What is Minthostachys? (repost from old website)

I am considering to retire my Minthostachys website, but it would be good to have some of the information still available on the internet. The genus is, after all, of some cultural and economic significance to the people of the Andes. This is therefore one of a series of posts transferring previously written texts from the aforementioned website. Please disregard unless you are interested in this particular genus.

Botany picture #10: Justicia comata

To show the diversity of the genus, another Justicia, in this case J. comata, Bolivia, 2007. This one is more of a weed, very frequently found in lowland South America in disturbed moist places. The flowers are tiny but the typical fishbone pattern on the lower lip is clearly visible.

A few words on Hennig's Internodal Species Concept

I recently discussed this over lunch with a colleague who has the strong conviction that this species concept is "wrong".

Botany picture #9: Justicia mirandae

Justicia mirandae (Acanthaceae), Mexico, 2007. The Acanthaceae are a pantropical family of flowering plants. Despite its large size of several thousand species, the family is usually easily recognizable by its unique fruit: few-seeded capsules with explosive seed dispersal (ballistochory). The seeds are often flattened, and their funiculi, the stalks that supplies them with nutrients while they are ripening, harden and build up tension to flick the seeds away.

Surprisingly for such a large family, relatively few species of Acanthaceae are of practical use. However, the family contains many stunning ornamentals because they often have extremely showy and colourful flowers or bracts, like this species. Part of the reason is that they have many bird-pollinated species, again like this one.

Justicia is the largest genus in the family but appears to be polyphyletic in its current circumscription. Spotting characters for the genus are strongly zygomorphic flowers, often with a fishbone pattern on the lower lip, only two fertile stamens, and often very asymmetric anthers. The latter two characters are clearly visible here but the fishbone pattern is lacking.

As you can probably tell, I had dealings with these plants once.

The Google alternatives to ResearcherID and Journal Citation Reports

In a previous post, I explained how to use ResearcherID. In my post on assessing publication records, I explained what an h-index is and mentioned how many people judge journals by their impact factors. ResearcherID, which you can use to automatically calculate your h-index and other metrics, and the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) are run by Thompson Reuters, the first as a free service, the latter as a subscription service. However, Google has recently introduced its own variants of these services, and both are free. This post examines how they differ from the Thompson Reuters products and explores their advantages and disadvantages.

Botany picture #8: Eranthis hyemalis

Eranthis hyemalis (Ranunculaceae) is one of the earliest plants to flower in Germany; it is not strictly native to that country but the genus is Eurasian, so it may just not have made it back after the last ice age. It is perennial but the above ground parts are very short-lived. Note also the funnel-shaped, modified petals in the lower picture; they contain the nectar.

How to use ResearcherID

ResearcherID is a free service offered by Thomson Reuters that is very useful to scientists for two reasons: First, it allows you to select all your publications and connect them to the eponymous ID. This is especially important if you have a relatively common name, because in that case some potential employer who wants to look you up in a publication database will find a confusing number of entries from many different people. With ResearcherID, you can put the ID onto your website or CV, and people searching for your ID will find your and only your publication record.

Second, you may need to calculate your citation metrics - most frequently lifetime citations and h-index - for an internal report or for the CV that goes with a job or grant application. It is annoying to have to calculate these metrics from scratch every time you need them. With ResearcherID, you merely have to tell the system once which publications are yours and then add any new publication when it appears. If you keep the list updated in that way, ResearcherID will automatically calculate these and other metrics every time you look up your own profile (simply click on "Citation Metrics" under "My Publications" on the left and wait a few seconds).