Scope of GRIN-Global Taxonomy
Taxonomic and nomenclatural needs of National Plant Germplasm
System (NPGS) are now met through GRIN-Global by botanists of the National Germplasm
Resources Laboratory (NGRL), which is responsible for the taxonomy
area of the database. GRIN-Global Taxonomy is regularly updated to include
accepted family and generic names. By necessity,
all 867 specific and infraspecific taxa represented by germplasm in
the NPGS are also included in this taxonomy, although that represents only
about a quarter of all accepted names from these ranks in GRIN-Global. A broad
range of economically important plants are treated by GRIN-Global nomenclature,
including food or spice, timber, fiber, drug, forage, soil-building or
erosion-control, genetic resource, poisonous, weedy, and ornamental
plants. Most or all species of important agricultural crop genera are
represented in GRIN-Global; for other less important economic genera, only a portion of the
species may be represented. When all species of a genus are represented
in GRIN-Global this is indicated by a comment in the GRIN-Global genus report. Reference to the literature cited in GRIN-Global may
provide information relating to the treatment of other species.
The taxonomy area encompasses names governed by the
International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN; McNeill et al., 2012).
Names treated under the International Code of Nomenclature
for Cultivated Plants (Brickell et al., 2009), such as
cultivars, may be linked to individual accessions in the accession area of
GRIN-Global. These cultivar or other designations are provided only to the
extent that they are represented by germplasm accessions. Their inclusion
and verification is the responsibility of the site where the germplasm is
maintained.