Increasing nomenclatural stability by preventing the introduction of long‐forgotten names that will compete with ones in use: A solution must be found, and soon

The recording of previously undetected or overlooked, effectively and validly published names from long‐forgotten literature, their absorption into datasets, such as the International Plant Names Index (IPNI) and Tropicos, widely accessible electronically through the worldwide web, and subsequent adoption as accepted names in the literature, have an undeniably destabilizing impact on plant nomenclature. It is critically important that a way be found soon to prevent such names, which are sometimes, but not always, laboriously proposed for rejection from disrupting the stability of the names in use for organisms covered by the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants. For effect to be given to such a preventative system, the establishment and formal recognition of a designated online database of names of families, genera, and species published up to 1970 for vascular plants is of the utmost importance. One way to institute such a system would be to make the inclusion, on a specific date, of a plant name in that database—we propose IPNI—a condition for valid publication for names that are retrieved from literature published prior to 1 January 1970. We argue that this system, based on IPNI 2020, should be implemented on 1 January 2020. Until then the work being done to sanitize existing indices of plant names must continue unabated.