This is the one that I've designated as the type specimen, which means if someone comes along in a 100 years time and decides I was mad to describe this as a new species, they look at that type and see if it corresponds with what they have a different species concept of. The only reason that we give names to things is to be able to talk about them, because imagine what life would be like if we didn't have names. And we had to describe each other every time I wanted to gossip about someone to someone else. I would have to describe them physically, imagine how slow a conversation would be then. I've been sent a bunch of plants which were collected on a series of expeditions in the Zhuang region of Yunnan in China. And they've sent them to me and asked me if I would identify them for them, and so one of the first things I do when I do this is I sort them into piles to allow me to say all of these are the same and these are the same and these are the same. So this one looks a bit like this one, but when you look at it with the hand lens, this one has different hairs on the flowers.


这个是我指定的模式标本，就是说要是过个100年。要是有人觉得我把这个算成新物种是疯了的话。他们就会看这个模式标本，是否符合其它的物种特点。 我们给它们起名是为了方便讨论它们，想一下要是我们生活中没有名字会怎样。我们需要相互描述，每回我要跟一个人说到另一个人，我就得描述他们的物理特征，你说这对话可得有多慢呀。 我收到了一些植物样本是在中国云南高黎贡山区的一系列探险中获得的。他们把这些植物寄给我让我帮他们鉴别一下。我在做这类工作时 都是先把这些东西分成几堆，这样我就能说这些是一样的，那些是一样的。这个跟这个有点像，不过拿放大镜一看，就会发现这个的花上的绒毛不一样。