2 
* 
be contracting to C.E.I.R. in the Baltimore, Philadelphia, or New York areas, 
since all are currently using the Silver Spring facilities. Interested 
individuals should contact James A. Peters at the Smithsonian. 
MORE ON ENNEAMETRIC SYSTEMATICS 
The remarks in MUDPIE No. 5 have produced a reply on the part of 
Dr. Antony Santiago, who writes: 
With regard to the comments "that in enneametric systematics I am severely 
limited in my approach to my committment to the 3X3 matrix, I should bring to 
your attention that a character is limited to 3 categories for a 3X3 matrix, 
but whenever necessary a category is converted into a character and the new 
character is expanded into three new categories for subsequent enneametric 
systematics. In effect therefore a character has 3X categories. This situa¬ 
tion combining with the infinitely expandable (3X3) n matrix makes enneametric 
systematics very practicable. 
"As for the review of my use of the statement 'not yet determined' which 
you have interpreted as clearly a biological unlikelihood, I am thinking of 
fossils and also about the possiblity that in the early phase of evolution a 
few organisms could have been producers as well as consumers, and also 
decomposers all at one and the same time and could have been inefficient in 
an ecosystem which encouraged specialization of functions. This sort of 
situation could occur with other characters and categories. In the genetical 
situation the term "lethal" is very likely applicable. 
"Enneametric systematics is able to accommodate normal and all these 
exceptional situations without loss of its intrinsic value of practical 
information recording, storage and retrieval. I hope you agree with this 
view." 
FURTHER COMMENTS ON "TAXIR" 
The remarks in MUDPIE No. 5 concerning the TAXIR program at the University 
of Colorado have drawn the following reply from Dr. David Rogers, director 
of the program: 
"You have one sentence which begins, 'At the present time, and with the 
"descriptor states" built in by Rogers' group, it is perhaps solely functional 
for processing data in the plant genus Manih ot, . . .' The descriptor states 
are not built in, the descriptor states are supplied by any interested worker 
and are not confined to those described by us. Therefore the statement that 
it (TAXIR) is 'perhaps solely functional for processing the plant genus Manihot' 
is not true. • 
"We can and are accepting descriptor states described by very different 
interest groups already; for example, for the Bryophyte collection of the 
University of Colorado Museum; for the plant chromosome number reports by 
Dr. Askell Love; for the USDA Plant Introduction records on Phaseolus species 
at Pullman, Washington; for weather data gathered by staff members of the 
