SPECIAL ISSUE 34a.pdf - Biology International

Biology International, Special Issue No. 34 (1997)
different treatment under the botanical and zoological Codes of the names of
species that are now considered to belong to different genera fiom those in
which they were first described.
The arguments in favour of the three procedures are respectively that, in the case
of the Kew Rule, the name given by the person whose. taxonomic judgement is
accepted has precedence even though this may mean a complete departure fiom
the previous names applied to the taxon. The current botany and bacteriology
rule ensures that there is a good chance that the epithet remains unchanged, even
with a change of genus, but if any change does occur, it is in the species being
transferred and not in any that had previously been considered members of the
genus concemed. The zoological rule, while ensuring maintenance of the
earliest epithet, by creating a "secondary homonym" can induce a change in the
nomenclature of a species whose taxonomy has in no way been changed.
Indeed, the potential for the name of a species whose taxonomy is stable, being
continually changed as the taxonomy of a different species changes, is a real
possibility under the provisions of the zoological Code
For example, much, but not all, recent taxonomic opinion considers congeneric
the two Linnaean genera Lychnis and Silene in the flowering-plant family
Caryophyllaceae (the "pink family"). Both have species bearing the epithet
"sibirica": Lychnis sibirica L. (Sp. Pl. 436. 1753) and Silene sibirica (L.) Pers.
(Syn. PI. 1: 497. 1803), based on Cucubalus sibiricus L. (Syst. Nat. ed. 10. 2:
103 1. 1769). Silene is conserved over Lychnis, and so, under the botanical
Code, those who unite the genera must find a new specific epithet ("specific
name" in 'zoospeak') for Lychnis sibirica when it is treated as a Silene. Thus the
accepted names for this species are either L. sibirica or S. samojedorum,
depending on whether or not Lychnis is treated as a genus distinct from Silene.
On the other hand, under the zoological Code, it is a species that is universally
considered to be a Silene that suffers a name change according to the taxonomic
status of Lychnis! [Even those who maintain the Linnaean genus Cucubalus
exclude C. sibirica L. O S. sibirica (L.) Pers. fiom it]. For those who maintain
Lychnis, this unquestioned species of Silene will continue to be called S.
sibirica, but for those who treat Lychnis as a part of Silene, it must be given a
completely new narne (no other epithet has ever been applied to it), even
although it is relatively unrelated to the other species with the epithet sibirica
over which there is controversy as to whether to treat it as a Lychnis species or a
Silene species.
(iv) Illegitimacy
The concept of illegitimacy per se is absent from the zoological Code but is
found in the botanical and bacteriological Codes. There are basically two ways
in which a name can be illegitimate, either by being published as a later
homonym, or by being published as a superfluous name, that is, a name which,
when published, included the type of an earlier name that ought to have been.
adopted under the rules. In the zoological Code, the first situation is termed that
of "junior primary homonymy" and such a name is "permanently invalid"