plant donor and locality nomenclature

Discussion in 'Plants: Nomenclature and Taxonomy' started by Nuno Dias, Apr 29, 2021.

  1. Nuno Dias

    Nuno Dias New Member

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    Hello,

    I'm a succulent collector. I see people online posting pictures of their plants and they often indicate the source, ie., who they got the plants from, prefixed with an 'Ex.' I tried looking online and I have no idea where this abbreviation comes from. Latin 'ex' with no dot, used in complex author names, seems to me to be a different thing.

    Some collectors claim that they maintain specimens directly cloned from field specimens and add the locality details to the plant description.

    I was wondering if there are in fact conventions for referring donor and locality relative to live plants and in that case, where it can be found online.

    Thanks.
     
  2. Daniel Mosquin

    Daniel Mosquin Paragon of Plants UBC Botanical Garden Forums Administrator Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    Hi,

    I don't think there are any formal conventions for plant collecting like that (in comparison to how ex is used in plant name authors: Author citation (botany) - Wikipedia )
     
  3. Eric La Fountaine

    Eric La Fountaine Contributor Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    I always took it to mean "from". I think people list the source, be it nursery or location or even a person, because some sources have more cred than others. You know if you got it from a reputable collector that it is more likely to be true to name. Also different collectors sometimes end up with clones that have certain characteristics, so ex "A" might show different traits than the same taxon obtained from source "B".

    Ex | Definition of Ex by Merriam-Webster

    preposition
    Definition of ex (Entry 3 of 8)

    1: out of : FROM: such as
    a: from a specified place or source
     
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  4. Ron B

    Ron B Paragon of Plants 10 Years

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    My assumption has also been that its use within this subject area (who the specimen came from) is a sort of joke reference to how ex is used in botanical names.
     
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  5. Nuno Dias

    Nuno Dias New Member

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    Yes, I think Eric La Fountaine's reply is spot on.
    Ron B, I understand where you comment comes from!

    The thing is, I see the notation being typed very loosely: capitalized, italic, no dot, and the reverse. And I was taught to be very precise with these things. So I looked at it and I wondered, is it latin, should it be italicized? Is it an abbreviation, because of the dot? If yes, of what? Is it the same ex as the one used for referencing previous authors? This is where my confusion comes from. So thank you for the clarification.

    Even without conventions, is there a commonly used standard for laying out this information, say in a label or an online photo? Something similar to what people do with bibliographic references, like the order of the fields, which fields are italicized, where to put the dots and where to use the commas, that sort of thing.

    Thanks.
     

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