Yes, thanks, Jim, for your comments, "validly published species" as you wrote clarifies the situation better. Of course is like you say but if the species is validly published you will find it in IPNI for instance, which most of us use as an easy, at hand reference. Those Cannas mentioned were validly published species and as such were of interest to him, but clearly they did not exist. But it took a long trip to the wild locations to find out. > > The rules of nomenclature and the activities of taxonomists are not what determine if a species exists. When a taxonomist publishes a name, the taxonomist is expressing an opinion, a hypothesis. Whether the entity in question really exists or not is a matter of science, not of taxonomy.