The controversy over the retypification of Acacia Mill. with an Australian type: A pragmatic view

Abstract

The conservation of Acacia with an Australian type has been perhaps the most controversial issue to have been dealt with under the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature in many years. Before, during and since the vote on the matter at the Seventeenth International Botanical Congress in Vienna, strong opinions have been expressed in print, on the web and in the popular media. Opponents of the Vienna decision are currently focusing on details of the process by which the vote was conducted, rather than on the merits or otherwise of the original proposal. They have signalled an intention to challenge and to try to overturn the Vienna decision at the Melbourne Congress. We are a group of taxonomists, from a range of backgrounds and with a range of opinions on the original proposal, who believe that the Vienna process was fundamentally sound, and that continuance of this argument in its current form is damaging to the international nomenclatural consensus. We provide this paper as, we hope, an objective, non‐partisan summary of the issue and conclude with the recommendation that the international taxonomic community should accept the retypification of Acacia and move on.

A native at home and abroad: the history, politics, ethics and aesthetics of acacias

“…The debate continued in the lead up to the 18th Congress of the IBC (Melbourne in July 2011) (Moore et al. , 2010; Thiele et al. , 2011).…”

“…Smith et al, 2006;Moore, 2007Moore, , 2008Glazewski & Rumble, 2009;Carruthers & Robin, 2010;Smith et al, 2010;Orchard & Maslin, n.d.;Van Rijckevorsel, 2006) and will not be repeated here. The debate continued in the lead up to the 18th Congress of the IBC (Melbourne in July 2011) Thiele et al, 2011).…”

Phylogenetic position and revised classification ofAcacia s.l.(Fabaceae: Mimosoideae) in Africa, including new combinations inVachelliaandSenegalia

“…Although the above‐mentioned groups correspond to previously established infrageneric groups in Acacia , with generic names available for all, the Australian Acacia subgenus Phyllodineae ( Acacia s.s. ) comprises the largest number of species ( c . 1021 species; Thiele et al ., ). In order to preserve nomenclatural stability according to the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, Orchard & Maslin (, ) proposed retypification of the genus from A. nilotica (L.) Willd.…”

Towards a new classification of the giant paraphyletic genusCyperus(Cyperaceae): phylogenetic relationships and generic delimitation in C4Cyperus

“…The decision on where to split needs to be based on a well‐resolved phylogenetic hypothesis, and there are challenges to identifying diagnostic characters for the segregate entities and controversies about name application ( Acacia ; e.g. Moore et al ., , ; Smith & Figueiredo, ; Thiele et al ., ). A second, less popular, strategy is a classification in which various segregate genera are upheld which are themselves monophyletic, but remain part of a paraphyletically circumscribed giant genus.…”