"As botanists drop a racist plant name, some fear scientific confusion" www.nytimes.com/2024/08/01/s... Meanwhile, for the Maerua genus shown as an example: 167 species in CoL 179 species in IPNI 74 species in Kew It's not like taxonomy was wonderfully clear; now, slightly less racist. Good.
The International Botanical Congress voted to change a scientific name belonging to hundreds of plant species because it was offensive in southern Africa.
Love this, and not to be a pedant: but this change really has everything to do with nomenclature and nothing at all with taxonomy (at least directly!).
Well said. Taxonomy is frequently a confusing mess. We've been battling over whether there is one i or two i's in the Andropogon gerardi that my student works with. The teosintes I work on have species that should be subspecies and subspecies that were in a different genus. Less racism is a win.
The idea that taxonomists or biologists would be perturbed by *checks notes* changing the scientific names of things Is quite amusing. They do it all the time!
Exactly! That’s my argument for the folks who (quite viciously) oppose similar initiatives for animals and specifically birds: taxonomic stability is and has always been a myth. So why not change things up just a little bit more, for the sake of making our discipline more welcoming?