Plant names for the 21st century: the International Plant Names Index, a distributed data source of general accessibility

Abstract

Summary Croft, J., Cross, N., Hinchcliffe, S., Nic Lughadha, E., Stevens, P. F., West, J. G. & Whitbread, G.: Plant names for the 21st century: the International Plant Names Index, a distributed data source of general accessibility. – Taxon 48: 317‐324. 1999. – ISSN 0040‐0262. The Plant Names Project is a collaborative venture between the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the Harvard University Herbaria, and the Australian National Herbarium. The Index kewensis, the Gray card index, and the Australian plant names index are being combined and the data edited to produce the International plant names index (IPNI). IPNI will consist of the names and associated basic bibliographical details of all seed plants. Its goal is to eliminate the need for finding and checking basic bibliographic information about plant names; such names will be presented in a distributed data base, freely available and with the data standardised against authority data and ultimately verified. IPNI will be a dynamic resource, globally current, continually improving in accuracy, and allowing, indeed encouraging, direct contributions by all members of the botanical community.