The fitness of the code: A three-legged cauldron

Abstract

The paper "Quo vadis Code of Phytosociological Nomenclature" by MUCINA (1997) opens a debate on a subject which seems to have no solution. Indeed, many of the points raised were already discussed more than 40 years ago (Vegetatio 3: 205-243, 1953) after the first attempts had been made to draw up a code of phytosociological nomenclature at the Botanical Congress of Stockholm in 1950 (BARKMAN 1953a). However, it is always interesting to try again since "light comes from the clash of ideas". So, it is with pleasure that I now offer some ideas and thoughts about the Code of Phytosociological Nomenclature. Obviously, man has a need to classify and to organise things, and needs names to communicate. And when things are named, the manner of their naming also has to have rules. That is why rules and regulations are made. Interestingly enough, such rules and regulations generally arise only when a point close to "Babelism" has been reached. Often a strong feeling for a need for rules only emerges at this moment, not before. Phytosociology is no exception to this, with its Code of Phytosociological Nomenclature first published in 1976 (BARKMAN et al. 1976). Another aspect of the making of rules is that they are part of a process of "democratisation" when a science escapes from a "supreme authority". Here again, phytosociology is no exception. At the time of Braun-Blanquet and Tuxen, the "masters" of phytosociology, the first attempts at establishing rules at the Botanical Congress of Stockholm in 1950 (e.g. BARKMAN 1953a, MEIJER DREES 1953) were often considered too rigid, and were only accepted as recommendations (e.g. BRAUN-BLANQUET 1953, BRAUN-BLANQUET 1964, GUINOCHET 1957). If they had been accepted, we could have had a Code at a time when there were fewer names. From the very beginning of phytogeographical nomenclature instigated by Flahaut and Schroter at the International Botanical Congress at Brussels in 1910 (see also BRAuN-BLANQUET 1933a), nomenclature was considered as having no purpose in itself: "Nomenclature is an aid to science, and is intended to facilitate progress; its function is essentially and entirely practical. Those who study one and the same science must try to