[tcs-lc] cf, aff., sp.

[Richard Pyle]

> Aside: I believe there is a major difference between cf. and aff. confer
> indicates: I believe this is probably the species, whereas aff.
> indicates:
> similar, but most likely not this species. I.e. aff. is related
> both to cf. and
> to "non".

I agree we can make these clear distinctions, but I don't agree that
taxonomists have consistently abided by them.  So the question then becomes,
do we record what the author actually wrote ("cf.", "aff.", etc.), or do we
record what the author probably meant (given well-defined distinctions
between these qualifiers)?

> "sp." as in "Genus sp." is not a identification qualifier, but
> simply redundant
> for genus identification.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no.  Sometimes the author means "some species
within this genus; maybe it's named, maybe it's not" -- in which case it is
a genus-level identification.  Other times the author means "a particular
species that hasn't been formally named yet" -- in which case it is a
species-level concept that lacks a code-compliant scientific name at the
species level.

In many cases, authors intending the latter will use something like "sp. 1".
But sometimes they do not (as I have become painfully aware during the
processing of a large dataset recently).  In fact, authors are EXTREMELY
inconsistent in what they intend by using these various kinds of qualifiers.

> It is an anomaly, when identifying to
> family level nobody use "Fabaceae Genus sp.".

I've enountered exactly this situation several times in the dataset I've
been working on.

Aloha,
Rich