Report of the Committee for Algae: 9

Abstract

last report of the Committee for Algae (Taxon 36: 66-69. 1987) dealt with activities during the period 1981-1987. present report, which starts a new numbering series, is the first from the Committee constituted at the Berlin Congress in 1987. initial members were C. E. de M. Bicudo (Sao Paulo), P. Compere (Meise, Belgium), T. V. Desikachary (Madras), L. M. Irvine (London), J. Komarek (Trebon, Czech Republic), R. L. Moe (Berkeley, Secretary), P. G. Parkinson (Wellington), W. F. Prud'homme van Reine (Leiden), P. C. Silva (Berkeley, Chairman), R. Simonsen (Bremerhaven), A. Soumia (Paris), K. L. Vinogradova (St. Petersburg), W. J. Woelkerling (Melbourne), M. J. Wynne (Ann Arbor), and T. Yoshida (Sapporo). Simonsen resigned on 30 November 1992. In addition, two members consistently failed to respond and are considered to have resigned. Moe moved to Waterville, Maine, in December 1989 and returned to Berkeley in August 1992. lack of essential literature at the small college in Waterville hindered Moe's activities as Secretary and caused the Chairman to conduct the business of the Committee directly. first concern of the Committee was with regard to conserved family Prior to the Montreal Congress of 1959, conservation was limited in practice to generic names, which were (and still are) conserved against all homotypic synonyms, whether or not they are listed, and those heterotypic synonyms that have been specifically rejected and thus are listed. At Montreal, a group of spermatophyte taxonomists prepared a list of 422 names of angiosperm families that was approved by the Nomenclature Section. This list (Montreal Code, Appendix II) was contrary to Art. 14.4 in specifying that The names in this list are to be retained in all cases, with priority over unlisted names. Moreover, it was contrary to Art. 13, which sets the starting point for valid nomenclature of spermatophytes at 1 May 1753, in establishing a later starting point for names of families on the list (A. L. de Jussieu, Genera plantarum, 1789). At the Edinburgh Congress, in 1964, 12 names of gymnosperm families were added to Appendix II. When Silva pointed out these discrepancies at the Sydney Congress, in 1981, Nicolson made a motion from the floor that Art. 14 be changed to accommodate Appendix II (that is, by stating that family names, unlike generic names, are conserved against unlisted taxonomic synonyms). This exception was approved by the Nomenclature Section and was inserted in Art. 14.5 by the Editorial Committee when editing the Sydney Code.