(217) Proposal to amend Article 38.4 to allow binding decisions on whether a name was accepted by its author(s) in the original publication

“38.4. When it is doubtful whether a descriptive statement satisfies the requirement of Art. 38.1(a) for a “description or diagnosis” or whether a name was accepted by its author in the original publication (Art. 36.1), a request for a decision may be submitted to the General Committee, which will refer it for examination to the specialist committee for the appropriate taxonomic group (see Div. III Prov. 2.2, 7.9, and 7.10). A Committee recommendation as to whether or not the name concerned is validly published may then be put forward to an International Botanical Congress and, if ratified, will become a binding decision with retroactive effect. These binding decisions are listed in App. VI.” The present proposal was first considered after discussing the curious nomenclatural case of the name or phrase “Senecio tenuifolius. Ucranicus. […]” mentioned by Besser (Enum. Pl.: 33. 1822; https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/6089486) in the following statement and discussion regarding the (unnamed?) species No. 1082: “(arenarius. MB. in lit. | (tenuifolius. Ucranicus | Cat. h. Cremen. 1816. p. 129. | Species haec mihi nondum clara. Possideo specimen siccum inscriptum „Folia subcarnosa, sicut tota planta incana. Affinis S. erucaefolio” ab ipso Auctore. Specimina nostri Senecionis ucranici cum illo communicata declarat pro S. arenario, ast nostri folia nec subcarnosa, nec similia specimini prius memorato ex Rossiae minoris arena mobili; neque similis S. erucaefolia ab Jll. Steven mecum communicato. Nostrum non esse. S. tenuifolium austriacum patet ex calyce (Confer. Cat. H. Crem. l. c.) Foliorum forma variabilis uti affinium.” Before 2015, that statement was not viewed as the validation of the species name “Senecio ucranicus”. However, the name Senecio ucranicus Besser (l.c. 1822) is currently listed in the International Plant Names Index (IPNI: https://www.ipni.org/n/60470182-2 accessed 24 Jan 2023) as validly published, while the name S. ucranicus Hodálová (in Folia Geobot. 34: 334. 1999) is treated in IPNI as an illegitimate later homonym (https://www.ipni.org/n/1011450-1 accessed on same date). According to Kanchi Gandhi (pers. comm., email message of 18 May 2018 to Sergei Mosyakin), this decision was based on the opinion of Werner Greuter, who in his email message of 22 October 2015 to Kanchi Gandhi provided the following information: “Besser disagrees with MB's [Marschall von Bieberstein's] opinion that his Ukrainian plant (i.e. S. tenuifolius var. affinis, referred to as S. tenuifolius “ucranicus” by a slip of the pen) is the same as MB's S. arenarius; he [Besser] treats it as a taxonomically doubtful species (“species mihi nondum clara”) for which he accepts the name S. ucranicus (mentioned in genitive in the text and easily overlooked because not in italics). There is scant descriptive matter in the 1822 text (“folia non subcarnosa”), but the reference to the 1816 footnote description [Besser, Cat. Hort. Cremeneci: 129. 1816] validates the name unquestionably.” However, Mosyakin (in Novosti Sist. Vyssh. Rast. 48: 126–130. 2017) and Mosyakin & Shiyan (in Ukrayins'k. Bot. Zhurn. 76: 473–485. 2019) provided arguments in favour of a different interpretation of Besser's text. According to these authors, the name “Senecio ucranicus” was never validated by Besser (l.c. 1822) because he did not accept that name; moreover, this binomial does not exist because the word “Ucranicus” was not intended as a specific epithet (Mosyakin, l.c. 2017: 126). Mosyakin (l.c. 2017: 127) also commented that, by the word “Ucranicus” following the epithet “tenuifolius”, Besser simply indicated that the name S. tenuifolius was (mis)applied by him in 1816 (Besser, l.c. 1816: 129) to Ukrainian plants. In modern terms, it is equivalent to citing “S. tenuifolius sensu Besser (1816), quoad plantae ucrainicae, non Jacquin (1775)”. Throughout Besser's Enumeratio (l.c. 1822), he consistently used italic for scientific names and the information on distribution generally followed a name and was in Roman type, just as “Ucranicus” appears following the epithet “tenuifolius”. It should also be noted that neither Besser nor his student and follower Andrzejowski mentioned the name “Senecio ucranicus” in their post-1822 publications. This name is also absent in labels of all available herbarium specimens of Senecio sensu lato deposited in the Besser memorial herbarium (KW-BESS) at the National Herbarium of Ukraine (KW). The main taxonomic and nomenclatural problem is that specimens from Ukraine identified by Besser as “Senecio tenuifolius”, “Senecio tenuifolius?” (G00471754), or “Senecio affinis tenuifolio & borysthenico” (G00471752) and at present deposited in G (syntypes of S. praealtus var. borysthenicus DC., Prodr. 6: 351. 1838; see Mosyakin & al. in Candollea 74: 217–221. 2019; and Mosyakin & Shiyan, l.c.) and KW (several specimens, see Mosyakin & Shiyan, l.c.) evidently belong to the species currently accepted as Jacobaea borysthenica (DC.) B. Nord. & Greuter (in Willdenowia 36: 712. 2006 ≡ S. praealtus var. borysthenicus DC. ≡ S. borysthenicus (DC.) Andrz. ex Czern., Conspect. Pl. Charc.: 32. 1859). If we, contrary to the arguments presented by Mosyakin (l.c. 2017) and Mosyakin & Shiyan (l.c.), assume that the name S. ucranicus was validly published by Besser, the specific epithet ucranicus would have priority for the species of Jacobaea now generally accepted as J. borysthenica, and a new combination in that genus with the epithet “ucranica” will be required. Initially, one of us (SM) thought that the best solution, most probably accurately reflecting the original intention of Besser (l.c. 1822), for safeguarding the widely accepted name Jacobaea borysthenica (≡ Senecio borysthenicus) and preserving the nomenclatural stability in this taxonomically complicated group of Jacobaea, would be to make a binding decision that the name “S. ucranicus” Besser was not validly published, for the reasons discussed and explained above and, in more detail, in Mosyakin (l.c. 2017) and Mosyakin & Shiyan (l.c.). However, one of us (JM) correctly indicated that a request for a binding decision is currently (under Art. 38.4 of the Shenzhen Code: Turland & al. in Regnum Veg. 159. 2018) possible only when “it is doubtful whether a descriptive statement satisfies the requirement of Art. 38.1(a) for a description or diagnosis”, which is not the case with Besser's text (see the comment by Greuter cited above). We therefore have a situation where some experts (e.g. Werner Greuter, Kanchi Gandhi) treat the name “Senecio ucranicus” Besser as validly published while others (e.g. the present authors) consider that name not to exist, which leaves the names of at least two accepted taxa, Jacobaea borysthenica (see above) and S. ucranicus Hodálová (≡ S. hercynicus subsp. ucranicus (Hodálová) Greuter [or subsp. ucranicus Greuter] in Willdenowia 33: 247. 2003), unresolved in a nomenclatural limbo. We therefore propose to amend Art. 38.4 of the Code by allowing a request for a binding decision when it is doubtful whether a name was accepted by its author in the original publication. We estimate that there are not many doubtful cases such as the one described above. In particular, we considered some supposedly provisional names published but not accepted by Klokov (see, e.g., Mosyakin in Phytotaxa 258: 164–170. 2016). We do not therefore expect too many proposals of this type. We are grateful to Kanchi Gandhi (Harvard University Herbaria & Libraries, Cambridge, MA, U.S.A.) and Werner Greuter (Herbarium Mediterraneum, c/o Orto Botanico, Palermo, Italy and Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Berlin [BGBM], Freie Universität Berlin, Germany) for their comments and the kind permission to use their unpublished email exchange, and to Nicholas J. Turland (BGBM) and John H. Wiersema (Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., U.S.A.) for their useful suggestions and editorial comments.

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