Index Hepaticarum now available online

Dear Bryologists,

I am pleased to announce that Index Hepaticarum is available online through the website of Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques (G) as the Index Hepaticarun Names Database on the following link:
http://www.ville-ge.ch/musinfo/bd/cjb/hepatic/index.php

Index Hepaticarum, a list of all specific and infra-specific hornwort and liverwort names published between the effective dates of 01.01.1853 and 31.12.1973, was started at G in the 1950's by the then curator of bryophytes Charles Bonner. The aim of the project was to collate together all published hornwort and liverwort names and make these available to the scientific community to facilitate systematic research on these two groups of plants. Upon Bonner's death it was decided that the project Index Hepaticarum would remain based at G with Patricia Geissler and Helene Bischler responsible for editing the second editions of the original Index Hepaticarum series with P. Geissler at G responsible for running the project database. A total of 13 volumes of Index Hepaticarum have been published to date and the final two volumes in this series are currently in preparation at G.

Index Hepaticarum as it stands today, the reference for liverwort and hornwort nomenclature, was an international collaboration greatly facilitated by the IAB. The project was assisted extensively in the collation and verification of data by the larger bryological community: H. Bischler, J. J. Engel, S. R. Gradstein, P. Geissler, R. Grolle, A. J. Harrington, S. Hattori, H. Inoue, S. Jovet, Y. Kuwahara, D. Lamy, D. Long, H. A. Miller, T. Pocs, G. A. M. Scott, R. E. Stotler, J. Vana, D. A. J. Vogelpoel, S. Willi-Bonner, K. Yamada, G. Zijlstra.

The Index Hepaticarum Names Database contains over 30'000 entries and its strength lies in the provision of publication, basionym and brief type data for the older names of hornworts and liverworts published between the effective publication dates 1853-1973. Names published after 1973 were collated at F by Dr. J.J. Engel and have been published as a series of Index Hepaticarum supplements in TAXON and more recently by Crosby & Engel (2006) as the Index of Hepatics 1974-2000 by The Hattori Botanical Laboratory.

In the Index Hepaticarum Names Database the search fields are presently written in French (to be provided in English in the near future) but here is a brief summary of the search process in the meantime:

From the menu bar at the top of the page choose "Recherche".

On this page you can enter the generic name in the search field "saisie le nom de genre ici" and the epithet can be entered in the search field "saisie le non d'espèce ici". A search can be performed by genus only, by species epithet only or for a particular name by using the two fields combined. You can add partial names followed by a "%" sign to capture all data under the shortened entry, ie. "Jungerman%" would pull all entries for Jungermannia, Jungermanniopsis and Jungermannites.

The presentation of our data still needs a bit of work (upcoming!) but the data is there for you to use now in its electronic format. I would greatly appreciate any corrections that you may have regarding the data, especially as I would like the Index Hepaticarum Names Database to be as accurate as possible for those names published during the time period with which it is concerned.

I thank everyone who has assisted with this project both in the past and more recently, especially Anne Streiff who worked hard on correcting for data of names A-Jubula and on standardising the database (authorities by Brummit & Powell for example), and I hope that Index Hepaticarum will be useful to you all in its new electronic format.

With my best wishes,

Michelle Price
Curator of bryophytes, ferns and gymnosperms (G)
Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques de la Ville de Genève
Chemin de l’Impératrice, 1
Case postale 60
1292 Chambésy-GE
Switzerland