CONGRESS ACTION, V IBC (1930)

Congress action on proposals submitted to the V IBC, the 1930,
Cambridge Congress, to amend the International Rules of
Botanical Nomenclature, ed. 2 (Brussels Rules).  Based on the
Proceedings.

Links mostly go to local copies (copyright varies).

See also:

   •  conversion table
   •  list of proposals
 

There were two pre-Congress publications to help the Congress.
The synopsis of proposals, the Recueil synoptique (with a blue
cover), offers a synoptic view of the proposals accompanied by
the recommendations of the Rapporteur, while the Avis préalable
(with a yellow cover) provides the votes of twenty-four members
of the various “Commissions de nomenclature” who had responded
to a request to vote.
     Both these publications are entirely in French, which means that
all proposals were translated into French, and were presented as
proposals to amend the French text of the Rules (then the official
version).  As a consequence, proposals to editorially improve the
English text were out of scope and were not included in the Recueil
synoptique.
     At the Congress (and in both publications), all provisions were
dealt with one-by-one, even those for which no proposal-to-amend
had been submitted.  Here, only proposed changes and decisions to
change have been included.

The Section decided to restrict itself to discussing only the proposals
that had been accepted in the Avis préalable.  From the proposal to
add a new Art. 20bis onwards, all proposals that had received twelve
or more votes in the pre-vote were ruled as accepted without
discussion (but with the Editorial Committee empowered to make
adjustments as necessary).

At this time, the format  “Art. B 11”  was used to number proposals.
For convenience sake, this has been converted here to the latter-day
format  “Art. 11 Prop. B”.  An asterisk (*) here accompanying a vote
in the Avis préalable indicates that this offers not just a vote but also
an additional comment (or comments).
     Quotations taken from the Proceedings (which are entirely in
French) are rendered in English, taken from the corresponding
parts of the Code.
 

                 It was moved (Barnhart) and accepted to delete  “neither
                 be arbitrary nor imposed by authority”  from Art. 3.

                     was accepted as amended (Janchen, in the Avis préalable)
                     replacing  “with their original zoological status”  by  “in
                     the form prescribed by the rules of botanical nomenclature”.

                     was accepted as amended to replace  “should be in Latin
                     or Greek”  by  “should be taken from Latin or Greek”.

                   was accepted as amended (Janchen, in the Avis préalable),
                   expanding to  “interspecific hybrids and chimaeras
                   excepted,”.

              A proposal (Jaczewski, in the Avis préalable) to add to Art. 11
              “and races or biological forms”  was referred to the Editorial
              Committee.

              It was moved (Sprague) and accepted to have the Editorial
              Committee consider adopting the term  “category” (for what
              is now “rank”).

                   was amended (Sprague), the last sentence being withdrawn,
                   and was then referred to the Editorial Committee.

                   was amended (Sprague), to retain the phrase  “not for the
                   purpose of describing the characters or the history of the
                   group”  and was thus referred to the Editorial Committee.

                   it was proposed (Hamshaw Thomas) and accepted to fix
                   1920 as the starting-point for the nomenclature of all
                   fossil plants. The starting points of the other groups to
                   remain unchanged (pending further study).

                   the last three paragraphs were referred to the Editorial
                   Committee. The principle of a list of Nomina familiarum
                   conservanda was accepted.

              The suggestion by the Rapporteur (in the Recueil synoptique)
              to add that these names have the plural form was accepted
              by the Section.

              The suggestion (Sprague in the Avis préalable) to join
              Art. 21 and 22 together was accepted by the Section.

              The suggestion (Janchen in the Avis préalable) to add
              Papilionaceae as an exception was accepted by the Section.

          Various suggestions on Rec. XIII (in the Avis préalable) were
          referred to the Editorial Committee (for example, that of
          Holmberg to include Greek words on -y).

                attention was drawn (Sprague in the Avis préalable) to
                the connection with the proposed Art. 51bis, and this was
                referred to the Editorial Committee.

          It was proposed (Sprague) and accepted to raise the second
          part of Rec. XV to a Rule, applying to all epithets.   [   ]   [   ]

              It was proposed (Rehder) to add to Art. 28  “It is permissible
              to reduce more complicated names to ternary combinations.”
              (accompanied by an Example): this was referred to the
              Editorial Committee.

              A suggestion (Dandy), to delete from Art. 31  “by absence
              of an ordinal number and”  was referred to the Editorial
              Committee.

              The suggestion by the Rapporteur (in the Recueil synoptique)
              to adjust Art. 39 editorially was accepted.

        was accepted, with the addition of the last sentence of Art. 39bis
        (new).

            Rec. XX was referred to the Editorial Committee, to adjust it
            to accord with changes in the Rules elsewhere.

              Art. 40 and 41 were referred to the Editorial Committee.

              Upon request (Ramsbottom), Art. 43 was referred to the
              Editorial Committee, to take account of the adoption of the
              type method: the original author must be cited in parentheses.

            was accepted and referred to the Editorial Committee which
            would deal with a point raised (Holmberg), about the difference
            between in and apud.

                   was accepted as amended (Sprague, in the Avis préalable),
                   to limit it to subdivisions of genera.   [   ]   [   ]

                   was accepted as amended (in the Avis préalable), the new
                   Article also to include the elements which had been
                   excluded from Art. 48 Prop. B (see above). Also,
                   deleting the word  “original”. [   ] [   ]

                   was accepted as amended (the Rapporteur in the Avis
                   préalable), deleting the final Note.

              The proposals to delete Rec. XXX and XXXI were referred
              to the Editorial Committee, as was a suggestion (Dixon) to
              add:  “When a new name is derived from a Greek word
              containing the spiritus asper, this should be transcribed as
              the letter h.”

                  was accepted as amended as suggested by the Rapporteur,
                  (in the Recueil synoptique) with “I.” becoming:  “A Greek
                  or Latin word adopted as a generic name retains the gender
                  assigned to it by its author.”

                 was accepted as amended, firstly by deletion of the first
                 sentence (Ramsbottom, Rapporteur), and secondly by
                 deletion of the word  “final”  (Barnhart).

                  was accepted and referred to the Editorial Committee,
                  which would consider deleting the word  “additional”
                  (Barnhart).

A request on behalf of the International Horticultural Congress
(Rendle) to add an Appendix with rules for cultivated plants
was accepted.

A request (Davidson) to replace Phanerogamae throughout the
Rules by Spermatophyta was referred to the Editorial Committee.

A proposal (Barnhart) to alter Art. 22 to allow use of the names
in -aceae as alternatives was accepted (see also Amer. J. Bot.
36: 19-19. 1949).

A request (Epling) to indicate the type genera of the nine family
names not based on a generic name was referred to the new
Executive Committee.

A desire (Gundersen) to replace Mono-/Dicotyledoneae
throughout the Rules by Mono-/Dicotyledones was expressed.
Also to have a published list of accepted generic names.

A request (Sprague, on behalf of bryologists) to publish a new
supplement of the Index Bryologicus giving details of type
specimens was accepted.

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