` :I also don't have time to spend on this now, but a few thoughts: *The type concept didn't enter the code until 1930, so Voss was operating in the tradition available to him (the Berlin rules, presumably). *The code of nomenclature evolves continuously, and the general process involved is to sort out and resuscitate old names, giving respect to scientists who have gone before. The code doesn't retroactively outlaw names because a type wasn't specified. Lectotypification/neotypification is the process that we use to sort out this kind of situation. It could happen at any time. Usually, someone studies the evidence available, including any specimens that Voss is known to have seen, and chooses as best they can. *Your argument that one can't buy a packet of seed and assume that it corresponds to a known species would apply equally well to spinach (in fact, the need to preserve a reference specimen of the spinach that they used is a criticism often leveled at the work of ``moleculoid`` scientists). *In genetic and molecular studies on a varied species (Homo sapiens, for example), there is always a taxonomic opinion involved in the statement of what species was involved. *It doesn't make Pandey's work inconsequential that he found a very real mechanism in representatives of a group that is a bit hard to pin down taxonomically. The complex ancestry of the group was vital to being able to uncover that particular component mechanism. *Pandey's and others' work on the genetic mechanisms of self-incompatibility is of such importance that people reading about it need to be able to look up a good description of what Abutilon × hybridum is. I totally oppose deletion or shrinkage of this page. *I worry about some of your ``reliable`` sources. Well-known scientists have been known to waffle on, throwing precision to the winds.   `