Botanical nomenclature: Master or servant?

Modern systematics has suffered a radical transformation in the past 20 years, and has become a more experimental science. Molecular methods, walking at a brisk pace, are diffi cult to master and hard to keep updated. Informatics has become a formidable tool; both in common use (word and image processing or electronic mail) and in the more specialized fi eld of data analysis, forcing a much more than a user-level knowledge of computers. The World Wide Web handles an incredible load of information, more readily available than ever. In the whole, a present-day botanist must handle a cumbersome array of technical knowledge, besides having the adequate scientifi c background. In a science with this experimental profi le, botanical nomenclature is now increasingly considered a different specialty, intricate to understand and diffi cult to master. This is an important fl aw of the nomenclatural system, but not the only one. The main drawback of the state-of-the-art botanical nomenclature, and probably the consequence of this specialization, is a generalized misuse of the code that causes an exasperating nomenclatural instability. We shall show some examples of this misguided usage of the ICBN that we have come across over along the past years. All of them have dramatic consequences for the nomenclature of the tribe Cardueae (Compositae), my personal fi eld of taxonomic expertise.

Modern systematics has suffered a radical transformation in the past 20 years, and has become a more experimental science.Molecular methods, walking at a brisk pace, are diffi cult to master and hard to keep updated.Informatics has become a formidable tool; both in common use (word and image processing or electronic mail) and in the more specialized fi eld of data analysis, forcing a much more than a user-level knowledge of computers.The World Wide Web handles an incredible load of information, more readily available than ever.In the whole, a present-day botanist must handle a cumbersome array of technical knowledge, besides having the adequate scientifi c background.In a science with this experimental profi le, botanical nomenclature is now increasingly considered a different specialty, intricate to understand and diffi cult to master.This is an important fl aw of the nomenclatural system, but not the only one.The main drawback of the state-of-the-art botanical nomenclature, and probably the consequence of this specialization, is a generalized misuse of the code that causes an exasperating nomenclatural instability.We shall show some examples of this misguided usage of the ICBN that we have come across over along the past years.All of them have dramatic consequences for the nomenclature of the tribe Cardueae (Compositae), my personal fi eld of taxonomic expertise.
Vaillant's names Greuter (2003) and Greuter et al. (2005aGreuter et al. ( , 2005b) ) theatrically revealed the existence of a hitherto ignored German translation of pre-Linnean papers by Vaillant, which, in their opinion, validated many generic names that are important for the Cardueae specialists.From our point of view, this proposal was against common sense: Who could ensure that another ignored work would be eventually unearthed and new names become prioritary, modifying again the nomenclature of the genera of the group?However, the editors of a compilation work in which we were authors of the Cardueae (Susanna & Garcia-Jacas, 2007) decided to follow Greuter et al. (2005aGreuter et al. ( , 2005b)).In consequence, some important genera were ascribed to Vaillant.Three years later, Brummitt (2008), on behalf of the Nomenclature Committee, forwarded a formal proposal for disregarding German translation of Vaillant.This proposal arrived when a second complete work on the Compositae was already written (Funk et al., 2009).In consequence, if Brummitt proposal is accepted, the two more comprehensive works on Compositae since Heywood et al. (1977) have adopted wrong authorships for many genera.
We agree with Brummitt point of view, especially if his proposal discourages further adventures.However, if accepting Vaillant names was a bad choice, disregarding them after being in use for fi ve years is also very unfortunate because the fi nal decision will affect important nomenclatural issues.
First, we have the problem of the name for the former Centaurea.Contrarily to Brummitt (2008), there is an available name for this genus, Bielzia Schur.The argument of Greuter et al. (2008)  body has used it except its author" (sic).All the species formerly in Centaurea that were moved to Rhaponticoides by Greuter & Aghababian (Greuter, 2003) will have to be moved to Bielzia (together with some other taxa like Centaurea lachnopus from Iran).Another irritating consequence that shows the undesirable (for synantherologists) consequences of recovering Vaillant's names was a new change for Rhaponticum, the rejection of which by homonymy forced the renaming of all the species of the genus as Stemmacantha Cass.(Dittrich, 1984).If Brummitt (2008) proposal is accepted, Leuzea will be adopted as the fi nal name since Leuzea and Rhaponticum cannot be considered different genera after Hidalgo et al. (2006), despite the affi rmations by Greuter et al. (2008).Fortunately, most of the combinations under Leuzea were already made by Holub (1973), who anticipated the results of Hidalgo et al. (2006) results.

Cardueae vs. Cynareae
The second example of ill-advised use of the ICBN involves authorship of the Cardueae.Reveal (1997) unearthed what he claimed to be a validation of the name Cynareae Lam.& DC. as an earlier tribal name for the Cardueae Cass.In our treatment of the tribe (Susanna & Garcia-Jacas, 2007), we decided to follow our own criterion and use Cardueae for the same reasons wisely forwarded by Bohm & Stuessy (2001): if we accepted this policy and use Cynareae, who knows which other rare book or article could conceal a prioritary name forcing a new change.However, this was not the opinion of Jeffrey, who added to our treatment a footnote indicating that the correct name for the Cardueae was Cynareae (Jeffrey in Susanna & Garcia-Jacas, 2007: 123-124, footnote 5).Finally, Wagenitz (Wagenitz & Kandemir, 2008) pointed out that the article of the ICBN alleged for sustaining the change was not applicable, and the valid name for the tribe was fi rmly returned to Cardueae Cassini.As a result of the publication by Reveal (1997), fi ve botanists have been forced into a elevenyears-long mad Byzantine discussion for making clear the correct name for the Cardueae, just for coming back to the name that was already in use!If we really believe in nomenclatural stability as the main goal of the ICBN, nothing more disparate that this proposal.

A Case of Gender
As a fi nal example, we would like to communicate our surprise for a change proposed in the latest version of the code (McNeill et al., 2007).
Long documented, common use of a particular spelling should have been an excellent reason for avoiding unnecessary changes.Instead, some strict Latin academic has rectifi ed generations of Latin-speaking botanists, and decided that all the names of genera ending in -ites (among them, the thistle genus Galactites) are now masculine!Are not three centuries of botanical literature using Galactites tomentosa a valid reason for it remaining feminine?This proposal, utterly alien to every-day botany, is a frivolity that wreaks havoc in the image of seriousness of the ICBN.
Botanical nomenclature is at risk of becoming a competition between people searching for a neglected footnote that could constitute an earlier homonym and, thereafter, justifying a few new nomenclatural combinations.We are deliberately exaggerating to the point of caricature, certainly, but this unfl attering portrait was suggested by our examples.Nothing to do with real botany, nothing to do with nomenclatural stability: instead of invoking common sense, we are systematically perverting the spirit of the ICBN.The schism between systematic botany and botanical nomenclature is growing because of this frivolity: the examples above demonstrate that botanical nomenclature is becoming more of a master than a servant.