On 31 Jan 04 at 12:22, Jim McKenney wrote: > But I think botanists sometimes go back and change the original > spellings to make them conform to the spelling used by the eponym. A > case in point: all my life I've written Crocus tommasinianus. But > the name is now "officially" changed to respect Signor Tomasini's > spelling, i.e. with one "m". > > Because such activity (i.e. spelling changes) is generally well > below my radar screen, I brought the issue up hoping a practising > botanist familiar with the Scoliopus and Tulipa questions might > respond with the details. > > Any takers? I'm not completely au courant on the matter, but I believe one fairly recent revision of the ICBN (International Code of Botanical Nomenclature) decreed that epithets based on non-Latinized names were to be spelled as the name itself was spelled. Hence tommasinianus became tomasinianus. And bigelovii would become bigelowii, assuming the name honors a Bigelow and not a Bigelov. Note that this change in spelling is entirely independent of German spelling practice. However, I think -- I'm not sure -- that this provision was repealed in the next revision of the ICBN and we're back to spelling botanical epithets as they were when first validly published. Any professional botanist in the mob to confirm or refute all this? -- Rodger Whitlock Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Maritime Zone 8, a cool Mediterranean climate on beautiful Vancouver Island