Standardized data are a necessity in a computerized database.
Only data strictly formatted according to recognized standards can produce complete and meaningful query results. Plant specimen data, however, having been collected by people from different countries and recorded in different languages for about two centuries, do not adhere to standards. Among specimen data, taxonomic data is an area of special complexity. It might change because misidentifications are corrected, because of the change of a taxon's position, because a synonym is replaced, or by correction of misspellings. Most databases try to standardized the data during data entry and many database only record the last accepted taxon data.