Submissions

Author Guidelines

The Edinburgh Journal of Botany is an international journal of plant systematics. Contributions relating to plant systematics and allied subjects, including biodiversity, conservation science and phytogeography, will be considered. Papers reporting the results of research that link traditional and modern techniques are especially welcomed.

Manuscripts should be submitted via the Edinburgh Journal of Botany online journal management system. All manuscripts will be subject to multiple peer review before publication. Submitted manuscripts should not have been accepted for publication or be under consideration elsewhere. Authors are NOT permitted to post their submitted work online (e.g. in institutional repositories or on personal websites) before or during the submission process, because doing so may lead to nomenclatural issues. The language of the journal is UK English. Authors whose mother tongue is not English should have their papers checked by a fluent or proficient English speaker before submission. There are no page charges.

Text pages should be numbered serially, with the title and abstract on the first. Genus and species names should be italicised and should be followed by the authority when first used in the main text or in diagnoses. SI (metric) units must be used, other than in specimen citations, where appropriate. Latitude and longitude are expressed in degrees minutes seconds.

Authors are advised not to return loan material of new taxa until papers have been reviewed. Refer to articles published from 2021 onwards to see how nomenclatural details, typification and specimens seen should be formatted. Genus names are fully spelled out at first mention in each sentence and only abbreviated thereafter within the same sentence. IPNI ‘standard forms’ are used for all author abbreviations in taxon names, therefore please ensure that spaces between elements of author abbreviations are omitted.

Authors are strongly encouraged to provide a line drawing or photo dissection of any new taxa included in their manuscript and, when possible, to place each new taxon in a key to relevant taxa. New species should have a conservation assessment using the latest IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria, even if provisional.

The title page should include the title, the name(s) and address(es) of the author(s), the abstract, a short running title, and a few important keywords ideally including references to the taxon, geographical region and subject area. Titles do not normally include authors of scientific names. Correspondence will be addressed to the first author unless otherwise indicated. The abstract should be concise and informative.

Author abbreviations should precisely follow The International Plant Names Index  and Index Fungorum, Authors of Fungal Names.

Herbarium abbreviations should follow Index Herbariorum. Part I: The Herbaria of the World .

Journal abbreviations in the main text should follow BPH Online . 

Book title abbreviations in the main text should follow Taxonomic Literature , except that all abbreviated words should be capitalised, e.g. Sp. Pl. not Sp. pl. 

References in the text should be cited by author and publication date: (Smith, 2014) or ‘as stated by Smith (2014)’. Multiple references should be arranged chronologically. For three or more authors use et al. In the reference list, references should be in alphabetical order and should appear in the following style:

Knopf P, Schulz C, Little DP, Stützel T, Stevenson DW. 2012. Relationships within Podocarpaceae based on DNA sequence, anatomical, morphological, and biogeographical data. Cladistics. 28(3):271–299. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1096-0031.2011.00381.x 

Noltie HJ. 2013. The Botanical Collections of Colonel and Mrs Walker: Ceylon, 1830–1838. Edinburgh: Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

Zhang YX, Li DZ. 2013. History of and recent advances in plant taxonomy. In: Hong DY, Blackmore S, editors. Plants of China: A Companion to the Flora of China. Beijing: Science Press. pp. 256–278.

Journal names and book titles in the references should be given in full, not abbreviated. DOI's should be included when available.

Tables should be numbered in Arabic numerals and carry a descriptive title.

Figures should be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals and referred to in the text thus: (Figure 1), (Figures 2, 3), (Figures 1–4). Each figure should be supplied as an individual file. The multiple elements of any composite figure should not be supplied as individual files. Figure legends should be provided separately at the end of the main text file. Line illustrations (botanical line drawings or diagrams comprising distinct straight or curved lines against a plain background, without grey or colour shading) should be supplied as EPS files or TIFF files (≥ 1000 dpi), and greyscale or colour halftone illustrations (photographs or diagrams with grey or colour shading) should be supplied as EPS files or TIFF files (≥ 300 dpi) (correspond with the editor if this should prove difficult). EPS is preferred; it enables resizing without loss of resolution. Use LZW compression for TIFF files, remove excess space and elements from around the image, and crop or scale the image to the journal page size (12.5 × 19.5 cm to include caption). A measured scale mark should be included on each illustration to indicate magnification.

Open Access: all articles are freely available to everyone, immediately on publication.