A review and analysis of the use of epithets in infrageneric, species, and infraspecific names in Kalanchoe (Crassulaceae subfam. Kalanchooideae): trends in the plant naming game

Abstract

Given recent wide-ranging international debates in the scientific press and on social media platforms on, especially, aspects of the ethics of historically published and currently used biological nomenclature, an analysis is presented of trends in the use of epithets in the scientific names of Kalanchoe taxa (Crassulaceae subfam. Kalanchooideae). Kalanchoe, in which about 200 taxa are recognised at various taxonomic ranks, has a wide natural geographical distribution range in Madagascar and on some Indian Ocean Islands, in southern, eastern, and northern Africa, and in the Near, Middle, and Far East. A comprehensive database of epithets published at infrageneric, species, and infraspecific ranks in Kalanchoe over a period of 270 years—1753 to the present—was compiled and analysed to establish tendencies in the selection of epithets. The 370 epithets published to date were classified under: (1) plant characteristics; (2) the celebration of people (eponyms); (3) place names (toponyms); and (4) ‘other’ (habitat features, an ethnic group, etc.). Names derived from plant characteristics are the most commonly used in the naming of kalanchoes. However, since the early 1900s and continuing to the present, naming taxa after people is the preferred option. Lists of gender-based eponymic, toponymic, and ‘other’ epithets, with their derivations, used in the validly published names of kalanchoes are provided. We point out that one epithet used in the genus is contentious. We briefly reflect on the derivation of the genus name Kalanchoe.