Review What is in a name? The need for accurate scientific nomenclature for plants Diego Rivera a,n , Robert Allkin b , Concepción Obón c , Francisco Alcaraz a , Rob Verpoorte d , Michael Heinrich e,f a Dpto Biología Vegetal, Campus de Espinardo, Universidad de Murcia, Murcia 30100, Spain b Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, London, United Kingdom c Dpto. Biología Aplicada, Escuela Politécnica Superior, Universidad Miguel Hernández, Ctra. Beniel Km 3.2, 03312 Orihuela, Alicante, Spain d Division of Pharmacognosy, Section Metabolomics, Institute Biology Leiden, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands e Research Cluster Biodiversity and Medicines/ Centre for Pharmacognosy and Phytotherapy, UCL School of Pharmacy, University of London, London, United Kingdom f Department of Pharmaceutics and Industrial Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia article info Article history: Received 24 September 2013 Received in revised form 15 December 2013 Accepted 17 December 2013 Available online 25 December 2013 Keywords: Nomenclature Botanical nomenclature Taxonomy Latin binomials Plant authentication Traditional medicine abstract Ethnopharmacological relevance: To avoid ambiguities and error, ethnopharmacological and any other research on plants requires precise and appropriate use of botanical scientific nomenclature. Aims: This paper explores problems and impacts of ambiguous or erroneous use of botanical scientific nomenclature in ethnopharmacological studies. It suggests how the frequency and impact of such errors can be reduced. Approach and methods: We assessed 214 articles published in the three first volumes of the Journal of Ethnopharmacology in 2012: 140(1) to 141 (3) and 214 articles in Phytomedicine (2012–2013): 19 (5) to 20 (7). Results: Amongst the articles reviewed 308 articles cited plant names incorrectly. Among the articles studied 9178 Latin scientific names were cited and 3445 were incorrect in some respect. Simple principles applied in a systematic way and used together with open-access reference resources could help authors, referees and editors of ethnopharmacological, phytochemical, toxicological and clinical studies to reduce ambiguity about the identity and name of the species involved and thus significantly improve the quality of the final publication. Conclusions: We have identified a series of key steps needed to solve the taxonomic ambiguities and errors. Aside from reinforcing existing policies, journals will have to implement better tools to ensure the proper authentication of materials. The new electronic publishing environments offer novel ways to develop such botanical-taxonomic tools. & 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. Contents 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................ 394 2. Objectives.......................................................................................................... 394 3. Methods ........................................................................................................... 395 4. Results and discussion................................................................................................ 396 4.1. The scale and nature of the problem .............................................................................. 396 4.2. Systematic analysis of possible errors, their impact .................................................................. 397 4.3. Lack of evidence for which plants are being studied and reported: “Are comprehensive specimen citations included?” ............ 397 4.4. Lack of sufficient evidence for the identity of the specimens studied .................................................... 397 4.5. Scientific names are not used when referring to plants ............................................................... 398 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jep Journal of Ethnopharmacology 0378-8741/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jep.2013.12.022 Abbreviations: TPL, The Plant List; TCM, Traditional Chinese Medicine n Corresponding author: Tel.: þ34 868 884994; fax: þ34 868 883963. E-mail addresses: drivera@um.es (D. Rivera), b.allkin@kew.org (R. Allkin), cobon@umh.es (C. Obón), verpoorte@chem.leidenuniv.nl (R. Verpoorte), m.heinrich@ucl.ac.uk (M. Heinrich). Journal of Ethnopharmacology 152 (2014) 393–402