Registration of Names

Abstract

At the Fifteenth International Botanical Congress, those present and voting tentatively endorsed a requirement for the registration of new names of plants and fungi, beginning 1 Jan 2000, contingent on the approval of the Sixteenth International Botanical Congress in St. Louis in Aug 1999. Registration has already been added to the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, as paragraphs 32.1, 32.2, and 45.2. Those paragraphs will have to be removed, of course, if the St. Louis Congress defeats registration. As now envisaged, registration would be a mandatory part of valid publication. A name would not be validly published unless and until it were registered, and the date of publication would be the date of registration, not the date of effective publication, as is presently the case. For most groups of plants and fungi, there is already an excellent system in place for recording and reporting new names. It is decentralized (Kew, Harvard, Missouri, etc.) and voluntary, but it works remarkably well. Many authors who publish names in regional works that might be missed by the indexers send reprints to the appropriate centers, for the obvious reason that it is very much in an author's own interest for his or her new names to be recorded promptly so that they will come to the attention of others working on that group. So far as we know, the institutions that perform this service have not complained of the burden or asked for relief, nor has there been any clamor from botanists worldwide for a change in this well-tested mechanism. This raises two obvious questions: If we now have a system that works, why should we change it? And if we do change it, will the new system be better than the old, or will it bring unexpected disadvantages? The problem with registration lies in the fact that it would be mandatory, and in the potential consequences of that fact. While registration has been presented and generally perceived as a neutral mechanism devised for purely innocent purposes, it is important for all taxonomists to understand what a significant, even radical, departure this would be from the Code of Nomenclature that has served us so well for so long. The present Code is a truly neutral set of rules. It states exactly what one must do to validly publish a new name, and if one meets all those requirements, then one's new name is validly published on the day of effective publication. Note that no one can or must approve or disapprove or otherwise intervene. It does not matter what may be the author's nationality, or bias, or peculiarity. If he or she abides by the Code, the name is published on that date, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Compare that to what would be the situation under registration. It would no longer be sufficient to meet all the present requirements. It would not even be sufficient to submit one's new name for registration. Valid publication, and the date of publication, would now depend on the name's acceptance and approval by functionaries at registration centers, and ultimately at the IAPT Secretariat. If we permit registration to become mandatory, we will be creating the potential for abuse by bureaucrats and autocrats who will have the final say as to whether and when our names have been validly published. Let us consider a hypothetical case. Suppose we should discover an old, neglected name in an unused genus for a species that has long been known by a later name in another genus. The Code now permits one to avoid taking up such an older name by proposing the older name for rejection or the later name for conservation. Some taxonomists feel very strongly that one should pursue one of those possibilities, while oth-