(102) Request for a binding decision on whether the names <i>Chionanthus henryae</i> H.L. Li and “<i>C. henryi</i>” (H.L. Li) ined. (<i>Oleaceae</i>) are sufficiently alike to be confused

(102) Chionanthus henryae H.L. Li (1966) [Angiosp.: Ole.] “Chionanthus henryi” (H.L. Li) ined. [Angiosp.: Ole.] Li (in Morris Arbor. Bull. 17: 63. 1966) described Chionanthus henryae for an American species in honor of Mrs. J. Norman Henry, who collected the species over many years. The holotype of this name is M.G. Henry 2671, collected from Okaloosa Co., Florida and is preserved at PH (herbarium barcode 862634). It was later reduced to the synonymy of C. virginicus L. by Hardin (in Sida 5: 281. 1974), and in this he was followed in most North American works (e.g., Little, Checkl. U.S. Trees: 88. 1979; Grandtner, Elsevier's Dict. Trees 1: 198. 2005) and databases (e.g., Atlas of Florida Plants, https://florida.plantatlas.usf.edu/Plant.aspx?id=3468#synonym, accessed on 5 Oct 2021; Alabama Plant Atlas, http://floraofalabama.org/Plant.aspx?id=2714, accessed on 5 Oct 2021; USDA Plants, https://plants.usda.gov/, accessed on 5 Oct 2021). Recently, it was accepted as a distinct species in a few references (e.g., Govaerts, World Checklist Seed Plants 3: 258. 1999) and recognized as an accepted name in some major taxonomic databases (The Plant List at http://www.theplantlist.org/tpl1.1/record/kew-367424, accessed on 5 Oct 2021; POWO at http://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/56617-2, accessed on 5 Oct 2021) that seem, however, to be based on an erroneous assumption that the Kew specimen pictured there (at http://www.plantsoftheworldonline.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:56617-2#source-KBD, accessed on 5 Oct 2021) and wrongly labelled “Chionanthus henryae” was the North American plant (at http://specimens.kew.org/herbarium/K000978716), when in fact it is the isotype of Linociera henryi H.L. Li. Li (in J. Arnold Arbor. 25: 313. 1944) described Linociera henryi for a Chinese species in honor of Mr. Augustine Henry, a British plant hunter who collected the type specimen. This species is distributed in China and Myanmar (Chang & al. in Wu & Raven, Fl. China 15: 294. 1996). The holotype of this name is A. Henry 12042, collected from Simao, Yunnan, China and is kept at herbarium A (barcode 00046860). It was treated as a synonym of L. insignis (Miq.) C.B. Clarke (Fl. Brit. India 3: 610. 1882) by some authors (Wu, Index Fl. Yunnan. 2: 1204. 1984; Bai, Fl. Yunnan. 4: 628. 1986; Miao, Fl. Reipublic. Popularis Sin. 61: 114. 1992). Later, L. henryi was treated as an accepted species in the genus Chionanthus by Green (in Kew Bull. 50: 326. 1995), who considered that the resulting new combination “C. henryi” would be a later homonym of C. henryae H.L. Li, and he thus proposed a new name, C. henryanus P.S. Green (l.c. 1995). Unfortunately, the isotype specimen at K that Green cited but failed to annotate continues to be filed not under this name but confusingly under “Chionanthus henryae”. Article 60.8(a) and (b) of the Shenzhen Code (Turland & al. in Regnum Veg. 159. 2018) give the substantival forms of specific or infraspecific epithets derived from a personal name. Both “henryae” and “henryi” are substantival epithets derived from the surname “Henry” commemorating a person with that name but of different gender, female or male, respectively. Article 60 Note 4 makes clear that the erroneous usage in gender and/or number for such substantival epithets is to be corrected, and Ex. 22–26 give some examples contrary to Art. 60.8(a) and (b) that are to be corrected. Accordingly, the epithet “henryi”, were it commemorating a woman, could be corrected to “henryae”, or vice versa. Although they may be easily distinguished by the spelling and sound, such names may be confusable if they have had to be corrected under the provisions of Art. 60 Note 4. In the Code itself, no provision rules whether such names, having substantival epithets derived from the same personal name but with different gender or number, should be considered so similar that they are likely to be confused and so treated as homonyms. Green & al. (in Taxon 45: 141–142. 1996) argued that they should and proposed to amend the Code to treat such names as homonyms, but their proposals that became Art. 53 Prop. B & C (Greuter & Hawksworth in Taxon 48: 115. 1999) were rejected outright by the St. Louis Congress (Barrie & Greuter in Taxon 48: 781. 1999; Greuter & al. in Englera 20: 195. 2000). It seems, however, that Green's view has become established practice (Preamble 13 of ICN) in this particular case and if it were to be followed, C. henryae and “C. henryi” would be treated as homonyms. However, Green's view is contrary to the existing binding decisions (in Appendix VII of the Shenzhen Code [Wiersema & al. at https://naturalhistory2.si.edu/botany/codes-proposals/ 2018+, accessed 7 Sep 2020], Binding Decisions on Confusability of Names), including Astragalus matthewsiae Podlech & Kirchhoff and A. matthewsii S. Watson (see ICN Art. 60.8 Ex. 23; see also Report 60 of the NCVP by Brummitt in Taxon 58: 289. 2009 and Report 16 of the GC by Wilson in Taxon 66: 189. 2017), and Rubus tsangii Merr. and R. tsangiorum Hand.-Mazz. (Deng in Taxon 64: 394–395. 2015; see also Report 67 of the NCVP by Applequist in Taxon 65: 181. 2016 and Report 17 of the GC by Wilson in Taxon 66: 479. 2017), both ruled as not sufficiently alike to be confused and thus not to be treated as homonyms. On the other hand, binding decisions to be treated as homonyms were made for Solanum heteranthera Willd. and S. heterantherum Witasek ex Reiche (Solanaceae), and Taraxacum sphaeroides Dahlst. and T. sphaeroideum Rail. (Asteraceae), both differing solely in the termination and easily distinguished by sound and spelling, although they do not have a different derivation as is the case when the gender or number of persons is involved. Furthermore, there is no rule in the ICN establishing that similar cases must be treated identically. According to the Code, it is not desirable to create two epithets based on the same personal name, in genitive and the adjectival form respectively, but it is permitted (see ICN Rec. 23A.2). The names Chionanthus henryae and C. henryanus are a pair of specific epithets derived from the genitive and the adjectival forms of the same word “Henry”. A voted example in the Code of such a case is that of Lysimachia hemsleyana and L. hemsleyi, epithets that are easily distinguished by sound and spelling (see ICN Art. 53.2 Ex. 12; see also Deng in Taxon 64: 394–395. 2015; Report 67 of the NCVP by Applequist in Taxon 65: 181–182. 2016; Ferrer-Fallego in Taxon 68: 604. 2019). Analogically, C. henryae and C. henryanus, and “C. henryi” and C. henryanus, respectively, would not be sufficiently alike to be confused and thus would not be treated as homonyms since they have not been confused historically. The epithets henryi and henryanus are not the case specified by Art. 60.8 Note 4, and, similar to the case in Art. 61.2 Ex. 2, the adjective henryanus may not be treated as an orthographical variant of the noun henryi, therefore C. henryanus is not be corrected to “C. henryi”. If Chionanthus henryae and “C. henryi” are treated as not sufficiently alike to be confused and thus would not be treated as homonyms, the name C. henryanus would be an illegitimate superfluous name under Art. 52.1 and a new combination would therefore be necessary under Chionanthus. However, C. henryanus has been widely accepted as the correct name in recent floras and regional checklists (e.g., Zhang & al. in Wu & Raven, Fl. China 15: 294. 1996; Govaerts, l.c.; Green in Kew Bull. 58: 262. 2003; Zhu & Yan, Native Seed Pl., Xishuangbanna Yunnan: 254. 2012; Gao & Sun, Yunnan Shengwu Wuzhong Minglu: 375. 2016; Wang, Sp. Cat. China 1(8): 232. 2017) and in some major taxonomic databases (The Plant List at http://www.theplantlist.org/tpl1.1/record/kew-367425, accessed on 5 Oct 2021; POWO at http://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:983142-1, accessed on 5 Oct 2021; Species 2000 China at www.sp2000.org.cn, accessed on 5 Oct 2021). Consequently, in my opinion, since they were historically treated as homonyms, it is better to treat Chionanthus henryae and “C. henryi” as homonyms to maintain the current usage of C. henryanus for the purpose of nomenclatural stability. I am therefore requesting a binding decision under Art. 53.4 of the ICN as to whether the names Chionanthus henryae and “C. henryi” are sufficiently alike to be confused and thus should treated as homonyms. If there is a decision to not treat them as homonyms, C. henryanus would be illegitimate and could be available for use only through conservation. YFD, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0876-3286 I thank Dr. John McNeill and Dr. John Wiersema for their critical discussion resulting in substantial improvement of the initial draft of the proposal.

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