Oracle Database Discussions

I have a table that has the following columns:
Current Table Definition
commonname
family
genus
species
subspecies
code

I have a number of entries that don’t fit the current table definition – that is that they only have a common name or description and a code. These records don’t actually represent a species but are needed for data entry because they represent an object that may be encountered in the study (Bare Ground – which isn’t a species but would need to be recorded if encountered). So I would really like 2 tables:

Table 1 Miscellaneous
name
code

Table 2 Plant Species
commonname
family
genus
species
subspecies
code

I would like two tables so I can enforce certain constraints on my species table like requiring that the family, genus, species, subspecies combination is unique. I can’t do this if I have all the “other” records that don’t have a family, genus, species, or subspecies unless I put in a lot of dummy data into the fields to make each record unique. I don’t really want to do this because these miscellaneous records really don’t represent a specific species.

So – the problem is that while I want this data separate I will need to point a column from another table to the code column in both tables.

How is this best done? Table? View? Merge?