ARTÍCULO

Vaillant rides again?

ALFONSO SUSANNA

Botanic Institute of Barcelona (IBB, CSIC-Ajuntament de Barcelona),pg. del Migdia, s/n, ES-08038 Barcelona, Spain

ORCID iD. A. SUSANNA: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4717-9063

E-mail: asusanna@ibb.csic.es

Editor: J. López Pujol

ABSTRACT
Vaillant rides again?.—The unwanted consequences of accepting post-1753 translations of pre-Linnean works are shortly discussed using the case of Vaillant and the genus Rhaponticum as a timely example. A modification of the current code of botanical nomenclature is suggested.
KEY WORDS: Nomenclature, pre-Linnean works, Rhaponticum.

RESUMEN
Vaillant cabalga de nuevo?.— Las consecuencias no deseadas de aceptar traducciones posteriores a 1753 de obras prelinneanas se analizan brevemente utilizando el caso de Vaillant y el género Rhaponticum como un oportuno ejemplo. Se propone una modificación del actual código de nomenclatura botánica.
PALABRAS CLAVE: Nomenclatura, obras prelinneanas, Rhaponticum.

CONTENTS

Vaillant’s shadow is long, and the undesirable consequences of the acceptation of the nomenclatural validity of a German translation of a pre-Linnean work by Vaillant (Greuter et al., 2005Greuter, W., Aghababian, M. & Wagenitz, G. 2005. Vaillant on Compositae – systematic concepts and nomenclatural impact. Taxon 54: 149–174. https://doi.org/10.2307/25065315) have resurfaced once again. The story is well documented and discussed in Brummit (2008Brummitt, R. K. 2008. Proposal to add the 1754–1756 German translation of S. Vaillant, Établissement de nouveaux caractères de trois familles, 1719–1725, to the “Opera utique oppressa”. Taxon 57: 663. https://doi.org/10.2307/25066051), Greuter & McNeill (2008Greuter, W. & McNeill, J. 2008. Damn Vaillant? A reply to Brummitt in Taxon 57(3): 63. 2008, and some alternative proposals, including adding all Steinwehr’s translations in Königl. Akad. Wiss. Paris Phys. Abh. 5-9. 1754-1760 to the “Opera utique oppressa”. Taxon 57: 1015–1016. https://doi.org/10.1002/tax.573047), Susanna (2009Susanna, A. 2009. Botanical nomenclature: Master or servant? Collectanea Botanica (Barcelona) 28: 141–143. https://doi.org/10.3989/collectbot.2008.v28.014) and Hind (2019Hind, D. J. N. 2019. Leuzea repens, a new combination (Compositae: Cardueae: Centaureinae). Kew Bulletin 74: 20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12225-019-9809-2), and I will offer a short recapitulation.

Greuter et al. (2005Greuter, W., Aghababian, M. & Wagenitz, G. 2005. Vaillant on Compositae – systematic concepts and nomenclatural impact. Taxon 54: 149–174. https://doi.org/10.2307/25065315) unearthed an old German translation of a pre-Linnean work by Vaillant and claimed that, the translation being published after 1753, the generic names proposed in that work were nomenclaturally valid. Since then, we reluctantly assigned to Vaillant the authorship of several genera in our most important contributions to the systematics of the Compositae-Cardueae (Susanna & Garcia-Jacas, 2007Susanna, A. & Garcia Jacas, N. 2007. Tribe Cardueae. In: Jeffrey, C. & Kadereit, J. W. (Eds.), The families and genera of vascular plants 8. Springer, Berlin & Heidelberg: 123–146., 2009Susanna, A. & Garcia-Jacas, N. 2009. Cardueae (Carduoideae). In: Funk, V. A., Susanna, A., Stuessy, T. F. & Bayer, R. J. (Eds.), Systematics, evolution, and biogeography of Compositae. IAPT, Vienna: 293–313.; Herrando-Moraira et al., 2019Herrando-Moraira, S., Calleja, J. A. Galbany-Casals, M., Garcia-Jacas, N., Liu, J.-Q., López-Alvarado, J., López-Pujol, J., Mandel, J. R., Massó, S., Montes-Moreno, N., Roquet, C., Sáez, L., Sennikov, A. N., Susanna, A. & Vilatersana, R. 2019. Nuclear and plastid DNA phylogeny of tribe Cardueae (Compositae) with Hyb-Seq data: A new subtribal classification and a temporal diversification framework. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 137: 313–332. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2019.05.001 ). Reluctantly, because we anticipated the potential problems of a proposal that we considered contrary to nomenclatural stability and even to common sense; without any hope (and without any tangible results, like a nomenclatural Cassandra), I warned on the consequences of playing around with names (Susanna, 2009Susanna, A. 2009. Botanical nomenclature: Master or servant? Collectanea Botanica (Barcelona) 28: 141–143. https://doi.org/10.3989/collectbot.2008.v28.014). In fact, trouble had already started when Brummitt (2008Brummitt, R. K. 2008. Proposal to add the 1754–1756 German translation of S. Vaillant, Établissement de nouveaux caractères de trois familles, 1719–1725, to the “Opera utique oppressa”. Taxon 57: 663. https://doi.org/10.2307/25066051) proposed the rejection of Vaillant’s translation as opera utique oppressa. Brummitt’s proposal was eventually approved (Brummitt, 2011Brummit, R. K. 2011. Report of the Nomenclature Committee for Vascular Plants: 63. Taxon 60: 1202–1210. https://doi.org/10.1002/tax.604025; Turland et al., 2018Turland, N. J., Wiersema, J. H., Barrie, F. R., Greuter, W., Hawksworth, D., Herendeen, P. S., Knapp, S., Kusber, W.-H., Li, D.-Z. & Marhold, K. 2018. International code of nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (Shenzhen Code) adopted by the Nineteenth International Botanical Congress Shenzhen, China, July 2017 [Regnum Vegetabile, 159]. Koeltz Botanical Books, Königstein. https://doi.org/10.12705/Code.2018) and, accordingly, the IPNI webpage (2019IPNI [International Plant Name Index] 2019. Rhaponticum. Retrieved February 18, 2022, from https://www.ipni.org/?q=Rhaponticum) considers Rhaponticum Vaill. nomen invalidum.

As I had predicted, Hind (2019Hind, D. J. N. 2019. Leuzea repens, a new combination (Compositae: Cardueae: Centaureinae). Kew Bulletin 74: 20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12225-019-9809-2) re-lived the problem by proposing a new nomenclatural combination, Leuzea repens (L.) D. J. N. Hind. The reason is clear: nowadays it is widely accepted that Leuzea Cass. and Rhaponticum Adans. are the same genus (Susanna & Garcia-Jacas, 2007Susanna, A. & Garcia Jacas, N. 2007. Tribe Cardueae. In: Jeffrey, C. & Kadereit, J. W. (Eds.), The families and genera of vascular plants 8. Springer, Berlin & Heidelberg: 123–146., 2009Susanna, A. & Garcia-Jacas, N. 2009. Cardueae (Carduoideae). In: Funk, V. A., Susanna, A., Stuessy, T. F. & Bayer, R. J. (Eds.), Systematics, evolution, and biogeography of Compositae. IAPT, Vienna: 293–313.). If we accept Vaillant’s authorship for Rhaponticum, the prioritary name is Rhaponticum. After “damning Vaillant” (in the words of Greuter & McNeill, 2008Greuter, W. & McNeill, J. 2008. Damn Vaillant? A reply to Brummitt in Taxon 57(3): 63. 2008, and some alternative proposals, including adding all Steinwehr’s translations in Königl. Akad. Wiss. Paris Phys. Abh. 5-9. 1754-1760 to the “Opera utique oppressa”. Taxon 57: 1015–1016. https://doi.org/10.1002/tax.573047), the prioritary name is Leuzea Cass. However, other translations of Vaillant have been published and the issue of the validity of Vaillant’s generic names is far from resolved (Alexander Sennikov, pers. comm.). We are again at the starting point, and the nomenclatural instability resulting from these interchanges of ingenuities is exasperating.

Taxonomy, and its sibling, botanical nomenclature, should never be a frivolous game of wits. It is a frivolity to dig up from a library an obscure treaty that nobody has cared to read to mess around with the authorship of names in common use as in the case of Centaurea crocata Franco discussed by Garcia-Jacas & Susanna (2020Garcia-Jacas, N. & Susanna, A. 2020. Proposal to conserve the name Centaurea crocata Franco against C. crocata Gandoger (Compositae). Taxon 69: 1367–1368. https://doi.org/10.1002/tax.12399). It is a frivolity to begin a new round of nomenclatural combinations when the ink of the previous ones has barely dried out. The pilgrimage of Linnaeus’ Centaurea repens L. through Acroptilon Cass., Rhaponticum and Leuzea is an appalling example. Incidentally, all of the species of Rhaponticum were combined under Leuzea by Holub (1973Holub, J. 1973. Contribution to the taxonomy and nomenclature of Leuzea DC. and Rhaponticum auct. Folia Geobotanica et Phytotaxonomica 8: 377. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02852062). One species, however, is missing from the list, and I will hereby propose the new combination as my personal contribution to the fray (see appendix).

There is an obvious and very easy solution, and I believe that it is quite sensible too: The International Code of Nomenclature (Turland et al., 2018Turland, N. J., Wiersema, J. H., Barrie, F. R., Greuter, W., Hawksworth, D., Herendeen, P. S., Knapp, S., Kusber, W.-H., Li, D.-Z. & Marhold, K. 2018. International code of nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (Shenzhen Code) adopted by the Nineteenth International Botanical Congress Shenzhen, China, July 2017 [Regnum Vegetabile, 159]. Koeltz Botanical Books, Königstein. https://doi.org/10.12705/Code.2018) should state clearly in article 30 that a post-1753 translation of a pre-Linnean work does not automatically infuse nomenclatural validity to that work, which should be automatically rejected as opera utique oppressa. In the meantime, I would ask my colleagues for a more serious approach to botanical nomenclature.

APPENDIXTop

Leuzea chinensis (S. Moore) Susanna, comb. nov. ≡ Serratula chinensis S. Moore in Journal of Botany, British and Foreign 13: 228 (1875) [Basyonym] ≡ Rhaponticum chinense (S. Moore) L. Martins & Hidalgo in Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 152(4): 461 (11 December 2006) ≡ Klaseopsis chinensis (S. Moore) L. Martins, Taxon 55(4): 974 (20 December 2006). Type: China, Kewkiang, G. Shearer s. n., 1873 (isotype K000251780 [photo!])

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