(358–359) Two proposals clarifying some acts of typification

When it comes to the designation of a lectotype, neotype or epitype of the name of a species or infraspecific taxon or an equivalent type for a name of a genus or subdivision of a genus, it can be inferred under Art. 7.3 of the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (Turland & al. in Regnum Veg. 159. 2018) that any effective typification of a basionym carries forward to any combination or name at new rank based on it. Can it be assumed that this would also operate in reverse, such that an explicit typification citing only a new combination or name at new rank would have backwards application to its basionym? Likewise for a replacement name, Art. 7.4 dictates that typification of a replaced synonym would carry forward to any of its replacement names. But what about the reverse situation, does the explicit typification of a replacement name also backwards apply to its replaced synonym? Although the Code is not explicit on this issue, for the homotypic relationships indicated in Art. 7.3 and 7.4 to hold up, it seems desirable that it do so. Note that this relationship would not apply to any name homotypic with the name being typified, only those with a common basionym or replaced synonym. Names independently made homotypic through type designation necessarily retain their designated types. A similar issue has been addressed for names with conserved types by Prop. 194 (Wiersema in Taxon 71: 1345–1346. 2022), which would preserve the homotypy between conserved names and their basionyms or replaced synonyms. Therefore, we propose the following Note under Art. 7.11. “Note 2bis. The effective typification of a name necessarily establishes the same typification for all names sharing the same basionym (Art. 7.3) or replaced synonym (Art. 7.4) and that basionym or replaced synonym.” Article 38.12 provides for the valid publication of a new species name by reference to a description or diagnosis of a genus: “A name of a new species may be validly published by reference (direct or indirect; […]) to a description or diagnosis of a genus, if the following conditions are satisfied: (a) the name of the genus was previously and validly published simultaneously with its description or diagnosis and (b) neither the author of the name of the genus nor the author of the name of the species indicates that more than one species belongs to the genus in question.” Given the stipulations of (a) and (b) of this provision, the resulting generic and species names are thereby coextensive, and under Art. 7.8 the typification of the species name, unless a different type was definitely designated, is derived entirely from the context of the genus name. Under this circumstance, it seems perfectly reasonable to consider the species as an “original” type of the genus, not requiring a later typification act to establish its status as type. An exception in our proposed rule is made where the type of the species name has been independently designated, as permitted under Art. 7.8, but because the vast majority of the names involved were published well before 1958, when type indication became mandatory, exceptions like this would be extremely rare. To allow this interpretation, the following proposal is made. “10.8bis. When the name of a new species was validly published solely by reference to a description or diagnosis of a genus under Art. 38.12, making that genus monotypic (see Art. 38.6), the type of the generic name is the same as that of the species name, unless a different type has definitely been designated for the species name.” If this proposal is accepted, a cross-reference to the resulting Article should be added to Art. 10.2 and likely also Art. 38.12 and its Ex. 21, with some modification to the Example also possibly desirable.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.