About IPNI

The International Plant Names Index (IPNI) is a database of the names and associated basic bibliographical details of seed plants, ferns and fern allies. Its goal is to eliminate the need for repeated reference to primary sources for basic bibliographic information about plant names. The data are freely available and are gradually being standardized and checked. IPNI will be a dynamic resource, depending on direct contributions by all members of the botanical community.

IPNI is the product of a collaboration between The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, The Harvard University Herbaria, and the Australian National Herbarium

NEWS - August 2008

• Can you help us trace these references that we've been unable to find?

• NEW SEARCH TOOL available. Add IPNI quick search to your browser's list of search engines. Works with Firefox or IE7 and is simple to install. Learn more about it. Click here to install.

• If you're unable to get IE7 or Firefox you can use the handy browser buttons in IE6. These buttons show up at the top of your browser near the address bar and act as quick access links. See updated installation instructions.

• Are you a new author? Find out how to create the standard for of your name by reading our page on information for plant name authors.

• Plant name authors please check that the names you have published are using the correct standard form of your name, as listed in the authors database. If this is not the case, please let us know. No need to list the plant names. Just send us your name and we will do the rest.

• New link to electronic sites of Botany, Plant Biology and Science Journals added.

• 80% of authors and 75% of publication titles in plant name records are now standardized and linked. Have a look
  at the progress charts.

• A snapshot of improvements going on in data quality: the volume, page and publication year of names appearing in the journal Flora have recently been standardized. 144 scanning errors, typos and other errors have been corrected, e.g. volume, page, year, multiple. Click on 'View Record History' in the detailed search results to track the changes. See the errors table for more.

• Generic names in current use have been assigned to the appropriate Brummitt family (see Understanding the data). Standardization of the remaining generic names continues.

• See statistics for numbers and categories of names being added to IPNI.

TIPS

August 08

• To find recently published names of plants found in Bolivia, for example, use the advanced search page filling in the 'Country' field and the 'Added since' field. [To date 49 new records from Bolivia have been added since 1 Jan 2008.]

• If you are interested in searching only at the rank of genus use Quick Search or, to reduce the number of clicks required, use the browser plugin. Remember that these searches are case sensitive. You could of course, select 'Generic' from the Show Ranks box under Extended Options at the bottom of the search form.

• The search results are sorted by family by default. If you would like them to be ordered by genus, deselect 'Sort by family'.

July 08

• The basis of the IPNI authors database, Authors of Plant Names, by Brummitt & Powell (1992) is endorsed by TDWG as a standard. See new page for authors containing background and information on creating standard author name forms.

• Clicking on the IPNI icon will take you back to the home page.

• If you want to find all of the names published by a particular author, uncheck the 'basionym author' box.

June 08

• When using the author's forename field in an authors database search, use only the first character followed by a wildcard.

• If pasting a name from elsewhere into the author standard form field, any spaces after full stops must be removed or replaced by wildcards.

• There is no need to include accents and other diacritic characters when entering search criteria.

May 08

• Use a wildcard at the end of publication title searches as some titles can be extremely long!

• Selecting "Full records" as the Output Format can be useful when comparing similar records.

• In records of new combinations, the author of the basionym doesn't appear in parentheses before the author of the new combination in names published in IK before 1931.

April 08

• Quick searches allow you to paste a plant name (without authors) straight into a single box. Unlike full searches, quick searches are case-sensitive and will find matching records at the same rank as the name you put in. Try it out! Get more ideas on how to use it.

Many infraspecific names are missing from IPNI because the IK compilers didn't start recording them until 1971. There is no need for you to report these omissions, but if you come across a missing post-1970 infraspecific name, please let us know.

• If you find IPNI useful for your work, please mention it when citing sources of information. It may be cited as 'The International Plant Names Index (2008). Published on the Internet http://www.ipni.org [accessed 1 March 2008]*. *[Replace this date with the appropriate date for your use of the database]

March 08

• A hyperlink on author or publication title in the detailed search results indicates standardized format.

• Want to see new names added since last year, last month, last week or yesterday? You can do this by searching by additional terms. Search must be limited by at least one term, like family. Find out more.

• Remember IPNI's focus is purely nomenclatural. No opinions are given on what are currently accepted names or synonyms. [See link to find some sources of current names.]

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Page last updated 31 July 2008