps between them, on the basis of their names, using “replaces” and “isReplacedBy” assertions. The concept based approach can either be embraced or ignored and it makes no difference to building a shared taxonomic backbone.

What is a name?

The common meaning of the word “name” (Oxford English definition)

a word or set of words by which a person or thing is known, addressed, or referred to.

The ICNAFP rather unhelpfully uses the word “name” in the definition of the word “name”, From the glossary:

name. A name that has been validly published, whether it is legitimate or illegitimate (Art. 6.3) (see also designation).

6.3. In this Code, unless otherwise indicated, the word “name” means a name that has been validly published, whether it is legitimate or illegitimate (see Art. 12; but see Art. 14.9 and 14.14).

designation. [Not defined] – the term used for what appears to be a name but that (1) has not been validly published and hence is not a name in the sense of the Code (Art. 6.3) or (2) is not to be regarded as a name (Art. 20.4 and 23.6) (see also type designation).

This can lead to apparently paradoxical uses of “name” in our community. A word or words that are used to refer to a plant are a name-in-common-parlance but may not be a name-in-the-sense-of-the-code. They may be a designation under the code. More confusing still the code does not say what to call things that we don’t know the nomenclatural status of. Like Schrödinger’s cat, until we know whether a thing is validly published it is neither a name-in-the-sense-of-the-code nor a designation.

In modelling a global checklist we need to keep track of the name/designation things whether or not they turn out to be names-in-the-sense-of-the-code or cease to be names-in-the-sense-of-the-code. We can’t research a thing to find out what it is until it is in the database. Rhakhis therefore takes a practical working definition of what it means by a name within the system:

A name is a object represented by a record in the names table. It has a unique internal ID, a prescribed external ID (the WFO ID) and between one and three name part words (see below).

Whether a name record is created for a name/designation found in literature is a judgement call made by the data editors. If two name records are judged to represent the same name/designation then they may be merged but the WFO IDs are never deleted.

WFO IDs and Names

  1. Each name has a single, prescribed WFO ID. This is the ID that is used to refer to that name whether it occurs as the accepted name of a taxon, a synonym or remains unplaced. The WFO ID is of the form wfo-0000615907. The lowercase letters “wfo” followed by a hyphen followed by ten digits. A regular expression similar to ‘/^wfo-[0-9]{10}$/’ will match a WFO ID (depending on your precise regex implementation). These are referred to as ten digit WFO IDs.
  2. Names may have multiple deduplication WFO IDs. When it is determined that two records represent the same real world name they are combined. One ID is chosen as the prescribed ID for the name and the other becomes a deduplication ID. Deduplication IDs should not used other than for the purpose of resolving to the prescribed ID.

WFO IDs and Taxa

With each data release a new set of IDs are created that are of the form wfo-0000615907-2022-12. For each name the year and month of the data release are appended. A regular expression similar to ‘/^wfo-[0-9]{10}-[0-9]{10}-[4]{2}$/’ will match a versioned WFO ID (depending on your precise regex implementation). These are referred to as sixteen digit WFO IDs.

Ten digit IDs strictly refer to the name but will often be used to refer to the current usage of that name. At one time the name may be the accepted name of a taxon at another point the taxonomy may change and it may be a synonym.

Sixteen digit IDs refer to the usage of a name within a particular taxonomy, be that as a synonym or an accepted name. To refer specifically to a taxon it is therefore necessary to cite the sixteen digit ID of the accepted name of that taxon.

Whether you cite the ten or sixteen digit ID it should still be possible to track how the usage of that name has changed through time. Most people will bind their data to the ten digit IDs.

Name Parts

There are never more than three words in a name in botanical nomenclature. More words maybe used when labelling taxa to indicate the taxonomic placement of the name. Internally the backbone system refers to the three words that make up any name as the Name Parts.

All names have a “Name String” part. This is the word that is minted when the name is published. For a Family it is the family name. For a genus it is the genus name. For a species it is the specific epithet. For a subspecies it is the subspecific epithet.

Names below the rank of genus have a “Genus Part” or “Genus String” to their names. This indicates the genus they were placed in when published or the combination made.

Names below the rank of species have a “Species Part” or “Species String” to their name indicating the combination they were published in.

From the point of view of nomenclature, subsubspecies and subvarieties are direct “children” of the species. There are no polynomials in botany. This is because they could be placed in any subspecies or variety within that species without changing their name. The rank isn’t part of the name. The same rule applies for divisions of the genus. See Article 53.3. (In some output formats full polynomials may be rendered based on the taxonomy but that is not how the names are modelled internally.)

Where it doesn’t cause confusion the three parts may be referred to simply as Name, Genus and Species but care must be taken. Better to say the Name String of a name than the Name of a name!

When the name parts are combined, possibly with rank and authors string, then the result is referred to as the “Full Name”.

This structure can be mapped onto any arbitrary use of names found in different exchange standards and publications. It can also be extended with names from other ranks in the hierarchy on export. For example it may be required to include a subspecies in the expanded full name of a variety but this reflects the taxonomy not the nomenclature.

Nomeclatural status of Names

Names can have a nomenclatural status. This is separate from their “taxonomic status” (see below). Some of these statuses may preclude their use as accepted names of taxa in the taxonomy.

  1. illegitimate - can’t be used as accepted name in taxonomy as accepted name.
  2. later_homonym - can’t be used as accepted name in taxonomy as accepted name.
  3. superfluous - can’t be used as accepted name in taxonomy as accepted name.
  4. conserved - a later homonym that has been explicitly flagged as available for use under the code.
  5. rejected - can’t be used as accepted name in taxonomy as accepted name.
  6. sanctioned - fungi specific version of conserved
  7. orthovar - short for orthographical variant. Can’t be an accepted name.
  8. valid - a correctly published name.
  9. invalid - can’t be used as accepted name in taxonomy as accepted name.
  10. deprecated - won’t be placed in taxonomy at all.
  11. unknown - not recommended for placement in taxonomy

Taxonomic status = role

Systems have often confused taxonomic and nomenclatural statuses. In Rhakhis we have simplified this down to a name playing one of four possible roles within the classification at any one time. These are separate from but related to nomenclatural statuses.

  1. Accepted. The name is placed in the taxonomy as the correct name for a taxon. A taxon can only have one of these and they have to agree with the rules regarding placement. The nomenclatural status of the name must be valid, conserved or sanctioned.
  2. Synonym The name is placed in the taxonomy as a synonym within a taxon. A taxon can have many of these. They can be of any nomenclatural status apart from deprecated. (Note that whether synonyms are homotypic or heterotypic are tracked separately and discoverable through basionym links - see below)
  3. Unplaced A name that isn’t associated with any taxon as an accepted name or synonym. A taxonomist hasn’t expressed an opinion on its placement yet. Unplaced names can have any nomenclatural status but if they have the nomenclatural status deprecated they are considered to play another role.
  4. Deprecated A name that is unplaced and also has its nomenclatural status set to deprecated plays the deprecated role. It can’t be placed in the classification and won’t be displayed as part of the classification.

When names first enter Rhakhis they are unplaced. They are then assessed and either deprecated or placed on the taxonomic tree as accepted names of taxa or synonyms.

More on deprecation

The nomenclatural status of deprecated is introduced primarily as an internal device. This is not a nomenclatural status according to the botanical code. It is meant in the modern sense of the word particularly with regard to software:

to withdraw official support for or discourage the use of

We use deprecated for names we choose not to place in our taxonomy either as accepted names of taxa or synonyms. There are two main reasons for deprecation:

  1. We believe the name has been created in error and we can’t attribute clear meaning to it. Perhaps we can’t find an original publication (did it ever exist?) or the type or common usage and therefore can’t make a judgement as to where to place the name in our taxonomy and don’t believe we ever will be able to. This kind of deprecated name will occur mainly at the species and lower level.
  2. We don’t recognize a taxon at that rank in our hierarchy and therefore can’t synonymize it. An example is Rhododendron subsect. Albiflora Batta. We don’t have a subsectional level in our Rhododendron classification and so this name cannot be equated to any particular accepted taxon. It may be a valid name in another classification but as the hierarchy of type taxa may not be recognized by us either (that would need researching) it is better we do not even assert a nomenclatural status for it. In other words the actual nomenclatural status is null for us but might be something else for other users of the name. This type of deprecated name occurs above the species level.

Where possible the reason for deprecation will be recorded in the comments section of the name.

The status deprecated was introduced to quell the plague of zombie names. These are names that may have occurred in the literature or a database just once or they may have been created for a long discredited classification. They have subsequently been propagated from one list to the next without ever dying a natural death, just soaking up time and resources. Zombie names are particularly problematic in the age of big data. If we delete them they will keep coming back again from different data sources like bad pennies.

More on synonyms

All synonyms are handled in the same generic way within the data model. A taxonomic editor asserts that a name should be treated as a synonym within a taxon by making a placement of that name. There are, however, at least three different kinds of synonyms and these are still accounted for:

Homotypic synonyms

If a name has the same type specimen as the accepted name of a taxon then it should become a synonym within that taxon automatically - because name placement is governed by specimen placement. Rhakhis tracks basionym relationships in the names table but doesn’t enforce them in the synonymy because many of them are not yet known about. As the data improves we will introduce tools to encourage and enforce correct homotypic synonymy. On export it is already possible to list homotypic synonyms separately from other synonyms where the basionym relationships have been entered.

Heterotypic synonyms

If the name has a different type specimen to the accepted name but the type specimen is judged to belong within the circumscription of the taxon then the synonym is declared by placement in the normal way. To be a true heterotypic synonym the name needs to be validly published and have a type. On export heterotypic synonyms can be listed separately because they are the synonyms that are valid names but not homotypic with the accepted name.

Automatic synonyms

If a heterotypic synonym is created and that name has a basionym relationship with another name then that other name should also, automatically, become a synonym within the taxon. If it is already placed somewhere else in the classification then a data validity error needs to be raised. This functionality will be added as control of homotypic synonyms is introduced. On export automatic synonyms can be treated in the same way as heterotypic synonyms.

Informal synonyms

It is common for taxonomic experts to want to express the relationship between a name that is invalid or illegitimate in some way and an accepted taxon. This might be because it is commonly used for this taxon or because the available description would place it within this taxon. Typically the name may be listed as a note in a flora or monograph if it isn’t included as a regular synonym. In the WFO Plant List the name is simply flagged with the appropriate nomenclatural status and placed as a synonym. On export these synonyms can be listed separately from homotypic and heterotypic synonyms based on their nomenclatural status.

Homonyms, isonyms and ex authorship

The code has the following note under point 6.3

Note 2. When the same name, based on the same type, has been published independently at different times, perhaps by different authors, then only the earliest of these “isonyms” has nomenclatural status. The name is always to be cited from its original place of valid publication, and later isonyms may be disregarded (but see Art. 14.14).

In the glossary Isonym is defined as:

isonym. The same name based on the same type, published independently at different times perhaps by different authors. Note: only the earliest isonym has nomenclatural status (Art. 6 Note 2; but see Art. 14.14).

The glossary defines homonym as:

homonym. A name spelled exactly like another name published for a taxon at the same rank based on a different type (Art. 53.1). Note: names of subdivisions of the same genus or of infraspecific taxa within the same species that are based on different types and have the same final epithet are homonyms, even if they differ in rank (Art. 53.3), because the rank-denoting term is not part of the name (Art. 21 Note 1 and Art. 24 Note 2) (see also confusingly similar names).

To distinguish between homonyms and isonyms we need to know the types of both names but won’t know this until both names have been researched and we need to track the names in Rhakhis to facilitate that research. Until that point names are potential homonyms or isonyms and fit this description:

A name spelled exactly like another name published for a taxon at the same rank, unless the name is a subdivision of genus or a species in which case the rank isn’t taken into account.

Unfortunately, like with names/designations, we don’t have a word in the code for this class of names.

Isonyms

Isonyms are the “same name” according to the code so they should only have one Name Record in the list. The majority of isonyms are created by the author publishing the name again (perhaps in a paper and in a flora or catalogue) and so have the same Authors String. There is no scope for taxonomic confusion and the only scope for nomenclatural confusion caused by isonyms is citing the wrong reference as a place of original publication.

  1. Isonyms pairs are represented by a single record and WFO ID in the list unless they have different authors and so different author strings.
  2. The micro citation used is of the original publication.
  3. Multiple annotated nomenclatural references are used to link to the place of original publication and any additional places of publication. This ensures no data is lost in choosing not to have multiple records.
  4. If data isn’t available to make the nomenclatural references then the subsequent references are added to the notes section until they can be formally linked.
  5. If Isonym pairs already have separate records in the list then they will be combined through deduplication and the WFO ID of the original publication name will become the prescribed ID for the name. The other WFO ID will resolve to the same record but not be recommended for use.

ex Authorship

The code allows the author(s) who validly publishes a name to acknowledge a previous author(s) who published the name but not validly:

A name of a new taxon is attributed to the author(s) of the publication in which it appears when the name was ascribed to a different author or different authors but the validating description or diagnosis was neither ascribed to nor unequivocally associated with that author or those authors. A new combination, name at new rank, or replacement name is attributed to the author(s) of the publication in which it appears, although it was ascribed to a different author or different authors, when no separate statement was made that one or more of those authors contributed in some way to that publication. However, in both cases authorship as ascribed, followed by “ex”, may be inserted before the name(s) of the publishing author(s). (Article 46.5)

When a name has been ascribed by its author to a pre-starting-point author, the latter may be included in the author citation, followed by “ex”. For groups with a starting-point later than 1753, when a taxon of a pre-starting-point author was changed in rank or taxonomic position upon valid publication of its name, that pre-starting-point author may be cited in parentheses, followed by “ex”. (Article 46.7)

Inclusion of the earlier author(s) - before the ex - when citing the name is optional (emphasis added here) and this is illustrated by examples in the code.

Within the list names with “ex” in the Authors String are analogous to isonyms. In the case of ex names the original publication by the author before the ex was not valid but a subsequent publication by the author coming after the ex was valid and is the true place of publication. With isonyms it is the other way around. The first publication is the valid one and the subsequent publication is superfluous. Neither case warrants multiple name records in the list and can be handled in the same way with annotated links to the literature for all occurrences.

Name matching can be an issue with ex Authors. The default is to include the ex Authors in Authors String in the list if the valid publication authors mention them as the code suggests but as the code does not require them to be included everywhere someone might want to match a list of names lacking ex Authors with the list data. There is also the chance that the list doesn’t yet include the ex Authors

### Homonyms

Homonyms are far more common than isonyms (although putting a figure on that is hard without finding them all). We therefore use the term homonym in this looser sense to apply to names that have the same spelling, are probably homonyms sensu stricto (having different types) but might be isonyms or indeed “ex” names with corrupted Authors Strings (one of the parts missing)

  1. Homonyms always have their own records and WFO ID.
  2. Homonyms must have unique author strings. In very rare occasions where a name has the same spelling and author string but is of a different type and place of publication the author string will be “tweaked” so as to differentiate the two names (see below). [Example?]
  3. If homonyms are subsequently discovered to be isonyms or “ex” names they will be treated as outlined above.

## Duplicates and deduplication

The following is not true of the data currently but is an aspiration:

Rhakhis should not have name records that have identical name-parts, rank and author string. If such records exist it is an error. If two records exist in this state we should merge one into the other or differentiate them by correcting one of them. We should prevent such records from being created.

The aspiration for each WFO to equate to a unique full name string of does not make WFO-ID redundant as a WFO-ID only applies to one record and therefore one normative name string. A name string could be matched to multiple WFO-IDs based on approximation.

Placement of Names

There are rules governing how and when names can be placed in the taxonomy. There are five possible actions. In addition there are some rules that prevent names being moved.

Placement Actions

There are five actions that can be taken to change a names placement

  1. Raise to accepted name A name that is a synonym or not yet placed in the taxonomy and has a nomenclatural status or Valid, Conserved or Sanctioned can become the accepted name of a taxon.
  2. Sink into synonym A name that is the accepted name of a taxon (which doesn’t have children or synonyms) or has not yet been placed in the taxonomy can become a synonym in an accepted taxon.
  3. Change parent taxon A name that is the accepted name of a taxon can be moved to another part of the taxonomy.
  4. Change accepted taxon A name that is a synonym of one taxon can be moved to become the synonym of another taxon.
  5. Remove from taxonomy A name that forms part of the taxon as the accepted name of a taxon (which doesn’t have children or synonyms) or is a synonym can be removed from the taxonomy.

Placement Destinations

There are three rules that govern where a name can be placed in the taxonomy

  1. Nomenclatural Status Deprecated names can’t be placed in the taxonomy at all. Names of all other statuses can be synonyms. Valid, Conserved and Sanctioned names can be accepted names of taxa.
  2. Congruent Ranks The rank of a child taxon must be one of the accepted ranks of the parent according to the ranks table. e.g. a subspecies can’t be a direct child of a genus or family.
  3. Congruent Name Parts The name parts of the parent taxon must agree with the genus string and species string part of the name. e.g. a species can only be in a genus which has a name-string that matches its genus-string and a subspecies can only be in a species that has the name-string and genus-string that agrees with its own species-string and genus-string.

Names are only alphabetical characters without diacritics

60.1. The original spelling of a name or epithet is to be retained, except for the correction of typographical or orthographical errors and the standardizations imposed by Art. 60.4 (letters and ligatures foreign to classical Latin), 60.5 and 60.6 (interchange between u/v, i/j, or eu/ev), 60.7 (diacritical signs and ligatures), 60.8 (terminations; see also Art. 32.2), 60.9 (intentional latinizations), 60.10 (compounding forms), 60.11 and 60.12 (hyphens), 60.13 (apostrophes and full stops), 60.14 (abbreviations), and F.9.1 (epithets of fungal names) (see also Art. 14.8, 14.11, and F.3.2).

60.7. Diacritical signs are not used in scientific names. When names (either new or old) are drawn from words in which such signs appear, the signs are to be suppressed with the necessary transcription of the letters so modified; for example ä, ö, ü become, respectively, ae, oe, ue (not æ or œ, see below); é, è, ê become e; ñ becomes n; ø becomes oe (not œ); å becomes ao.

Correctable spellings and removal of diacritics as specified by the code occurs as names are added to the database. They can’t be added back in on export. When searching for names the effect of diacritics and correctable spellings in the search string will depend on the specific algorthm used.

Autonyms

According to the nomeclatural code the creation of a subdivision within a genus or a species automatically creates a null taxon called the autonym which holds everything that isn’t specified as being part of the named subdivisions. Autonyms include the type specimen for the species and genus (Art. 22.3 and 26.3 of code). These taxa simply repeat the name of the genus or species as their own name and have no author strings. In line with these rules the WFO backbone system automatically creates and destroys autonym taxa as infrageneric and infraspecific taxa are added and removed from the taxonomic hierarchy.

Above the level of genus the code has no notion of autonyms. The creation of a new subfamily does not result in the creation of an associated autonym subfamily to hold the type and all other material that wasn’t considered by the author of the subfamily. In a large scale, collaborative project like the WFO backbone this can result in a counter intuitive classification. A taxon of the rank class may directly contain several subclasses, some orders and a family or two. This is something that wouldn’t occur in a single written publication but is the logical result of combining multiple publications. It simply reflects that the work hasn’t been done to specify where all the subtaxa fall at every rank. Such a classification probably wouldn’t be accepted by a journal editor! The user interface will therefore always highlight where this occurs to flag it as bad practice.

Ranks

Recognised ranks are listed in the table below in hierarchical order along with the ranks that are permitted to belong to taxa at that rank. The lowercase English version of the rank name is used internally. Mappings to other versions and abbreviations are carried out during import.

Unranked Names

We force the adoption of a rank. You can’t have unranked names beyond a comment.

35.3. A new name or combination published before 1 January 1953 without a clear indication of its rank is validly published provided that all other requirements for valid publication are fulfilled; it is, however, inoperative in questions of priority except for homonymy (see Art. 53.4). If it is a new name, it may serve as a basionym for subsequent combinations or a replaced synonym for nomina nova in definite ranks.

Authentication

There are two ways to interact with the Rhakhis system, either through the web based user interface or via the API. Both methods require the user to be authenticated. Authentication is not required to download data snapshots.

When accessing the data through the web UI users must log in with a valid ORCID ID. Authentication is handled in partnership with with ORCID.org so only a user name and ORCID ID are stored locally in Rhakhis. Anyone with a valid ORCID ID can log into Rhakhis and browse the data but they will not have authorization to change anything until it is granted by another user.

The Rhakhis user account is created the first time user logs in with their ORCID ID. It is therefore not possible to grant a user editing rights until they have logged in at least once.

When a Rhakhis user account is created an API access token is also minted for that user. This access token can be used by scripts that interact with the API on behalf of the user. Any changes to the data made using this access token will appear to have been made by the user just as if they were changing the data through the web UI. The access tokens should therefore be kept secret and never shared!

Authorization

A user can be assigned as the curator of a taxon and this gives them rights to edit that taxon, any descendant taxa and any synonyms of those taxa.

If a user has the rights to edit a taxon they can also assign another user to be the curator of that taxon. If a user is made the curator of a family (so they can edit that family and everything it contains) they can assign a colleague to work on a genus within the family by making them the curator of that genus. Taxa have multiple editors so when a genus is assigned to a colleague the original user doesn’t lose control of it. Both users can work on the genus together. Taxa can also have multiple curators so a team of user could work on a whole family if that were desired.

Unplaced names are not controlled by this authorization mechanism. An unplaced name can be edited by any user who is an editor of a taxon (any taxon) but once that name is placed within the taxonomic hierarchy it is controlled by the editors of the associated taxa and becomes “locked” into the consensus taxonomy.

References

The scope of Rhakhis is nomenclature and taxonomy. We are working to make it as complete and authoritative as possible. Progress would be slower if we also tried build a system for managing ancillary data and, for example, incorporated a full citation manager or specimen catalogue. Those functions are better performed by other systems elsewhere on the internet. Certain classes of data are therefore handled by References to other systems. These can be presented as decorated links in user interfaces and documents or can be explored by software agents.

A Reference in Rhakhis consists of the following fields:

  1. URI - A unique HTTP(s) web reference to another system on the internet. This includes DOIs in there HTTP form.
  2. Label - The display text to present to the user. For a book this might be a human readable version of the citation.
  3. Kind - The type of reference the URI points to. This can be one of: Person, Literature, Specimen or Database.
  4. Image URI (optional) - A link to a thumbnail image that may be useful to decorate the link. e.g. A low resolution image of the specimen, portrait of the person or the title page of a PDF.

References are normalized, there can be only one instance of a reference with its unique URI within Rhakhis. Multiple names can link to each reference.

Names are associated with References through name_references. These allow the relationship to have two properties:

  1. Comment - An explanation of how the reference applies specifically to this name. It could be something like “Holotype specimen” or “Only known mention of name” or “Author based on abbreviation in the authors string.”
  2. Placement Related - A flag so indicate this reference is concerned with the taxonomic placement of the name rather than the nomenclatural status of the name. In the current interface reference links with this flag are presented in a yellow box called “Taxonomic Sources”. Reference links without this flag appear in the gray box entitled “Nomenclatural References”.

What if I don’t have a URI for my reference?

Database

If the database isn’t available online then we can’t link to it. If you have a heritage database that is unlikely to be made available online but can be stored in an archival way (e.g. CSV files not Microsoft Access) then you could consider submitting it to Zenodo for safe keeping. This will create a DOI for the dataset that you can then use as the link.

Literature

It is common to have a list of literature references with no URIs. Typically this is because they don’t have DOIs because they are too old to have been given one. There are different approaches you could take:

  1. If the publication is in the Biodiversity Heritage Library you can link to it there. This can either be done using the BHL link or a DOI they have minted for their publications. There is a BHL working group on this.
  2. Check if the treatment is in Plazi TreatmentBank and engage with them in getting literature submitted if possible.
  3. Link to an entry in WikiData for the article or book. If one doesn’t exist you can create it. Put the page information in the name_reference comment if that is appropriate, e.g. the page in a book so you don’t have to create a WikiData entry for every page.
  4. If you can’t or don’t want to create article level entries in WikiData you can link to the publication (e.g. The book or journal) entry and include the details of the volume, page and article title in the name_reference comment.

We will work to come up with more detailed guidance on creating links to literature in the future.

Person

If the person is alive then you should use their ORCID as the link. If they don’t have one you could ask them to register. If they don’t want to register then you can’t link to them. As a human they have a right not to be involved.

If the person is historical (a.k.a. dead) then you can link to them in WikiData, creating an entry if need be. Don’t try and solve the problem of no ORCID by moving someone from the alive to historical. That wouldn’t be ethical.

Specimens

We only provide the ability to cite specimens if they are available online as an entry in a catalogue or image. If you have an image of the specimen and it is unlikely to be put online by the holding institution then you might consider uploading it to Zenodo where it will be given a DOI that you can cite. If you only have text you can add it to the comments on the name.

Taxonomic Sources

Each branch of the taxonomy within Rhakhis is supported by some external source. We therefore aim to have a Reference in the Taxonomic Source section for each accepted name that links to the authority we use to assert that taxon exists and has those synonyms. Ideally this will be a single database reference and/or a single literature reference although this isn’t currently enforced by the system. An analogy is the linking to external sources for statements of fact in Wikipedia. Sometimes this Reference may be at a higher level within the taxonomy than the current taxon e.g. a single Taxonomic Source for a whole genus or family.

Nomenclatural References

All names should have nomenclatural references. Eventually they will all have links to the original place of publication but it is appropriate to include any reference here that would be useful for someone researching the nomenclatural aspects of this name. These might include links to the authors and type specimens or nomenclatural databases (e.g. IPNI) that contain such information. It would be inappropriate to have links here to simple occurrences of the name such as in a flora or occurrence database like GBIF unless these were the only known source of the name and would be useful to figure out the place of publication etc.