Misadventure

  The literature abounds in names with have been spelled incorrectly. The reasons for this situation are numerous and include typographical errors, momentary lapses in concentration or ignorance on the part of the writer. Rarely an incorrect name may be inadvertently substituted for another as when australis was inadvertently replaced by neutralis.

  Throughout, generic names are spelt with a capital initial and, in accordance with the provisions of the Code, species names with a lower case initial.

  The grammar has been simplified. Verbs are given in the first person singular present tense and nouns in the nominative singular, as both are so listed in dictionaries. For adjectives which are inflected, the nominative singular forms are given in alphabetical order and thus do not always follow the order of dictionaries, which list masculine form first and neuter, last.

  The spellings of any place names, when changed from those published, wherever possible follow the usage of the “Times Atlas” or “Times Gazetteer”, or have been sourced from Cohen (1998).

  Nationalities of persons commemorated in generic or specific names are wherever possible given in terms of their country of birth. Their subsequent nationalities and countries in which they principally lived or collected are also given where appropriate. For example, José de Acosta (1540–1600) (See acostae) is recorded as a Spanish Jesuit and scholar who traveled extensively in Central and South America and for his writings earned the title “Pliny of the New World”. In contrast, Ferdinand Jacob Heinrich Mueller (1825–1896) is described herein as a German-born Australian botanist, whilst Friedrich M. Müller (fl. 1853–1855) is recorded only as having collected in Mexico, as his country of origin is uncertain (See muelleri).

  Variant spellings of both generic and specific names abound in the literature. No effort has been made to correct orthographic variants, other than those arising from mistakes as to the correct method of converting personal names into a Latin form. This means that many epithets published with a single terminal -i following a consonant other than r have been omitted from the Dictionary but all appear in the corrected form with a terminal -ii (masculine) or -ae (feminine). The neglect of forms with an inappropriate ending should cause no difficulty to the reader for they would usually have been located immediately adjacent to the corrected epithet.

  For homonyms, the derivations given apply only to the usage of the name in the Poaceae.