Xerophilia - another free online journal

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daiv
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Xerophilia - another free online journal

Post by daiv »

Hey everyone.

One of our own long-time members, Eduart Zimmer from New Zealand, has co-founded this new on-line C&S journal. Here is the link:

http://xerophilia.ro/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Enjoy!
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eduart
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Re: Xerophilia - another free online journal

Post by eduart »

Hi All,

Thank you Daiv for introducing Xerophilia!

I wasn’t around for some time, partly because a very hectic working schedule and partly because I’m pretty much tied up with a new project: a new quarterly online magazine called Xerophilia (ISSN: 2285 – 3987). It is actually a teamwork: Dag Panco, Valentin Posea (both well-known Romanian cacti-collectors) and yours truly, helped of course by several other contributors. The name has it all: we intend to cover a bit more than the usual C&S – i.e. in our first issue you can read a very interesting article about succulent arboreal ant-plants of. At least we try. For the time being the magazine is bilingual - Romanian / English, but depending on how things work out we might have a Hungarian issue as well (Romania is home for many hundreds of thousands of Hungarians and we cannot ignore this). If all goes well and according to our plans at some stage we will have separate Romanian / Hungarian / English issues… but this is further down the road.

You can read Xerophilia online or download from http://xerophilia.ro/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

For any comments, suggestions and critics please write us at

xerophilia@xerophilia.ro

or

eduart.zimer@xerophilia.ro

We started already work on the second issue due by the end of September and we are all very excited with the new things we’re bringing in, including a revised layout. (We’re smart enough to learns from our own mistakes, or at least we love to think so).

Any contribution – articles, reports, travelogues, curiosities, short comments, experiments, or simply pictures, etc. are more than welcome! We are in for the long run and this is the last thing we want – to have a magazine written by the editorial team! So, your contribution is highly valuable!

We also intend to promote any type of source or resource for the C&S enthusiast. So, if you wish to promote any event, website, source, product, nursery, you name it, just send us a banner or textbox and we make sure it will be in the next issue.

Cheers from downunder,
Eduart
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Saxicola
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Re: Xerophilia - another free online journal

Post by Saxicola »

Nice first issue! I hope this magazine is a success.

I'd like to make a comment regarding the publication of Corynopuntia guccinii from the standpoint of a plant taxonomist. The author listed the holotype as residing in a personal herbarium. While this is allowed by the ICBN, it is considered very bad practice because it can make actually seeing and studying the specimen difficult for researchers. How will a researcher 100 years from now find it? He did put an isotype in MEXU, but the holotype is critical for anyone doing a revision of a genus. Most journals require that at least the holotype be in a recognized herbarium listed in Index Herbariorum. In this case if he insisted in having a type specimen in a personal herbarium it would have been better to make the MEXU specimen the holotype and his specimen the isotype. As a plant taxonomist I would politely suggest you consider that for future publications of new taxa.
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eduart
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Re: Xerophilia - another free online journal

Post by eduart »

Thank you, this is very interesting. None of the editorial team is actually a taxonomist or has at least advanced knowledge so that I cannot comment. We were not in contact with D.D. for several weeks now, but we will definitely submit your comment. Highly appreciated.

Cheers from downunder,
Eduart
d.donati
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Re: Xerophilia - another free online journal

Post by d.donati »

Saxicola wrote:

I'd like to make a comment regarding the publication of Corynopuntia guccinii from the standpoint of a plant taxonomist. The author listed the holotype as residing in a personal herbarium. While this is allowed by the ICBN, it is considered very bad practice because it can make actually seeing and studying the specimen difficult for researchers. How will a researcher 100 years from now find it? He did put an isotype in MEXU, but the holotype is critical for anyone doing a revision of a genus. Most journals require that at least the holotype be in a recognized herbarium listed in Index Herbariorum. In this case if he insisted in having a type specimen in a personal herbarium it would have been better to make the MEXU specimen the holotype and his specimen the isotype. As a plant taxonomist I would politely suggest you consider that for future publications of new taxa.

Just back from the Caucasus range, by chance I found this topic.

Saxicola,

Some plants I described are deposited in Herbarium Hinton.
Herbarium G.B. Hinton is a private Mexican herbarium, but one of the most famous, in contact with MEXU and ANSM Herbaria. It's also listed in the "WORLD INFORMATION NETWORK ON BIODIVERSITY" of CONABIO (Comision nacional para conocimiento y uso de biodiversidad).
The holotypes of many very interesting plants are deposited there, the editors of the magazines who published the descriptions thought it was alright: for example, the editors of Phytologia (US) had no objection publishing Mammillaria luethyi and Turbinicarpus booleanus.
Corynopuntia guccinii was published in 2010 on Piante Grasse Journal, the first italian journal dedicated to succulent plants; the Editor was Prof. Giancarlo Sleiter, who edited the journal for 30 years.

As you wrote, ICBN allows to list as holotype a specimen residing in a private Herbarium, so the descriptions I mentioned above are valid.
Now I'm the the new Editor of Piante Grasse Journal: I'll accept descriptions of new species with the holotype deposited in private herbarium, but only if the Herbarium is so important and perfectly maintained as Herbarium Hinton, and a Isotype is deposited in a public herbarium.

In any case, the curator of Herbarium G.B Hinton, George S. Hinton, is very friendly: you can contact him directly or you can visit his herbarium.


Dr. Davide Donati
Università di Bologna
Editor - Piante Grasse Journal
Director - Anubias labs
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Saxicola
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Re: Xerophilia - another free online journal

Post by Saxicola »

I'm glad that there are connections with MEXU and ANSM, but I still think it is a bad idea. It is great that he allows access to his specimens, but what is best for the science is for it to be in public institution not subject to the whims of a private collector. At the very least I hope he is making arrangements for the collection to go to a public institution after he passes on. I am happy to learn that at least this seems to be a significant private collection and not just some herbarium cabinet in someone's bedroom containing a bunch of types (which I've seen!).

While the code hasn't banned putting types in public herbaria, they definitely recommend against it:

"Recommendation 7A

7A.1. It is strongly recommended that the material on which the name of a taxon is based, especially the holotype, be deposited in a public herbarium or other public collection with a policy of giving bona fide researchers access to deposited material, and that it be scrupulously conserved."

I don't see why you can't designate a specimen in a public herbarium as the Holotype and the one in the private herbarium as an Isotype. It would make things easier for future researchers. Again, don't misunderstand what I'm saying here. I fully agree you CAN designate types in private collections, and the publication of C. guccinii appears valid. All I'm doing is putting myself in the shoes of a monographer 30 years from now that will not just want, but NEED to see that holotype. An isotype is better than nothing, but unless you see the holotype you cannot be 100% certain about the application of the name.

To your credit, I am happy to see what appears to be a clear discussion of why you think this taxon is new and how it differs from from congeners (beyond the bare minimum required by the code). That really will be useful to a future worker on the group.
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Re: Xerophilia - another free online journal

Post by d.donati »

Saxicola,
I can share a lot of thing, but...
I've spent more than one year of my life in Mexico, and I had some experience with some Mexican public herbaria: maybe I was unlucky in the choice of the latter, but I found the best profesionalism, seriousness and, above all, passion in Hinton Herbarium. The recommandation 7A is respected in my opinion, you can visit and exploit the collection (thousands exicata) whenever you want.
I'm sure about the destiny of the holotypes 30 or 100 years from now, but I suggest you to contact Mr. G.S. Hinton about this or, better, to visit the Herbarium, since California is not so far from Nuevo Leon: you will realize why I chose (and probably I will choose) Herbarium Hinton as the custode of the holotypes of some species I described.

Thanks for the appreciations about the article, you can find some of my works at the webpage

http://www.atmosfera-d.it/index.php?opt ... Itemid=186" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

click on the links, the download is free.

Davide
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Re: Xerophilia - another free online journal

Post by eduart »

Hi All,

I hope you have enjoyed reading our first Xerophilia issue … but time flies so here we are again, three months later, with the second issue having an improved layout (which hopefully you will prefer) . It was a hard work at our end, but we’ve had so much fun! The featured plant is Pelecyphora aselliformis, there is another extremely interesting article on growing Ariocarpus, and much more interesting stuff! A total of 98 pages, over 210 pictures (of which 87 habitat pictures), with over 90% of the pictures being linked to high resolution files. We only hope that you’ll enjoy!

http://xerophilia.ro/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

We already started work on the third issue which is due by the 15th of December and we’re all very excited with the improved layout. We also continue to build up a portfolio of different articles, enough for 2 – 3 issues. The reason is that having more articles on hand it becomes much easier to have well balanced and varied issues, interesting a much wider range of readers. In this context we seek for your collaboration: any articles on any type of cacti, succulents and xerophytes, on any subject – be it cultivation issues, travelogues, habitat reports, taxonomy, biology, oddities and curiosities, or whatever you think it might be of interest – is more than welcome!

I’m looking forward to hear back from you.

Thank you,

Cheers from downunder,
Eduart
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Re: Xerophilia - another free online journal

Post by eduart »

Hi,

Xerophilia - the third issue is due on the 15th of December (but maybe we will put it online few days earlier)

Image

Cheers,
Eduart
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Re: Xerophilia - another free online journal

Post by eduart »

It's online!
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Re: Xerophilia - another free online journal

Post by eduart »

Hi All,

Number 4 is just around the corner... it is due online by the end of March, but we will get it out probably again few days in advance:

Image

Cheers,
Eduart
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Re: Xerophilia - another free online journal

Post by eduart »

Hi,

Our fourth issue is online now!

http://xerophilia.ro/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Cheers,
Eduart
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Re: Xerophilia - another free online journal

Post by Ron43 »

Well I only read English so it of no value to me.
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Re: Xerophilia - another free online journal

Post by phil_SK »

It's in English. :roll:
daiv
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Re: Xerophilia - another free online journal

Post by daiv »

Well to be more precise, it is bilingual.
All Cacti are succulents, but not all succulents are Cacti
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