A History of Botanical Nomenclature

Abstract

A HISTORY OF BOTANICAL NOMENCLATURE^D an IL Nicolson bstract I divide botanical nomenclature into three partly overlapping periods: the schismatic period , the dark ages , and the lAPT renaissance (1950-date). The schisms began with the 1843 British Association for the Advancement of Science approval of zoological rules and became manifest with the 1867 Paris Congress approval of Alphonse de CandoUe's botanical "laws." Reunification efforts, such as those by Dall (1877.12), failed. The contemporary rise of "Darwinism" added to the divisiveness. By the late 1800s, various botanical centers had or were evolving modified or different Codes from the Candollean, not to mention fully formed Codes from "outsiders" like Saint-Lager (1880.03?, 1881.04) and Kuntze (1891.10). The 1905 Vienna Congress eliminated all but the Brittonian (American) schism, which continued until the 1930 Cambridge Congress compromises. A nomenclatural "dark age" descended when the 1915 London Congress was cancelled because of a subsequent engagement, World War L The next congress (Ithaca, 1926) declared itself incompetent due to insufficient International representation. The 1930 Cambridge Congress revised the 1912 Brussels Code but, largely because of the death of Briquet In 1931, its Code appeared only a few months before the 1935 Amsterdam Congress that amended it. Again a World War struck and no official Amsterdam Code was ever produced. The 1950 Stockholm Congress saw the establishment of the International Association for Plant Taxonomy, its journal, Taxon, in which all Code amendment proposals now appear, and its serial publication, Regnum Vegetabile, in which all subsequent Codes appear at the remorseless sixyear pace of the congresses.

Stability or stasis in the names of organisms: the evolving codes of nomenclature

“…Well into the nineteenth century, alternative systems of naming were being proposed and used; one of the most novel of these was the late eighteenth century French botanist Jean Bergeret's system, in which each name was composed of 15 letters, each representing a character of the plant, thus Belladonna became leglyabiajisbey (Bergeret 1784). This has been characterized as the worst of all possible systems (Nicolson 1991) and it is perhaps not surprising that it did not catch on.…”

On streamlining the Ukrainian names of plants. Informa­tion 9. Writing the names of plant varieties as objects of scientific and agricultural activities

“…-íîìåíêëàòóðó òðåáà ñêëàäàòè ìîâîþ íà-ö³îíàëüíîñòåé â³äïîâ³äíî äî ðåã³îí³â ïîøè-ðåííÿ ñîðò³â 3 . Ïðèêìåòîþ ÷àñó áóëè âèìîãè îáîâ'ÿçêîâîãî ïåðåéìåíóâàòè íàçâè, ùî íå â³äïîâ³äàþòü äóõó ñîö³àë³ñòè÷íîãî áóä³âíèöòâà (ì³ñòÿòü òèòóëè, ÷èíè, íàçâè ÷ëåí³â öàðñüêèõ äèíàñ-ò³é òîùî).…”

A new dawn for the naming of fungi: impacts of decisions made in Melbourne in July 2011 on the future publication and regulation of fungal names

“…In the case of the fungi, the permanent committee is now called the Nomenclature Committee for Fungi (NCF). A valuable synopsis of how the current system operates is given by McNeill and Greuter (1986), while Nicolson (1991) provides an authoritative historical account of the development of the Code.…”