(1063) Proposal to conserve Falklandiella Kylin (Rhodophyceae: Ceramiaceae)

Abstract

Falklandiella was proposed by Kylin (1956) as a genus of Ceramiaceae, distinguished from other distichously branched members of the Ptiloteae in that the determinate branches remain uncorticated. Ptilota harveyi Hook. f. (in Hooker & Harvey, 1845: 271) was designated as type, while P. pellucida Harv. (in Hooker, 1854-1855: 257) was included as a second species. Papenfuss (1958: 105), noting that P. pellucida was the type of an older generic name, Dasyptilon G. Feldmann (1950: 308), adopted that name in place of Falklandiella. As emphasized by Moe & Silva (1979: 397), however, P. pellucida and P. harveyi are not congeneric. In P. pellucida the procarp is produced directly by the basal cell of a determinate branch, while in P. harveyi it is produced by a pericentral cell cut off from an axial cell near the apex of a determinate branch. In P. pellucida the supporting cell lies in the plane of thallus branching and the carpogonial branch bends upward around that cell, while in P. harveyi the supporting cell is perpendicular to the plane of thallus branching and the carpogonial branch bends horizontally around the axis bearing the supporting cell. Moreover, the tetrasporangia in P. pellucida are cruciately divided and are adaxial and sessile on branchlets of a determinate branch, while in P. harveyi they are tetrahedrally divided and terminal on the axis and on numerous branchlets of a determinate branch. Kylin's inclusion of the type of Dasyptilon in his initial circumscription of Falklandiella renders the latter name superfluous and illegitimate in accordance with Art. 63.1 of the Code (Greuter & al., 1988). Falklandiella was proposed for conservation by Silva (1980: 131), but this proposal (494) was rejected by the Committee for Algae (Christensen, 1987: 68) under the mistaken assumption that changes in Art. 7 and 63 made during the Thirteenth International Botanical Congress at Sydney in August 1981 allowed for the correct use of the name provided that the offending type was excluded. The alleged change involved Art. 63.3, which specifies which nomenclaturally superfluous names are not illegitimate. To the preexisting category of names based on legitimate basionyms was added a second category, suprageneric names based on the stem of a legitimate generic name. However, provision for the purification of nomenclaturally superfluous generic names is not to be found in