Hibbertia prostrata cf. Hibbertia fasciculata, s.l, s.s. and var. prostrata – In the context of Vic. .– for what iNat 'taxonomy' is worth.

Furthermore:
POWO recognises Hibbertia prostrata now since about a year ago.
Link: https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:317036-1 .
Quotation: "

POWO follows these authorities in accepting this name:
de Salas, Miguel F. [@mftasp ], Baker, M. L. (2022)
A Census of the Vascular Plants of Tasmania, including Macquarie Island: 1-161.
Tasmanian Herbarium, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart.
https://flora.tmag.tas.gov.au/resources/census.

" .

My earlier comments detailed information:
• https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/observations/95122075 .

Quotations: "

(2) The World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP) can be traced back to when Rafaël Govaerts started to work on the World Checklist of Seed Plants in 1988, and from 1994 at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. This dataset was published online in 1995 as the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP). With increasing coverage of all plant families, including pteridophytes, WCSP became WCVP in 2016 (Govaerts et al., 2021). The data from WCVP are used to feed Plants Of The World Online (POWO, https://powo.science.kew.org), a website designed to retrieve information on individual plant species and their distributions (The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2022).

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It is striking, how one of the foundations of data-driven plant ecology and biodiversity science – taxonomic name resolution – has largely relied on the efforts of a few dedicated individuals. Furthermore, there is no comprehensive information on potential differences, and therefore, on the consequences of choosing one list over the other for downstream data analyses, development of related tools or other databases (Grenié et al., 2023). Additionally, the question remains, if and how the work invested in these four different resources may be brought together, acknowledging the efforts of every individual involved, creating synergy in terms of cross-checking, replacing outdated or missing information, and sustaining the legacy of these checklists into the future.

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While the results presented here can objectively be evaluated, it is important to remember the following two aspects: (1) from neither of our analyses (the Meliaceae use case cannot be assumed representative for all vascular plants), we can judge the taxonomic quality of the checklists. Apart from being subjective to some extent, this would need taxonomic experts to review the differences found across lists, an endeavour beyond the scope of this study. (2) There are different approaches, or even philosophies, behind each list's assembly and development. In terms of up-to-dateness, the checklists mainly curated by single individuals have an advantage compared with the community approach involving groups of taxonomic experts for specific groups. Also, decisions on changes in functionality and design are easier and faster with fewer individuals involved. The community approach, however, ensures best available knowledge is used in the revision of individual groups, and the results are likely accepted as authoritative by the scientific community. In the long run, the community approach may prove more sustainable, as it does not depend on the persistence of individuals and is more consensus-based. The community approach is followed by WFO, and by WCVP to a much lesser extent, being curated by Rafaël Govaerts liaising with taxonomists from around the world. LCVP and WP receive help for specific tasks, but are to a large extent dependent on the individual work of Martin Freiberg and Michael Hassler, respectively. Together, the community vs individual approach, and the decisions made during list development, account for the majority of the differences seen across checklists throughout this work: whether taxonomic research has been integrated or not, different conclusions drawn from taxonomic revisions, and different decisions regarding the inclusion or exclusion of problematic taxon names. While the other lists have arrived at a state of ‘maturity’, WFO is still explicitly work in progress. Limitations of the underlying software used to manage the WFO database restricted progress in updating the outdated classification derived from TPL and the incorporation of new data in the past. A new online software system is now being used, easing incorporation of data updates on a regular basis.

Considering the long outdated TPL, we show its use should be abandoned. The use of any one of the four checklists should be done with care and understanding. Although our name matching use case showed a high agreement across lists, when working in particular regions or with specific taxonomic groups, differences across checklists may be substantial.

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We acknowledge that the existence of the four global checklists may be confusing to users, but many of the possibilities for improvement shown in this work were only revealed because these several checklists exist. The group of authors of this study, comprising taxonomic experts including authors and curators of the four reference lists, but also of representatives from user groups in the field of functional biodiversity research, biogeography and macroecology, are working on establishing a workflow to facilitate cross-talking between the four checklists. We see the current activity as a first explorative step toward a future integrated system.

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https://flora.tmag.tas.gov.au/vascular-families/dilleniaceae/#11-h-prostrata
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POWO updated now as of Au eastern standard time Tue. morning 2023 Sept. 26th :
https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:317036-1

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(BTW: https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/observations/135230746 ) .

English language paraphrases from the original species descriptions publications (and links to them in digitised scan form) – of the differences in their authors' terms :

Hibbertia fasciculata R.Br. ex DC. (1818)
• mature leaves glabrous,
• stems erect and branching, hairy,
• styles subdiverging
→ https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/41046603
.

Hibbertia prostrata Hook. (1834)
• mature leaves hairy,
• stems decumbent–procumbent, hairy,
• single style (apparently – was thought and thought a single carpel, – at the time of description).
→ https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/796127
.
Hibbertia fasciculata var. prostrata (Hook.) Hook.f. (1855 – 1860?)
→ https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/28465113
.