Hi, Doing some studying and ran across the term "accession" used in this way: "300 accessions of 30 plant species were tested" Was unable to locate it in any botanical dictionary, etc. Can someone define it for me (reference not necessary, but appreciated). Thanks.
Thanks for the link. Bit confused. Even for plants, it seems to apply mostly to museum collections. Within the context of plants gathered for scientific testing (applicable to my example), I wonder if the meaning is somewhat different. Something along the lines of types or variants or cultivars (whatever the appropriate term would be). Any other thoughts? Thanks.
Another excerpt from the article I'm reading in case it helps anyone make sense of it: Among different fern species, three accessions of P. vitta, two cultivars of P. cretica, P. longifolia and P. umbrosa were grown with 0~500 mg As/kg added to the substrate. Thanks.
The wikipedia article is fairly clear: The only clarification needed is that it should really read "... sequential number separated by a fullstop" (here, 'period' is the peculiar Amercian term for a fullstop, not a period of time). Thus the accession number for the 34th plant acquired in 2010 would be 2010.34.
I think in your examples, it still means formally recorded acquisitions or individuals. [edited:] It's not always synonymous with "individuals" - I've seen a couple of UBCBG trees with the same accession number, so acquired and cataloged at the same time (and from the same source) and planted in the same location. The Walters Art Museum defines its use of the term accession, as distinct from acquisition: The UBCBG accession numbers include the location in the garden and the year accessioned (cataloged). I assumed the first number is just a sequence number, but I could be wrong about that.
