An entity is needed to provide a common interface to person(s), institutes, organizations and companies (PICO, see Elankovan & al., this volume, for further details). PICOs may act as owners, recipients, sources, etc. of materials. The construct somewhat resembles the super-entity "Agent" specified in the ASC model (ASC 1992). PICOs have a defined (mailing) address (however, the Address entity may be replaced with a commercially available address database). They belong to one of two defined subtypes. One of these, the entity Institutes, Organizations, or Companies, may be further subtyped to include existing standard lists (e.g. for botanical institutes: Holmgren & al. 1990 and Heywood & al. 1990). The other, Person Team, is a construct which is also used in the context of collectors, authors, etc. in the IOPI model (Berendsohn 1994). It contains an attribute (person team description) which allows the entry of teams for which the members are not known or not specified (e.g. "local shepherds"). The entity Person Team Member links the Team with the individual Person and defines the position of the person in the sequence of names. The structure of the Kew Authors of Plant Names (Brummitt & Powell 1992) database may be used for an individual Person. A person's individual address may differ from the address given for a team the person is member of, and from the institution the person is affiliated to.