Talk:Cyperus setiger
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Proposed move[edit]
The great majority of the taxonomic databases linked from the taxonbar have the name Cyperus setigerus, which was used by the authors in the original. As of 6 June 2022, Tropicos and Plants of the World Online (but not the related Kew database the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families) had Cyperus setiger. As far as I can tell, as of 6 June 2022, Plants of the World online changed all epithets that end in -gerus and -ferus in IPNI to -ger and -fer (e.g. search for "*gerus" in IPNI and follow the links to PoWO). Tropicos had an explanation. It said of setigerus
- "the termination to be corrected to setiger [masc. gender, Adj. group A nom., see Stern [sic]: page 93, 3rd ed.; Art. 23.5".
Stearn's Botanical Latin (p. 91 in the 4th edition I have) does indeed say that compounds in -ger and -fer have these plain forms as the masculine nominative singular, so Cyperus setiger would be correct.
However, the question is whether Art. 23.5 of the ICNafp, which Tropicos cites as justification, allows the authors' original setigerus to be corrected. The relevant part is:
- "The specific epithet, when adjectival in form and not used as a noun, agrees with the gender of the generic name; ... Epithets not conforming to this rule are to be corrected to the proper form of the termination (Latin or transcribed Greek) of the original author(s)."
Since setigerus is clearly masculine, it seems that it isn't correctable by Art. 23.5, since it does conform to the rule that it must agree with the gender of the generic name, although not using the form used in Classical Latin. The ICNafp itself contains an example with -ferus: Ex. 1 of Art. F3 has Linnaeus' Agaricus umbelliferus.
So the conclusion is that Tropicos and PoWO are wrong both in this particular case and in similar ones. The analysis above has been confirmed to me by e-mail exchanges with Kanchi Gandhi of IPNI, but such personal communications are not citable, so I can't put this explanation of why setigerus is correct in the text of the article. However, I think the article can be moved on the basis that the majority of taxonomic databases use setigerus. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:05, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
- Agreed, will have to change the source then make the move. Hughesdarren (talk) 08:48, 6 June 2022 (UTC)