Botanical Code Article 71

[John McNeill]

Stephen P. Bentiveng wrote:

> I am in the process of writing a monograph of the genus Gigaspora, and
> I have run into an interesting problem.  I plan to reject one species
> on the basis that it was described from heavily parasitized material
> which was altered to the point that taxonomic characters were not
> observable.

> Older versions of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature
> had an article to deal with this - Article 71 which allowed rejection
> of a name if it was based on a "monstrosity".  In 1975, the Leningrad
> Conress deleted this article.

> Does anyone know of another article or recommendation which deals with
> this issue?  Any suggestions would be appreciated.


Steve Bentiveng is probably using an outdated edition of the Code,
perhaps the 1988 Berlin Code, in which reference to the deletion of
Article 71 at Leningrad appears.  The current edition, the "Tokyo Code"
was published last year (1994), based on the proceedings of the
international Botanical Congress held in Japan in 1993.  In this
edition, there has been substantial renumbering of Articles,
particularly those from Art. 50 on.

More significantly, however, there is now provision in the Code (Art.
56) for the rejection of ANY name "that would cause disadvantageous
noenclatural change", and, indeed, the Yokohama Congress encouraged
botanists to take full advantage of this provision, and a corresponding
one on conservation of names (Art. 14.1), to ensure greater stability
in botanical nomenclature.

If it were possible to typify the name _Gigaspora_ in a manner that
would threaten other more familiar (but later) generic names, then a
proposal for its rejection should certainly be made.  If, of course, it
is so parasitized as to be untypifiable, then it is unusable and there
is no problem.

The Code is available from Koeltz Scientific Books, Koenigstein.

John McNeill

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From: John McNeill, Director, Royal Ontario Museum, 100 Queen's Park,
      Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2C6, Canada.
      Tel.: 416-586-5639      Fax: 416-586-8044
      e-mail: johnm at rom.on.ca  (or:  john at rom.on.ca)
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ÿÿ    Botanical Code Article 71                                               32