Collections cited under abbreviations

The practice of citing collections made in institutional series by the letters of that series instead of by the collector’s name (e.g. FB 23435 instead of Aquilar & Valderrama FB 23435) led, with the publication of so many Identification Lists, to the dishing out of an alphabet soup that many a botanist or curator of collections may find hard to digest. In itself, the system of collecting in long institutional series is an excellent one, permitting great economy in space when collections are to be cited. The oldest series seems to be the KB-one, dating from about 1870, established by Scheffer, followed early in this century by the BS and FB series, established by Merrill. A good number-stamp may have contributed much to the success and consistency with which the series were maintained for a long time. In other institutes, there has been created what Dr. Ashton characterized as ”a masterpiece of confusion”, the unravelling of which, as can be seen from his paper on ”The numbering of Sarawak Forest Department collections” in this Bulleton on pp. 1432-1435 (1966), requires a good deal of research. The purpose of this paper is only to give a list of abbreviations in use between Thailand and the Solomons, for the guidance of those who compile, and those who use Identification lists. These Lists, products of the work for the Flora Malesiana, serve as documentation as well as being of use for the identification of Malesian duplicates not seen by a taxonomist himself. When compiling and using such a list, three questions are to be considered.