GRC - a resource centre in development for the family Gesneriaceae - updated 26 June 2025
Möller M.1*, Atkins H.1*, Pullan M.1, Clark J.L.2*, Skog L.E.3*, Hong X.4*, Wen F.5*, Chautems A.6*, Middleton D.J.1,7* & A. Elliott1
(1Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, EH3 5LR, Edinburgh, UK; 2Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, Sarasota, FL, USA; 3Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA; 4Anhui University, Anhui, China; 5Guangxi Institute of Botany, Guilin, Guangxi & CAS, China; 6Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques de la Ville de Genève, Geneva, Switzerland; 7Singapore Botanic Gardens, National Parks Board, Singapore 259569)
*GRC committee member
*GRC committee member
1. Background history and purpose of GRC
Gesneriaceae is a medium-large angiosperm family with an estimated 3900 species in about 150 genera (GRC, 2025), with 20+ new species names added each year (Möller, 2019). The family was recognised in 1804 but was published as Gesneriaceae only in 1816. It has been the subject of several major reclassifications at the generic level (see Weber et al., 2013, 2020) leaving a complex nomenclatural and taxonomic footprint.
To track the nomenclatural and taxonomic history of the taxa within Gesneriaceae, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, through the efforts of Laurence E. Skog and John K. Boggan, maintained an online name (and reference) database for Gesneriaceae until 2011. The database was curated and updated at The University of Alabama (UNA) by John L. Clark and Steven Ginzbarg from 2011 until 2018. In December 2018, the database was transferred to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE), where it is hosted within an in-house taxonomic data management system called Padme. The scientific names in the GRC have, at various stages, been cross-referenced with names from the International Plant Names Index (IPNI) and the Missouri Botanical Garden’s taxonomic database, Tropicos. Discrepancies between any of these platforms are carefully evaluated to provide more accurate and updated nomenclature, often including explanatory notes. The data set is regularly updated through an associated content management system and is made publicly available under the name ‘Gesneriaceae Resource Centre’ (GRC; https://padme.rbge.org.uk/grc/welcome). Updates are periodically made as new changes are verified. Additionally, a parallel data set, cataloguing literature related to Gesneriaceae, is available through the GRC, providing comprehensive access to key research on the family.
Since 2018, the data have been curated and updated by the addition of new species names and the mapping of all names in the data set to the appropriate World Flora Online (WFO) identifiers (ids). The online GRC data portal has also been developed with the addition of new features added to make it more user friendly and more interrogable. We hope that the GRC will become established as the primary ‘go to‘ place not only for Gesneriaceae researchers but also for growers and other gesneriad enthusiasts.
This publication is intended to make the GRC and its features more widely known and to explain its taxonomic and checklist functions. Below, a brief description of the different parts of the Gesneriaceae Resource Centre is given as well as its interaction with other data sources.
To track the nomenclatural and taxonomic history of the taxa within Gesneriaceae, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, through the efforts of Laurence E. Skog and John K. Boggan, maintained an online name (and reference) database for Gesneriaceae until 2011. The database was curated and updated at The University of Alabama (UNA) by John L. Clark and Steven Ginzbarg from 2011 until 2018. In December 2018, the database was transferred to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE), where it is hosted within an in-house taxonomic data management system called Padme. The scientific names in the GRC have, at various stages, been cross-referenced with names from the International Plant Names Index (IPNI) and the Missouri Botanical Garden’s taxonomic database, Tropicos. Discrepancies between any of these platforms are carefully evaluated to provide more accurate and updated nomenclature, often including explanatory notes. The data set is regularly updated through an associated content management system and is made publicly available under the name ‘Gesneriaceae Resource Centre’ (GRC; https://padme.rbge.org.uk/grc/welcome). Updates are periodically made as new changes are verified. Additionally, a parallel data set, cataloguing literature related to Gesneriaceae, is available through the GRC, providing comprehensive access to key research on the family.
Since 2018, the data have been curated and updated by the addition of new species names and the mapping of all names in the data set to the appropriate World Flora Online (WFO) identifiers (ids). The online GRC data portal has also been developed with the addition of new features added to make it more user friendly and more interrogable. We hope that the GRC will become established as the primary ‘go to‘ place not only for Gesneriaceae researchers but also for growers and other gesneriad enthusiasts.
This publication is intended to make the GRC and its features more widely known and to explain its taxonomic and checklist functions. Below, a brief description of the different parts of the Gesneriaceae Resource Centre is given as well as its interaction with other data sources.
2. GRC in a nutshell
In addition to the opening ‘Welcome tab’, the user is presented with several tabs through which data can be accessed. The ‘Welcome tab’ gives a brief introduction to the GRC and its uses. On the right-hand side of the ‘Welcome’ screen, there are two sets of shortcut fields for names and bibliographic searches.
The ‘Data’ tab is the main portal to the data and will be discussed in more detail below. The ‘Classification’ tab provides a static depiction of the most current classification from subfamily to genus level, with authorship of names and year of publication. This is updated as new genera are described or existing ones redefined or synonymised (last updated 21 January 2025). The ‘Classification’ tab currently lists 152 genera (including one natural intergeneric hybrid). The ‘Cytology’ tab is a link to RBGE’s ‘WebCyte2’ cytological database through which chromosome information on Gesneriaceae (Möller & Pullan, 2015 onwards) can be accessed. The ‘Acknowledgements’ tab provides a brief history of the names database and a list of the organisations that have provided support over the years. The ‘Terms and Conditions’ tab provides some general information on the use of the databases along with disclaimers. The ‘Contact us’ tab includes a field for messages and a list of collaborators loosely termed the ‘Committee’. The ‘Site map’ gives a list of shortcuts to the various components of the website.
The ‘Data’ tab is the main portal to the data and will be discussed in more detail below. The ‘Classification’ tab provides a static depiction of the most current classification from subfamily to genus level, with authorship of names and year of publication. This is updated as new genera are described or existing ones redefined or synonymised (last updated 21 January 2025). The ‘Classification’ tab currently lists 152 genera (including one natural intergeneric hybrid). The ‘Cytology’ tab is a link to RBGE’s ‘WebCyte2’ cytological database through which chromosome information on Gesneriaceae (Möller & Pullan, 2015 onwards) can be accessed. The ‘Acknowledgements’ tab provides a brief history of the names database and a list of the organisations that have provided support over the years. The ‘Terms and Conditions’ tab provides some general information on the use of the databases along with disclaimers. The ‘Contact us’ tab includes a field for messages and a list of collaborators loosely termed the ‘Committee’. The ‘Site map’ gives a list of shortcuts to the various components of the website.
3. The ‘Data’ tab
The ‘Data’ tab provides links to the taxonomy, checklists, bibliography and horticultural names databases.
The ‘Taxonomy’ database includes all names of taxa published in Gesneriaceae, along with their nomenclatural and taxonomic status. It is searchable for subfamily, tribe, subtribe, genus, and species, and can, optionally, include names that have not been validly published, useful when checking for potential new names (while names that have appeared in print but have not been validly published can be used for new taxa, it is good practice to avoid such names to prevent confusion). When a search is conducted, the current taxonomic framework for ranks above the name searched for is displayed on the left. For example, if the search is for a genus, the fields on the left will display the subtribe (if applicable), tribe and subfamily in which the genus is included.
The output information per name entry includes taxonomic rank, place of original publication (including DOI or URL, where available), and crosslinks to the accepted name if the name searched for is now treated as a synonym. When a taxon at the rank of genus or above is searched for in the entry field, the output includes a list of all accepted taxa at the next rank down. For example, for a search on the genus Petrocodon, the output will list the ‘Accepted member taxa (55)’, along with a list of those 55 species, and the ‘Member taxa in synonymy (5)’, along with a list of those 5 names in Petrocodon that are now treated as synonyms. The accepted species are also displayed in a list on the left and these names can be selected to display the publication information of each name.
The ‘Checklist’ database provides lists at genus, subtribe, tribe or subfamily level. These lists can include or exclude synonyms via selection buttons. The lists can be further refined by country through a dropdown list. The output field also gives a breakdown of number of names by taxonomic rank. All lists can be downloaded as Word documents for external use.
The ‘Bibliography’ database is author and keyword searchable, but static at the moment due to limited resources, and the ‘Horticultural names’ database provides a download option for horticultural names and links to other Gesneriaceae online resources of horticultural names, i.e., the African Violet Society of America, and The Gesneriad Society’s International Registry. The horticultural names are not included in the taxonomy database.
The ‘Taxonomy’ database includes all names of taxa published in Gesneriaceae, along with their nomenclatural and taxonomic status. It is searchable for subfamily, tribe, subtribe, genus, and species, and can, optionally, include names that have not been validly published, useful when checking for potential new names (while names that have appeared in print but have not been validly published can be used for new taxa, it is good practice to avoid such names to prevent confusion). When a search is conducted, the current taxonomic framework for ranks above the name searched for is displayed on the left. For example, if the search is for a genus, the fields on the left will display the subtribe (if applicable), tribe and subfamily in which the genus is included.
The output information per name entry includes taxonomic rank, place of original publication (including DOI or URL, where available), and crosslinks to the accepted name if the name searched for is now treated as a synonym. When a taxon at the rank of genus or above is searched for in the entry field, the output includes a list of all accepted taxa at the next rank down. For example, for a search on the genus Petrocodon, the output will list the ‘Accepted member taxa (55)’, along with a list of those 55 species, and the ‘Member taxa in synonymy (5)’, along with a list of those 5 names in Petrocodon that are now treated as synonyms. The accepted species are also displayed in a list on the left and these names can be selected to display the publication information of each name.
The ‘Checklist’ database provides lists at genus, subtribe, tribe or subfamily level. These lists can include or exclude synonyms via selection buttons. The lists can be further refined by country through a dropdown list. The output field also gives a breakdown of number of names by taxonomic rank. All lists can be downloaded as Word documents for external use.
The ‘Bibliography’ database is author and keyword searchable, but static at the moment due to limited resources, and the ‘Horticultural names’ database provides a download option for horticultural names and links to other Gesneriaceae online resources of horticultural names, i.e., the African Violet Society of America, and The Gesneriad Society’s International Registry. The horticultural names are not included in the taxonomy database.
4. New & useful features
The combination of rank selection and country of origin in the ‘Checklist’ tab can be a very useful tool and an elegant way for one to generate checklists by country. The output information per name entry in the ‘Taxonomy’ tab includes taxonomic ranks, place of original publication (including DOI or URL, where available), lists of member taxa and synonyms with crosslinks to accepted names in cases of synonymy.
5. Future developments
Errors are inevitable in large databases, and the GRC is no different. It is being continuously updated and corrected when errors become apparent. The GRC welcomes contributions through our ‘Contact us’ tab to improve and correct its content. There is a ‘Committee’ which currently has 9 members. It is intended that the group will be formalised and its role defined to address Gesneriaceae taxonomy and classification issues.
6. GRC and other online nomenclatural/taxonomic databases
Nomenclature and taxonomy require stability (Hobern et al., 2021). Many online databases are accessible globally for dissemination of information and many interact with each other. This interaction with other similar databases helps to ensure that a stable nomenclatural and taxonomic framework is presented across the different platforms.
Some timelines:
Some timelines:
- -World Check List of Vascular Plants (WCVP), the taxonomic database behind the POWO database, was established in 1995 as the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP).
- -International Plant Names Index (IPNI), a nomenclature database, was established in 1999 as an amalgamation of Index Kewensis (est. 1893), Index Filicum (est. 1906), the Gray Herbarium Card Index (est. 1842), and the Australian Plant Names Index (est. 1976) (see Schellenberger Costa et al., 2023 for a fuller timeline).
- -The World Flora Online (WFO) was established in 2012 (Borsch et al., 2020) as a response to the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) Target 1 (Convention on Biological Diversity, 2012). The WFO database is the direct successor of the Plantlist (www.plantlist.org) and was first available online in 2017.
- -The Gesneriaceae Resource Centre (GRC) was established 2018 to include the Smithsonian Gesneriaceae names database.
7. Interactions between databases
The GRC has no direct link with IPNI or POWO. New names are added to the GRC as they are published, or when staff become aware of them. Since 2020, the GRC feeds into one of the WFO’s Taxonomic Expert Networks (TENs) (https://about.worldfloraonline.org/tens/gesneriaceae). TENs are collaborations of taxonomic experts who work together to agree upon a consensus classification for their plant groups. TENs are the preferred approach for empowering the taxonomic community to contribute to a global checklist of plants because community-based consensus classifications are more robust and more sustainable than those produced by individuals.
For Gesneriaceae, the GRC provides updates to the WFO’s taxonomic backbone via a Darwin Core Archive classification file, which is aligned using the WFO’s Rhahkis taxonomic editor (Hyam et al., 2022; Hyam & Elliott, 2023).
A major update was supplied to the June 2024 WFO Plantlist and data release (The World Flora Online Consortium, 2024a), and a second round of improvements was provided for the December 2024 release (The World Flora Online Consortium, 2024b). The 6-monthly update cycle allows for incremental improvements to the GRC and WFO within a manageable timeframe.
The WFO has a monthly workflow that includes the incorporation of newly published or previously overlooked names that have been added to IPNI. These names are added to the WFO as nomenclatural records, as the names are in the backbone but not in the classification as an accepted name or a synonym. These new name records are then shared back to the GRC, allowing for them to be placed in the classification ahead of the next shared updated to the WFO.
As part of the data exchange between the WFO and the GRC, any additional validly published names that have been added to the WFO are also shared with IPNI to update that database.
The Checklist of Gesneriaceae in China (CGC, https://gccc.818time.cf/directory-s24.html; temporary link) (Wen et al., 2025), is maintained by the Gesneriad Conservation Center of China (GCCC, https://gccc.818time.cf/; temporary link) since 2020 at the Guangxi Institute of Botany (GXIB) and provides names and short descriptions (in Chinese) and links to images. GIB has been a consortium member of WFO since 2024. Due to the fact that some Chinese journals, especially provincial, municipal, and university-level academic journals, may be overlooked for updates in international databases such as IPNI and WFO, CGC is committed to collating newly published Gesneriaceae taxa and new national distribution records (including academic publications at all levels, both internationally and within China) in CGC and feeding them into WFO. Taxonomic backbone information will then be fed back to the GRC which is synchronized with WFO.
For Gesneriaceae, the GRC provides updates to the WFO’s taxonomic backbone via a Darwin Core Archive classification file, which is aligned using the WFO’s Rhahkis taxonomic editor (Hyam et al., 2022; Hyam & Elliott, 2023).
A major update was supplied to the June 2024 WFO Plantlist and data release (The World Flora Online Consortium, 2024a), and a second round of improvements was provided for the December 2024 release (The World Flora Online Consortium, 2024b). The 6-monthly update cycle allows for incremental improvements to the GRC and WFO within a manageable timeframe.
The WFO has a monthly workflow that includes the incorporation of newly published or previously overlooked names that have been added to IPNI. These names are added to the WFO as nomenclatural records, as the names are in the backbone but not in the classification as an accepted name or a synonym. These new name records are then shared back to the GRC, allowing for them to be placed in the classification ahead of the next shared updated to the WFO.
As part of the data exchange between the WFO and the GRC, any additional validly published names that have been added to the WFO are also shared with IPNI to update that database.
The Checklist of Gesneriaceae in China (CGC, https://gccc.818time.cf/directory-s24.html; temporary link) (Wen et al., 2025), is maintained by the Gesneriad Conservation Center of China (GCCC, https://gccc.818time.cf/; temporary link) since 2020 at the Guangxi Institute of Botany (GXIB) and provides names and short descriptions (in Chinese) and links to images. GIB has been a consortium member of WFO since 2024. Due to the fact that some Chinese journals, especially provincial, municipal, and university-level academic journals, may be overlooked for updates in international databases such as IPNI and WFO, CGC is committed to collating newly published Gesneriaceae taxa and new national distribution records (including academic publications at all levels, both internationally and within China) in CGC and feeding them into WFO. Taxonomic backbone information will then be fed back to the GRC which is synchronized with WFO.
8. Concluding remarks
The Gesneriaceae Resource Centre provides a useful tool to access basic nomenclatural information at various ranks within the Gesneriaceae and links to other useful resources on the family. We hope that the platform encourages and facilitates interactions among research groups working on the family as this is crucial for the establishment of a stable taxonomy and classification of Gesneriaceae.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to The Gesneriad Society, Sibbald Trust at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE), and the RBGE Friends’ Small Projects Fund for their support in the development of the resource centre, and to John K. Boggan, Steve L. Ginzbarg, Kanae Nishii for data curation. RBGE is supported by the Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division (RESAS) in the Scottish Government. CGC is supported by the Gesneriad Committee of China Wild Plant Conservation Association (GC), National Gesneriaceae Germplasm Resources Bank of GXIB (NGGRB) and the Gesneriad Conservation Center of China (GCCC).
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CONVENTION ON BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY 2012. The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation: 2011–2020. Richmond, UK: Botanic Gardens Conservation International. https://www.bgci.org/files/Plants2020/GSPCbroch
GRC 2025 (continuously updated). Gesneriaceae Resource Centre. https://padme.rbge.org.uk/GRC. Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, UK. Retrieved/Accessed: 21 Jan 2025
HOBERN D., BARIK S.K. & L. CHRISTIDIS 2021. Towards a global list of accepted species VI: The Catalogue of Life checklist. Organisms Diversity & Evolution 21: 677–690. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13127-021-00516-w
HYAM R. & A. ELLIOTT 2023. A strategy for building the WFO Plant List. In Biodiversity Information Science and Standards (Vol. 7). Pensoft Publishers. https://doi.org/10.3897/biss.7.111338
HYAM R., ELLIOTT A. & W. ULATE 2022. Rhakhis: a workflow for managing the WFO taxonomic backbone. In Biodiversity Information Science and Standards (Vol. 6). Pensoft Publishers. https://doi.org/10.3897/biss.6.91432
MÖLLER M. 2019. Species discovery in time: an example from Gesneriaceae in China. Guangxi Sciences 26(1): 1-16. https//doi.org/10.13656/j.cnki.gxkx.20190307.002
MÖLLER M. & M. PULLAN 2015 onwards. RBGE WebCyte2 – an updated Gesneriaceae cytology database. https://websites.rbge.org.uk/webcyte/webcyteintro.php
SCHELLENBERGER COSTA D., BOEHNISCH G., FREIBERG M., GOVAERTS R., GRENIÉ M., HASSLER M., KATTGE J., MUELLNER-RIEHL A.N., ROJAS ANDRÉS B.M., WINTER M., WATSON M., ZIZKA A. & C. Wirth 2023. The big four of plant taxonomy – a comparison of global checklists of vascular plant names. New Phytologist 240: 1687-1702. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.18961
THE WORLD FLORA ONLINE CONSORTIUM, ELLIOTT A., HYAM R. & al. 2024a. World Flora Online Plant List June 2024 (2024-06) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12171908
THE WORLD FLORA ONLINE CONSORTIUM, ELLIOTT A., HYAM R. & et al. 2024b. World Flora Online Plant List December 2024 (2024-12) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14538251
WEBER A., CLARK J.L. & M. MÖLLER 2013. A new formal classification of Gesneriaceae. Selbyana 31(2): 68–94. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24894283
WEBER A., MIDDLETON D.J., CLARK J.L. & M. MÖLLER 2020. Keys to the infrafamilial taxa and genera of Gesneriaceae. Rheedea 30(1): 5–47. https://rheedea.in/journal/iwYSxWnZ
WEN F., WEI Y.G., FU LF, et al, 2025. The checklist of Gesneriaceae in China. http://gccc.gxib.cn/cn/about-68.aspx; https://gccc.818time.cf/directory-s24.html; temporary link (accessed 05 Feb 2025).