Indigenous biosystematics of yams (Dioscorea spp.) in Southwest Ethiopia: folk taxonomy, ethnolinguistic analysis, and folk descriptors

Table 4 Comparison of Sheko and Bench folk classification of yams with the formal divisions

Scientific ranks	Formally recognized ranks	Ranks recognized by Sheko and Bench farmers	Number of taxa identified in each ranks	No. of descriptors used to classify and name the taxa assigned to each ranks
Scientific ranks	Formally recognized ranks	Ranks recognized by Sheko and Bench farmers	Number of taxa identified in each ranks	Characters	Character states
Family	Life form	-	-	-	-
Genus	Generic	Folk generic	4 individual labels	1	2
Species	Sub-generic	Supra-variety	9 labeled groups	11 (19)	29 (54)
Variety	Varietal	Variety	37 individual labels	5 (14)	14 (43)
-	Sub-varietal	Sub-variety	21 individual labels	1	4
Overlapping descriptors
1	Between generic and supra-varietal ranks			1	2
2	Between generic and varietal ranks			1	2
3	Between supra-varietal and varietal ranks			7	23
4	Between varietal and sub-varietal ranks			1	4
Summary of overall descriptors				26	74

NB numbers in the parenthesis refers to the total number of characters and character states of the respective ranks

ISSN: 1746-4269