How to check your species plant name - step by step

Submitted by wellsy on Sat, 06/09/2008 - 17:44

How to check your species plant name - step by step

So you have a species plant which you would like to confirm has the correct (and up to date name)

It's so easy, all you do is visit http://apps.kew.org/wcsp/qsearch.do

You type (or as I do copy/paste) >YourPlantGenusNameHere< into the search box and click "find name" button. A tip: try searching just the genus name unless you are 100% sure of the spelling.

In the list that comes up scroll down to YourPlantGenusNameHere + the specific name of your plant. Note that there will be extra information after the specific name. Now click that link and you will have just confirmed the name of your plant is either valid or not.

If only everyone would do that the world would be filled with happy orchid people! (especially us overworked Orchids Online Admins).

There are several indicators included with the information which appears on the first list which are worth looking closely at so take note of this advice which appears on the page to:-
"Click on any name to see a detailed overview.
Names in bold indicate accepted names, plain list indicates non accepted names."

It didn't work!

1. So you had problems with the search for your plant? If the page returned "Your search returned no results, please refine your search criteria." then you most likely misspelt the plants generic epiphet (genus). Check the spelling is correct and once you know the genus is spelt correctly try searching again.

2. You now have a list but your species is not listed? Well that may be either simply not spelt as you were expecting or it is slightly different than you were expecting. Often you may find things like suffixes are different.

ie: YourPlantGenusNameHere purpurea is really YourPlantGenusNameHere purpureum.

Or YourPlantGenusNameHere simmondsi is really YourPlantGenusNameHere simmondsii. Practice and experience will help you with this and ask back here for help with stuff like that.

Become empowered, become better than many so-called experts! Check this list yourself for all your plant names (everytime) and you will surely be a more confident, less confused orchidist.

Have fun!
wellsy