Forsskål and the Interpretation of Article 23 Author(S): C

Forsskål and the Interpretation of Article 23 Author(s): C. Jeffrey Reviewed work(s): Source: Taxon, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Feb., 1985), pp. 144-147 Published by: International Association for Plant Taxonomy (IAPT) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1221579 . Accessed: 23/07/2012 03:34

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http://www.jstor.org FORSSKAL AND THE INTERPRETATION OF ARTICLE 23

C. Jeffrey'

Summary Article 23 is shown to be equivocal with respectto the validity of specificnames publishedin the 'FloraAegyptiaco-Arabica' of ForsskAl(1775) and similarworks.

Burdetand Perret(1983) have concludedthat, under the provisionsofArt. 23.6(c)of the International Code of BotanicalNomenclature (Voss et al., 1983), all the specificnames first publishedin certain worksof Asso, Aublet,Forsskil and Grimmmust be regardedas not validly published,on the grounds thatthese areworks in whichthe Linnaeansystem of binarynomenclature for speciesis not consistently employed.Their interpretation of this Articleis supportedby Friiset al. (1984), who rightlyemphasize the undesirablenomenclatural consequences of such a conclusion and invite comments as to how they might best be avoided. Greuter(1984) however disagreeswith the conclusionsof these authors, arguingthat it is neither the intention, nor the implication, of Art. 23.6(c) that all the species in a work must be designatedby Linnaeanbinomials, but that only the named species need be. We arethus confrontedwith two differentinterpretations of Art. 23.6(c),and it is necessarytherefore to examine Art. 23 to identify the featuresresponsible for such equivocation. Study of the papersof Burdetand Perret,Friis et al. and Greuterreveals that there are three areas of doubt with respectto Art. 23 and that they concernthe terms 'name', 'epithet'and 'consistently'. These will thereforebe examined in turn.

The Meaning of 'Name' Art. 6.6 states that, unless otherwiseindicated, the word 'name' as employedin the Code means a name that has been validly published. Unfortunately,the Code largely ignores this provision of otherwiseindication; for example, the word 'name' in Art. 32 cannot be interpretedas 'a name that has been validly published'without makingnonsense of the whole Article. Friis et al. concludethat Art. 6.6 implies that names may be either validly publishedor invalidlypublished and that therefore a species may be 'named'in a work irrespectiveof whetheror not the name of the species has a form which complies with the provisions of Art. 23. This conclusion is certainlysupported by the broad sense in which we must interpretthe word name as being employed in Art. 32. They thus conclude that, under the Code, the fact that a species is not binary-namedin a work does not imply that it is un-named.Friis et al., like Burdet& Perret,therefore consider that if a publishedwork includeseven only one name that is not binary(and which is thereforeinvalid underArt. 32.1), then all the names in that work are to be regardedas not validly publishedunder Art. 23.6(c). On the other hand, Art. 23.1 defines the name of a species as a binarycombination consisting of the name of the genus followed by a single specific epithet. Leaving aside for the moment what is meant by 'a singleepithet', we may concludethat it followstherefore that any otherkind of designation of a species is not to be regardedas a name in the sense of Art. 23.1, but must be regardedas a means of referenceto an un-named species in the sense of the Code. Thereforeany species so designated must be consideredto be an un-namedspecies in the sense of Art. 23.1, its designationto consist of words not intended as "names" under Art. 23.6(a), and thereforeits post-initial terms not to be regardedas specificepithets underArt. 23.6. On this interpretation,which is the one implicit in the argumentof Greuter,the cases fallingunder Art. 23.6(c) are eitherworks in which all species are un- named in the sense of Art. 23.1 or works in which there is a mixture of binary-namedspecies and un-namedspecies otherwisedesignated. It follows that in the latter,insofar as the named species in this sense areconcerned, the Linnaeansystem of binarynomenclature must be regardedas consistently employed. Thus any work in which even only one species is given a properLinnaean binomial, and the rest designatedin otherways, must be regardedas consistentlyusing the Linnaeansystem of binary nomenclaturefor the species it did in fact name. Thus we have two conflictinginterpretations of Art. 23.6(c), one, that a work in which only one speciesdesignation is not binarycannot be regardedas a vehicle of valid publicationof specificnames, the other, that a work in which at least one name is binary can be regardedas a vehicle of valid publicationof the binaryspecific names it does contain. EitherBurdet and Perretand Friis et al. are

The Herbarium,Royal Botanic Gardens,Kew, Richmond,Surrey, UK. 144 TAXON VOLUME 34 right, in which case, as Greuterpoints out, the nomenclaturalconsequences would be disastrous,or Greuteris right,in which case the Article is virtuallymeaningless. There is no logical half-wayhouse (Greuter,to his credit, tries to inhabit a commonsensicalone!). The only unequivocalconclusion is that the presentwording of the Article is unsatisfactory.

The Meaning of 'Epithet' This conclusion is reinforcedby considerationof the use of the term epithet in Art. 23. As Friis et al. point out, Art. 23.1 rules that if an epithet consists of one or more words, these are to be united or hyphenated,and this seems to be in conflict with Art. 23.6(c), for the Code gives no guidanceon how to distinguishbetween phrasesintended as single specificepithets but consistingof two or more separatewords when originallypublished, and the post-genericterms of otherdesignations not intended as specific epithets. Example 1 of Art. 23 makes it seem that by epithet, it is the equivalent of a Linnaeannomen triviale that is implied.Also, Art. 23.6 rulesthat wordsnot intended[by their authors] as epithets are not to be regardedas specific epithets. Together, these two provisions imply that designationsof species consistingof a genericname followed by one or more words not intendedas specific epithets (such as provisional designationsof species by numbers,letters, vernacularsor de- scriptivephrases, and Linnaeannomina specificalegitima and comparablepolynomials, consisting of a generic name followed by a descriptive phrase of one or more words) are not to be regardedas specificnames. Furthermore,Example 10 implies that designationsof species consistingof a generic name followed by a double or multiple epithet of two or more separatewords that have no mutual relationship(other than grammatical)are also not to be regardedas specificepithets, though as Donk (1962) points out, they are not to be confusedwith biverbalor multiverbalepithets which, as Example 1 makesclear, are to be regardedas specificepithets and are,under Art. 23. 1, to be unitedor hyphenated (as appropriateto the provisions of Art. 73). It is clearthat the distinctionsbetween these differentcategories of designationsare important,and they couldwith advantagebe set out moreexplicitly in the Article.As shownbelow, they areparticularly relevantto any considerationof the work of ForsskAl(1775).

The Meaning of 'Consistently' Murray(1893) gives threesenses in whichthe wordconsistently can correctlybe used-in accordance or compatibly with something;in accordancewith itself; or uniformly,with persistentuniformity. Clearly,in Art. 23.6(c), it cannot be understoodas being employed in either of the first two senses; otherwise, I could consistently employ Linnaeanbinary nomenclatureif I used it for every other species, or every tenth species, or for species occurringin Africa, in any account I wrote, provided only that I pointed out in the work that I intended to do so. It can be taken as employed in only the thirdsense, i.e., constantly,exclusively, without exception. Thus, in contrastto whatGreuter concludes, the Frenchversion of the Code does renderthe intendedmeaning accurately ('d'une fagon constante'), and the works of Asso, Aublet, Forsskil and Grimm cannot be excludedfrom the categoryof works not consistentlyemploying Linnaeanbinary nomenclature on such semantic grounds.In view of the uncertaintygenerated, however, it would perhapsbe better to revise the wordingof the Article such that the word consistentlyneed no longerbe employed.

The Workof Forsskdl(1775) It would also be an improvementif the Articledistinguished more clearly,and dealt with in separate sections, the differentcategories of worksto which Art. 23.6(c) applies,and which were distinguished by Greuter.The firstcategory consists of works Pre-Linnaeanin the sense that they do not have a set of Linnaeanbinary names but only descriptivepolynomials or nomina specificalegitima, amongst which, by chance, one or more may be reducedto a single word. As Greuterstates, these are ruled out under Art. 23.6(a). The second categoryconsists of works that do employ Linnaeanbinary no- menclaturebut in which there is a frequentuse of multiple epithets in the sense of Donk. As Greuter againcorrectly states, such workscan be unequivocallyrejected only by explicit mention in the Code. The third categorydistinguished by Greuterconsists of works like those dealt with by Burdetand Perret,in which the Linnaeansystem of binary nomenclatureis employed for many species, but in which some of the species are otherwisedesignated. It is works in this categorythe validity of which as vehicles of the publication of specific names is open to question, as Burdet and Perret have demonstrated;Greuter is too sanguinein his conclusion that the works of Asso, Aublet and Grimm are under no real threat. Unlike Greuter,I conclude that Forsskil's work also belongs in this category,and not to a further FEBRUARY 1985 145 category,of works like those of categorythree, but in which the sets of binary-namedand otherwise- designatedspecies cannot be objectivelydistinguished from each other. In the case of ForsskAl'swork, this is just not true. While Greuteris correctthat in the Florulaeof this work,with Roman pagination, there is no typographicaldistinction between epithets and non-epithets,there are rules by which they can be told apart.The very fact that we know that there are differentkinds of nomenclaturalentities in this part of ForsskAl'swork in itself demonstratesthat they can be distinguished;otherwise, we would not be awareof their existence!They can be distinguished,for example, as follows: for pp. i- xiv, non-epithetsnot in italics; for pp. xviii-xxxvi, non-epithetsnot in italics, or if in italics then in the ablative case; for pp. LI-LVIII,epithets in Roman or if in italics, then of only one word;for pp. LIX-LXXVII, non-epithetsnot in italics or if in italics, then in the ablative case or vernacularin form;pp. XCI-CXXXI, non-epithetsnot in italics (not in Roman in Sect. VII), or if in italics (Roman in Sect. VII), then in the ablativecase or vernacularin form;and pp. 1-219, non-epithetsnot in small uppercase letters. In all cases, 'dubia'and a few similar words implying doubt and not intended as epithets are to be excludedas such. On this basis, the following distinct categoriesare to be found in the Florulaepart of ForsskAl's work:

1. binomiallynamed species (some with biverbalepithets to be hyphenated); 2. un-namedspecies without any adjunctto the genericname; 3. un-namedspecies with an epithet-likevernacular; 4. un-namedspecies with a polynomialablative descriptivephrase; 5. un-namedspecies with 'dubia'or other adjunctsignifying doubt; 6. un-named subordinatetaxa (conventionallytreated as varietates),with or without a vernacular adjunctand/or an ablative polynomialadjunct; and 7. trinomially-namedsubordinate taxa.

The only real difficultyconcerns categories 1 and 3. ForsskAl,as a good Linnaean,would not have used what wereobviously intended as provisionaldistinguishing vernaculars as epithets--this is made clearby comparisonbetween the Florulaeand the Centuriae,for in the latterare examplesof replace- ment of the provisionalvernaculars by properepithets (Heine, 1968).Unfortunately, ForsskAl's editor, when publishingthe work, also adopted some of his vernacularsas epithets in the Centuriaeso that in this, unlikein the Florulae,vernaculars are used as intendedepithets and beingthus presentedwith a nomenclaturalfait accompli, we must accept them as such. On account of this discrepancy,I feel we have no alternativeto treatingall such vernacularsas epithetsin both sections of the work;at least this removes the need for makingthe fine distinctionbetween categories 1 and 3. Thus in ForsskAl'swork, it is always possible to distinguishbetween named species, for which Forsskil did consistentlyuse Linnaeanbinary nomenclature, and un-namedspecies, to which he gave ablative polynomials not intended as single specific epithets, or gave terms indicative of doubt, or listed without any adjunctto the genericname. I thereforeconclude that in substance,ForsskAl's work is in no way differentfrom those of Asso, Aublet and Grimm. Theredoes not appearto be any justification,either, for any attemptto treatthe Florulaeseparately from the Centuriae.As 'works'is not definedin Art. 23.6(c), in the case of ForsskAl we must accept the whole volume togetheras a work in the sense of the Article, since it is established custom to referto the whole as ForsskAl's'work' (Preamble, 9).

The Case of Linnaeus Greuteris right in stating that the inferencein the second sentence of Art. 23.6(c), that Linnaeus did not in fact consistentlyuse binaryspecies nomenclature in the SpeciesPlantarum (Linnaeus, 1753), is not correct.What is correctis that in about 70 species,the nomentriviale consists of two unconnected words. Most of them are biverbalepithets to be hyphenatedor combinedunder Art. 23.1. Of the few remainder,to treat the Apocynumcase as an orthographicerror to be correctedwould, as Greuter suggests,be the obvious, elegant solution to its special problem.An appropriateprovision could be incorporatedinto the Article.It is likelythat the form used on p. 213 of the SpeciesPlantarum (1753), 'fol. androsaemi',is a direct abbreviatedquote of 'foliis androsaemi'as cited from Boccone and a mere lapsuscalami on the part of Linnaeus.The cases in Salvia, Aspleniumand Melilotus(Sprague, 1924) may continue to be treatedin accordancewith establishedcustom.

146 TAXON VOLUME34 References Burdet,H. M. and P. Perret. 1983. Grimm,Asso, Aubletet ForsskAlsont-ils "linn~ens"?ou la ported de l'article23.6(c) du Code Internationalde la NomenclatureBotanique. Candollea38: 699- 707. Donk, M. A. 1962. On Secretan'sfungus names. Taxon 11: 170-173. ForsskAl,P. 1775. Flora aegyptiaco-arabica.Copenhagen. Friis, I., R. K. Brummitt,F. N. Hepper,C. Jeffrey,N. P. Taylor,B. Verdcourt,R. A. Howardand D. H. Nicolson. 1984. Validityof names publishedby Forsskil and Aublet. Taxon 33: 495-496. Greuter,W. 1984. Warningagainst misinterpreting the Rule on "non-Linnean"works (Art. 23.6(c)). Taxon 33: 493-495. Heine, H. 1968. A propos de la nomenclatured'un sebestierde l'ancien monde. Adansoniaser. 2, 8: 181-187. Linnaeus,C. 1753. Speciesplantarum. Stockholm. Murray,J. A. H. 1893. A new Englishdictionary, Vol. 2. Oxford. Sprague,T. A. 1924. Trinominals.Journ. Bot. 62: 178-180. Voss, E. G. et al. (eds.) 1983. Internationalcode of botanicalnomenclature, adopted by the Thirteenth InternationalBotanical Congress, Sydney, August 1981. Regnum Veg. 111.

LECTOTYPIFICATION OF ENCELIOPSIS COVILLEI (A. NELSON) S. F. BLAKE (ASTERACEAE: HELIANTHEAE) AND A CONSIDERATION OF ITS CORRECT NAME

CurtisClark and Donald L. Sanders'

Summary Encelia grandifloraM. E. Jones, nom. illeg., was publishedwithout clear referenceto a type, an omission that was apparentlyoverlooked by subsequentworkers seeking to deal with the generic position of the species and the illegitimacyof its name. Seeminginconsistency in the treatmentof the epithet stems from the differingrules concerning homonymy in the Americanand Internationalcodes of nomenclatureat that time. A lectotypeis provided.

In the course of a revision of Enceliopsis,we have found it necessaryto resolve the nomenclatural ambiguitiesassociated with:

Enceliopsiscovillei (A. Nelson) S. F. Blake,J. WashingtonAcad. Sci. 21(14): 334. 1931. Type: CAL- IFORNIA. [Inyo Co.]: Hall Canyon, PanamintMountains, elev. 750 m, 18 April 1891, Coville& Funston 698 (LectotypeUS! isotypes DS! GH! MO! NY!). Encelia grandifloraM. E. Jones, Proc. Calif. Acad. Sci. 5(n.s.): 702. 1895. non Encelia grandiflora (Bentham)Hemsley, Biologia Centrali-Americana2: 184. 1881. Helianthellacovillei A. Nelson, Bot. Gaz. 37: 273. 1904. (Basionym) Enceliopsisgrandiflora A. Nelson, Bot. Gaz. 47: 433. 1909, nom. superfl.illeg. Enceliopsisargophylla (D. C. Eaton)A. Nelson var. grandifloraJepson, Man. Fl. P1.Calif., p. 1081. 1925.

Coville (1893) emended,based on two collectionsthat he had made, the descriptionof Helianthella argophylla(D. C. Eaton)A. Gray(Tithonia argophylla D. C. Eaton),a speciesup until then represented only by a fragmentarytype (GH!;of "a tuft of radicalleaves and a single head" mentionedin Eaton's description(Watson, 1871), only two leaves and one acheneremain). Jones, in his diagnosisof Encelia grandiflora,cited Coville's description,contending that it representeda new species distinct from H. argophylla.Of Coville'stwo collections,one, 414, does indeedrepresent Helianthella (now Enceliopsis)

BiologicalSciences, CaliforniaState PolytechnicUniversity, Pomona, CA 91768, U.S.A.

FEBRUARY 1985 147