HISTORICAL PROBLEMS FOR THE WORKING TAXONOMIST

Summary Since the precise origins of a type or critical collection and its subsequent history at the hands of persons who have annotated a specimen are critical in making taxonomic decisions, closer attention must be made to historical problems. Suggestions are offered apropos of four problems: (1) locating the literature, (2) locating the type, (3) establishing the type‐locality as precisely as possible, and (4) deciphering handwritings on labels. Library details include the (a) need to verify dates of issue, (b) need to check translations which may provide valuable annotations and supplement the original, (c) need to search for ancillary materials which may be nursery catalogues or other ephemera: these may help fix the date of a discovery or give other taxonomic history. In the search for the type the life and travels of an author may be important. An author like A. A. Heller who kept a personal herbarium, but who moved from city to city, or an author like A. W. Chapman who assembled two or more herbaria, each destined to lodge in a different institution, presents special problems. Destruction of a type necessitates the search for an isotype. This search should not be forsaken without a thorough canvass of collections which may contain an isotype. Precision in fixing a type locality may be lost when insufficient attention is paid to the collector's travels. Endemic taxa, for example, restricted to certain soils, or to particular geographic features may be involved. Travel narratives of other members of an expedition may also elucidate obscure place names which are possibly wanting on modern maps. Sequences of collector's numbers may or may not be significant in tracing routes since one must consider the possibility of mixed collection numbers. Handwriting is an important consideration, and there are several guides kept by prominent herbaria, and some maintain sample files. The practice of copying collection labels with each exchange of a specimen often has involved miscopying or abbreviating the original information, and so presents a common source of erroneous records. It must be recognized that handwriting modifies during the lifetime of the collector, and this necessitates checking against letters or contemporary holographic records. Fallacious and inaccurate conclusions may follow hasty research.