26 Miscellaneous conventions to be used with specific reference to computer generated manuscripts.

26.1 Use the Courier 10 font throughout. This is a fixed spaced font that is the default for almost all computers and printers.

26.2 Do not use right justification.

26.3 Do not center any words or lines.

26.4 Do not hyphenate words when they are too long to fit on a line.

26.5 Use only one space after any punctuation mark and between any words or abbreviations.

26.6 Manuscripts should be single spaced in the computer, but double spaced when printed for purposes of editing. This makes the manuscripts easier to read on both the computer screen and as hard copies. The hard copies can also be more easily edited.

26.7 Keys need not be indented in the manuscripts but will be indented in the final printing. Any indenting of keys will be removed by the formatter before resetting the keys for final cameraready copy. There should be a hard return before the beginning of each lead of a key, and the alternate leads are to be labeled "a" and "b" after the number of the lead.

26.8 Paragraphs are to be indented with a tab. There should be no hard carriage returns within a paragraph, but there should be a two hard carriage returns (i.e. one blank line) at the end of each paragraph. However, heading for families, genera, species, and infraspecific names start flushed left (i.e., without a tab), and after these headings there should be three hard carriage returns (i.e., two blank lines) which leaves enough space for Chinese common names to be added.

26.9 Headings of generic names should be in capitals and bold face (e.g., "14. SWERTIA Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 1: 226. 1753.").

26.10 Headings of species should be in lower case (except for the first letter of the genus) and bold faced (e.g., "2. Swertia divaricata Harry Smith, Notes Roy. Bot. Gard. Edinburgh 26: 256. 1965."). Similarly, headings for infraspecific names should have the infraspecific name in bold face (e.g., "3b. Swertia erythrosticta var. epunctata T. N. Ho & S. W. Liu, Acta Biol. Plateau Sin. 1: 46. 1982.").

26.11 Hyphens are not to be used in a compound epithet except if the epithet is formed from words that usually stand independently (i.e., two nouns) (e.g., "Solanum nivalomontanum" not "Solanum nivalomontanum"; "Strychnos nuxblanda" not "Strychnos nuxblanda").

26.12 For generic names, the genus is spelled out in full the first time it appears in a paragraph, and it is subsequently abbreviated to the first letter unless the genus is the first word of a sentence in which case is again spelled out completely.

26.13 Most standard diacritic marks can be used in manuscripts. If necessary diacritic marks are not entered in the computer file, they can be clearly marked by hand on a submitted hard copy. Most diacritic marks can easily be included into computer files by using characters with ascii values greater than 127. However, the character set being used must be the IBMUS (PC8) Symbol Set. These characters can be produced by holding the Alt key down and then entering the appropriate ascii value on the number pad (you cannot use the number keys across the top of the keyboard) (e.g., ü = 129, é = 130, ç = 135, ê = 136, è = 138, á = 160, í = 161, ñ = 164).

26.14 Two question marks "??" should be placed in the manuscript wherever data are missing if these data are expected to be added to the manuscript before publication (i.e., page numbers for manuscripts that are in press).