A peer-reviewed open-access journal PhytoKeys 41: 1–289 (2014) Report on botanical nomenclature—Melbourne 2011 1 doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.41.8398 FORUM PAPER phytokeys.pensoft.net Launched to accelerate biodiversity research Report on botanical nomenclature—Melbourne 2011. XVIII International Botanical Congress, Melbourne: Nomenclature Section, 18–22 July 2011 Christina Flann1, Nicholas J. Turland2, Anna M. Monro3 1 Species 2000, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, 2333 CR, The Netherlands2 Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Berlin-Dahlem, Freie Universität Berlin, Königin-Luise-Str. 6–8, 14195 Berlin, Germany 3 Centre for Australian National Biodiversity Research, GPO Box 1600, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia Corresponding author: Christina Flann ([email protected]) Received 7 August 2014 | Accepted 7 August 2014 | Published 29 August 2014 Citation: Flann C, Turland NJ, Monro AM (2014) Report on botanical nomenclature—Melbourne 2011. XVIII International Botanical Congress, Melbourne: Nomenclature Section, 18–22 July 2011. PhytoKeys 41: 1–289. doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.41.8398 Preface This is the official Report on the deliberations and decisions of the ten sessions of the Nomenclature Section of the XVIII International Botanical Congress held in Mel- bourne, Australia, in July 2011. The Section took place on five consecutive days prior to the Congress proper. The Section meetings were hosted by the School of Botany at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Technical facilities included full electronic recording of all discussion spoken into the microphones as well as a series of screen shots capturing what was displayed via computers on the overhead screens. Text of all proposals to amend the Code was displayed on one screen, while the relevant text of the Code itself was displayed on another screen allowing suggested amendments to be updated as appropriate. There was a strong female presence in leadership positions, despite the ratio of registered members still being skewed toward the male side (approx 33% of the regis- tered members were women). The Section had the honour of being welcomed by the President of the Congress, Judy West, who was also a registered member of the Sec- tion and actively contributed to debate on the Acacia issue. The Secretary-General of the Congress, Karen Wilson, was very active during the entire Nomenclature Section, Copyright Christina Flann et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. 2 Christina Flann et al. / PhytoKeys 41: 1–289 (2014) Nomenclature Section of the XVIII International Botanical Congress, Melbourne, Australia, July 2011. — Photograph by Michael Silver / Photonet; reproduced reproduced / Photonet; Silver Michael by 2011. — Photograph July Australia, Melbourne, Botanical Congress, of the XVIII International Section Nomenclature permission of IBC2011. by Report on botanical nomenclature—Melbourne 2011: Preface 3 which is no surprise as she is secretary of the General Nomenclature Committee as well as acting as the spokesperson for the Special Committee on Electronic Publishing. Sandra (Sandy) Knapp did an exemplary job in the role of President of the Section. Her handling of the procedures, debates and personalities was an impressive feat and was all conducted in a very cheerful and positive atmosphere. She contributed to a complete record by keeping the use of microphones very much under control, admon- ishing those who attempted to speak without a microphone with a friendly but firm use of humour. Pauline Ladiges and her team from the School of Botany ensured that the entire complicated proceeding ran smoothly and comfortably. A preliminary report of the Section meetings was published soon after the Con- gress (McNeill & al. in Taxon 60: 1507–1520. 2011). It includes a tabulation of the preliminary mail vote on the published proposals, specifying how the Section acted on each and detailing amendments and new proposals approved upon motions from the floor. It also includes the full report of the Nominating Committee as well as the Con- gress resolution ratifying the Section’s decisions, neither reproduced here. The main result of the Section’s deliberations is the new Melbourne Code, which was published as Regnum Vegetabile 154, on 19 December 2012 (McNeill & al. in Regnum Veg. 154. 2012)—a more slender volume than previous editions as it does not include the Appendices (except for App. 1 on the nomenclature of hybrids). It was also published online, on the same date (see http://www.iapt-taxon.org/nomen/main.php). The other Appendices will be published as a separate volume in 2014. The present full Report of the Melbourne Nomenclature Section conveys, we be- lieve, a true and lively picture of the event, retaining the flavour of goodwill and hu- mour that permeated the Section. It is primarily based on the mp3 electronic record- ings. Where necessary, in case of doubt, they were supplemented by the comment slips submitted by almost all of the speakers and scanned into PDF [portable document format] files. Access to the screen shots from the lecture theatre screens was also used to accurately record proposals from the floor that were rejected, as the text of these was often submitted electronically and not read out in full. With these sources combined, and with all motions and voting results double-checked through the soundtrack and published preliminary report of the Section meeting based on two parallel series of notes by the Rapporteur and the Recorder, we are confident that the record published hereunder is accurate and complete. Before it was cast into its present, final form, this Report went through a succes- sion of phases. Due to advances in technology, this involved fewer phases than the pre- viously published Report of the Nomenclature Section of the St Louis Congress held in 1999 (Greuter & al. in Englera 20. 2000). It is worth noting here that, for various reasons, the Report of the Nomenclature Section of the Vienna Congress held in 2005 are still in progress and will likely be published after the present Report. The Mel- bourne Section was, as already noted, recorded electronically. This recording was then professionally transcribed by Pacific Transcription, Queensland, Australia and cross- checked and edited by Anna Monro. The edited version of the transcript was then heavily re-edited by Christina Flann, to convert it into a report format. At the same 4 Christina Flann et al. / PhytoKeys 41: 1–289 (2014) time some portions were rearranged to ensure that the Report reflects the sequence of relevant provisions in the Code even when the order of the debates differed. Deviations from the chronology of events are indicated in the text by italicized bracketed notes. The resulting report was then further edited by Nicholas Turland. As in the case of previous nomenclature reports, which the present one follows in style and general layout, the spoken comments had to be condensed and partly reworded, rarely rather drastically. For this reason, indirect speech has been used con- sistently. Additions by the authors of this Report are placed between square brackets; they include explanatory or rectifying notes, records of reactions of the audience (to illustrate the sessions’ emotional background) and reports on procedural actions. As in previous reports, the index to speakers has been integrated with the list of registered Section members. The Section in Melbourne was well attended, particularly given the distances most members had to travel to be present. There were 204 registered members in attendance carrying 396 institutional votes in addition to their personal votes, making a total of 600 possible votes representing 56 countries (detailed by McNeill & al. in Taxon 60: 1509, Table 2. 2011). There were 11 card votes, in which participation was high, the proportion of members voting ranging between 72.5% and 94.2% (the latter for a new proposal dealing with Acacia). As is always to be expected, the geographical composition was uneven with a pre- dictably relatively high representation of Australians (34%) and the familiar trend of strong (67%) representation of Anglophone countries (Australia plus United States, Canada, Britain and New Zealand). Mainland Europe was represented by 30 members (15%). China was represented by 10, Taiwan by 6 and India by 5 members. The low African (4%) and South American (2%) presence is far from ideal. As noted in the Pref- ace of the St Louis Report (Greuter & al. in Englera 20: 7. 2000), these distortions are to some degree unavoidable and are somewhat compensated by a better balanced rep- resentation of institutional votes. However, African countries were represented by only 28 institutional votes (7%) and South American countries by 38 (10%). Despite its vast collections, Russia was represented by one member holding 10 institutional votes. For comparison, the Anglophone countries listed earlier had 158 institutional votes (43%) and mainland Europe 120 (30%). These inequalities have deep historical roots and are compounded by uneven access to funding to attend the Section meetings. Re-evalua- tion of the institutional voting system via the Special Committee on Institutional Votes created in Melbourne will hopefully offer some solutions at the next Nomenclature Section at the XIX International Botanical Congress to be