Welcome aboard!
This is Jan Schlauer from Tuebingen, Germany. Nice to see you here.
>(...)
>apparently new species that have entered horticultural circles, but for
>which no herbarium material was prepared.
Not only horticultural circles...
You certainly have contacted ADAM/WILCOCK and TAMIN/HOTTA, but have you
contacted R.SCHMID-HOLLINGER already? Maybe you remember some of his fine
papers on _Nepentes_ published during the 1970s. He has recently
investigated a part of the Sumatran _Nepenthes_ flora, and I think he is
presently preparing some revision.
Quite certainly, you know about a small paper by J.NERZ and myself
(submitted in 1992 but still not published...) on a few taxa of this same
genus through Martin Cheek.
> If members of the Bulletin board
>have any information to offer we would be happy to outline our proposed
>revision.
Some information I could offer is the nomenclatural stuff available from
the server you have posted your message to.
Oh yes, please outline your proposed revision. I am interested in it *very*
much. The genus is urgently in need of a modern revision, as many taxa are
rather ill-defined or known only from insufficient herbarium material.
Moreover, apart from the (preliminary) attempts by DANSER and
SCHMID-HOLLINGER, no progress has been made with a phylogenetic arrangement
of the species. Do you have some new ideas? I have fed some morphological
data to a computer already, but the result (after hours of calculation) was
very disappointing!
> Since Nepenthes-naming has clearly been associated with much
>ill-feeling and stealing of new names in the past we can appreciate any
>reluctance people may have, however, we would like to offer our assurances
>that we merely have the intention of stabilising the taxonomy as our aim,
>and hope that the co-operation of all people in the field can only have a
>satisfactory taxonomy of the group as an outcome.
Yes, indeed. BTW, it was (unfortunately!) not the names which were stolen
but the corresponding taxa. ;-)
What is even more disturbing is the fact that some important specimens
(including types) are obviously not at the places where they should be
(e.g. BO).
Kind regards
Jan