Bibliographical Miscellany — I. On ambiguity in 

 author abbreviations 



J( ISEPH EWAN 



In the course of the preparation of a biography of the late 

 Dr. Anstruther Davidson (Madrono 2: 124-128, 1934) I noted 

 certain bibliographic confusion with regard to the citation of 

 author abbreviations. Some further jottings along a similar vein 

 made subsequently are here briefly discussed. 



A. Davidson, author of more than fifty species and varieties 

 of Californian and Arizona flowering plants, might conveni- 

 ently be cited "Dav." but complications may arise from this 

 practice. Dr. VY. L. Jepson directed my attention to the fact 

 that there seemed to be no competition for this abbreviation 

 among the names of botanists. His examination of the works of 

 Pritzel, Gray, Rydberg (where scholarly registers of authors are 

 given on at least two occasions (1917 and 1932) by Dr. J. H. 

 Barnhart), and Britton showed no apparent confusion arising 

 from names with the three initial letters D-a-v. There is, how- 

 ever, one conflict offered by the name of the American pteridol- 

 ogist, George Edward Davenport (1833-1907), which is abbre- 

 viated in Willis' extended list of abbreviations (1931) as "Dav." 

 It might be avowed that since the respective fields of work of the 

 two botanists are so wholly discrete, Davidson at no time pub- 

 lishing, to my knowledge, a species among the Pteridophyta and 

 Davenport likewise not entering the phanerogamic field as phy- 

 tographer at any time, that it is idle to consider the coincident 

 abbreviation. 



It is worth while, nevertheless, to direct attention to the 

 matter in the interest of attaining as early and complete uni- 

 formity as possible in the matter of author abbreviations. 



Two objectives are borne in mind in the use of such abbre- 

 viations. Primarily, an abbreviation to be useful must be truly 

 an abridgement designed to reduce the bulk of the whole, terse 

 and clear, and not simply a lopping of the final letters of an 

 author's name to afford a scant em or two per description. To 

 illustrate, the name of the salicologist Andersson (1821-1880) 

 is docked -to "Anders.", in which case there's collision with the 

 abbreviation for Thomas Anderson (1832-1870), director of the 



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