Guidelines for proposals to conserve or reject names

Since its initiation in 1951, Taxon has become the medium for the publication of proposals of “nomina conservanda” and, since 1975, of “nomina utique rejicienda” under Art. 14 and Art. 56, respectively, of the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (Melbourne Code) (ICN, McNeill & al Regnum Veg. 154. 2012). Publication in Taxon constitutes the submission to the General Committee required under Art. 14.12 and 56.2. The first formal guidelines for the preparation of such proposals appeared in 1994 (Nicolson & Greuter in Taxon 43: 109–113. 1994); these were most recently updated by McNeill & al. in Taxon 61: 248–251. 2012, and the following represents a further update reflecting the publication of the Melbourne Code and its Appendices (Wiersema & al. in Regnum Veg. 157. 2015). At the request of its Nomenclature Section, the Tokyo Congress in 1993 urged “plant taxonomists ... to avoid displacing well-established names for purely nomenclatural reasons”. This, and an instruction by the Section that the Permanent Nomenclature Committees “make full use of the options that the Code now provides”, emerged from the very substantial broadening of the scope for conservation and rejection of names that was adopted at that Congress. The prime criterion for conservation and rejection of names is the avoidance of “disadvantageous nomenclatural change” (Art. 14.1, 56.1). Botanists should, therefore, explore the possibility of conservation or rejection of names before introducing any such nomenclatural change (see “Deciding to make a proposal”, below).