Really need to be grateful to David Liddle and the MSN Forum! There is a thread there re: Botanical Terms and David has written an especially good explanation re: using the terms aff. and cf. (Compares Favorably). He told me that he is going to be using these two terms more often in the future to be more precise in the deting (determination) of a hoya species.
Many hobbyists really don't care if the names are correct or not...and that is fine too. The sticky part is when they order or trade for a 'name' they want and learn that it is something they already have received from someone else...or have 11 others of the same hoya with 11 different names. This also explains why it is important to keep the terms 'aff.' and 'cf.' intact with the name.
One big gap in this whole process, I find, is not knowing if/when that 'aff.' is changed to a 'cf.' or the 'cf.' is changed to a determination....
I fully acknowledge(with gratitude) that the following came from Ms. Burtons' Forum and that it is written by David Liddle.
"I am asked every day about some plant or other that is the result of creative naming. I had a querie the other day about plant names and a plant name that was new to me. I was able to identify the plant after seeing a picture.
My answer to the question is probably relevant here as it describes how I choose a name for an unknown plant and describes a process we all should follow.
The problem here is real, and because people do not know how to apply Botanical terms, it is a mess. The ascending use of terms is quite simple but poorly understood. Always keep an accession list that has accession numbers and the collection data for the accession number. The first and most important thing to do is to assign the plant a unique identification, an accession number, an example of this is our IML number. If it is from another list and you are not sure if it is correctly named then the epiphet would be, IML0839 Hoya sp. DMC1642. I now know my plant IML0839 is the same as David Cumming's collection number DMC1642 and as I have a copy of his accession list I can find out where his plant came from, "North of Sipokot, Camarines Sur. Luzon, Philippines".
I may suspect that it looks a bit like Hoya bilobata, so it should be named Hoya sp. DMC1642, aff. bilobata. I then compare this plant to a plant of hoya bilobata or the type description and type sheet and it looks the same. I can now call it Hoya sp. DMC1642, cf. bilobata, because it compares favourably with this taxon. After some sort of peer review with an associate if agreement is reached then It is named Hoya bilobata.
If this process was followed then there would be a lot less confusion with names. Hoya sp. Mulu is Hoya glabra. To show you I have attached a picture of the Holotype sheet.
The problem with this process is that many collectors use the same numerical sequence but forget about making it unique by the addition of an alpha prefix such as IML. many collectors use a numerical sequence using the year as the first two numbers followed by the collection number for that year. I causes confusion because so many people are doing the same. An example of the correct use of this practice is the Holotype plant of H. tomataensis, it is a Ted Green collection, TG94018. It was collected in 1994 and the 18th collection number and so would have a collection location available.
Many dealers do not know how to identify Hoya and so use commercial names to represent a product. It is therefore up to the hobbyist to have sufficient interest and knowledge to either recognise the plant from a picture or description. If dealers used a computerised billing system they probably have a product number so use this for identification in an accession list and ignore the name or call it aff. until it is confirmed as described above, it might be more accurate."
Really good information
Thanks Carol , You have made it even easier for this mind to wrap around............CB has really great info posted from David----