Vincent DEMOULIN (1)

THE BRACHYCOME SAGA, WITH A PROPOSAL FOR DEFINING A CORRECTABLE ORTHOGRAPHICAL ERROR IN BOTANICAL NOMENCLATURE

Résumé

En 1816, Cassini a publié un genre avec la graphie Brachyscome, qu’il a corrigé en Brachycome en 1825. Cette correction a généralement été acceptée jusqu’au milieu du vingtième siècle. En 1950, une proposition de conservation a été introduite pour s’assurer que personne ne retournerait à la graphie originale. Cette proposition fut rejectée, car à l’époque la correction d’une erreur orthographique aussi évidente fut considérée superflue. Cependant, en 1965, Eichler considéra, sans donner d’explication, que la graphie originale devait être maintenue. Ceci amena en 1989 à une deuxième proposition de conserver Brachycome. Celle-ci fut reçue de manière ambigüe par le Comité pour les Spermatophytes et le Comité Général n’établit jamais de rapport à son sujet. L’historique de la controverse au sujet de ce problème orthographique a été étudié, ainsi que les raisons pour lesquelles le Code a été interprété de manières diamétralement opposées à son sujet. Il est établi que l’impression chez certains auteurs d’une contradiction entre l’Art. 20 (construction arbitraire de noms génériques) et 60 (correction des erreurs orthographiques) est due à à une modification par le congrès de Vienne de 1905 des règles explicites adoptées à Paris en 1867. Pour éviter de nouveaux problèmes, des suggestions sont faites pour modifier les Art. 20.1 et 60.1 dans la ligne de leur structure originelle.

Abstract

In 1816, Cassini published a genus with the spelling Brachyscome, that he corrected to Brachycome in 1825. This correction was usually accepted until the mid-twentieth century. In 1950 a proposal of conservation was made to make sure nobody would revert to the original spelling. This proposal was rejected since at the time the correction of such an obvious orthographic error was considered superfluous. Nonetheless in 1965, Eichler considered, without giving any explanation, that the original spelling was to be maintained. This led to a second proposal to conserve Brachycome in 1989. This was ambiguously received by the Committee for Spermatophyta and the General Committee never reported on it. The history of the controversy on this orthographical problem was studied, as well as the reasons why the Code had been interpreted in diametrically opposite ways. It is shown that the perception by some authors of a contradiction between Art. 20 (arbitrary construction of generic names) and 60 (correction of orthographical errors) is due to a modification by the Vienna Congress of 1905 of the explicit rules adopted at Paris in 1867. To avoid further problems, suggestions are made to modify Art. 20.1 and 60.1 in the line of their original structure.

1

2I. INTRODUCTION

3 When the president of the IAPT General Committee for Nomenclature, David Mabberley, asked my opinion on the correct spelling of Brachycome Cass., originally published as Brachyscome and later corrected by the author himself, I had no hesitation to answer that this was a clear cut case of correction of orthographic error under Art. 60.1. Searches by the president and the secretary of the General Committee, Karen Wilson, however disclosed a curious story of two proposals to conserve Brachycome: Davis (1950) and Adolphi & al. (1989). The first had been rejected as unnecessary, the correction being evident under the rules. The second was introduced with the claim that the obligation to correct having not been accepted by everybody, conservation was necessary to stop controversies. This received a split vote (6-6) in the Committee for Spermatophyta. The General Committee never published an opinion on this proposal as was usually, but not always, the case before 1995 for proposals not having received a majority vote in the permanent committee (see the compilation by Nicolson, 1999). Nowadays, some still consider the orthographically correct spelling is to be used and others that the lack of support for a conservation meant the original spelling is to be used, despite the correction by the author himself having been adopted during nearly one and a half century.

4 To understand this unusual situation I studied the main texts by proponents of each spelling and tried to understand how the Code has been interpreted in diametrically opposite ways.

5 Having noted that two of the authors of the 1989 proposal had been members of the Committee on Orthography that reported at the 1987 Berlin Congress, and of which I was secretary, I thought the proposal could have come from discussions inside that committee. I thus reviewed its enormous files. The result is that Brachycome had not been mentioned. The committee had concentrated its work on issues raised at the Leningrad and Sydney congresses, in particular the standardization of compounds and names derived from names of persons. The problem of correction of real orthographic errors was practically not touched. Only two persons made general comments on the correction of other cases than those of 60.8, 9, 10 and the like. Those were Eichler (7th May 1983) who, in "a very general remark", reassessed his well known opposition to correction of original spellings and Isoviita (10 Apr. 1984) who considered the whole issue "a big ?". He provided one page of interesting examples (but not Brachycome) and made one suggestion, that perhaps would have been worthwhile discussing: to correct generic names through conservation only. Nobody however commented and there were so many other problems, for which, even when minor, a two third majority was difficult to find, that Nicolson and I did not raise the issue in the report of the committee (Demoulin and Nicolson, 1986). From those documents I however would extract a quotation from a letter from Dan to me on 24 April 1984: "I expect that there never will be a resolution between those (like you) that prefer original spelling and those that want everexpandable 'standards' for changing original spelling". If I do indeed prefer original spellings I however have always obeyed the Code in correcting what are unquestionable orthographic errors. This is what I find maddening: that the orthography section is that part of the code some people deliberately refuse to apply. I am far from happy with Art.60, but it is not because many of my attempts to modify it did not succeed, that I stopped applying the Code. Since De Candolle laws it always stated orthographic errors must be corrected. One parenthesis about this is that Arthur Cronquist, who was very clear in his decision not to apply the orthography article, also said to Dan Nicolson that if Dan sat with me to prepare a revision, he would accept what we would propose. Reading this 30 years later makes me feel I should have done it, rather than spending days on trying to get from a committee a consensus on minutiae.

6THE BRACHYCOME STORY FROM 1950 TO 2000

7 It is clear that the 1950 proposal was rejected by a majority that considered it superfluous, a mandatory correction being evident (Pichi-Sermolli, R. E. G., 1954). As stated by the authors of the 1989 proposal " ... in the 50's botanists could not imagine that the grammatically incorrect word Brachyscome would be accepted by anyone." It is not even certain what the 3 committee members who voted against without giving a justification were willing, but the one that voted for the proposal of course wanted the corrected spelling. When I was chairing the committee for fungi, in such issues, I always insisted to have separate votes on what people were willing, and how to obtain it, but here the spelling wanted by the majority and perhaps unanimity of the committee was clear.

8 The issue that should have been considered settled in 1950 came up again when Eichler (1965: 297) stated "There appear no reason to consider the original spelling Brachyscome is being orthographically or typographically wrong". No justification was given for this opinion despite it being contrary to that of the Spermatophyta Committee of 1954 and almost one and a half century of treating Brachyscome as an orthographic error, as already recognized by Cassini himself.

9 In 1988 two radically opposed papers appeared on the subject. One by P. S. Short, tried to provide the justification to use Brachyscome that was lacking by Eichler. The other by D. J. N. Hind and C. Jeffrey, supported the traditional correction.

10 Short's argumentation consists mostly of putting in doubt the intention of the committee for Spermatophyta as to the preferred spelling. This is hard to swallow: of 10 members 5 voted against conservation, considering it unnecessary, 3 voted against without giving reasons, 1 voted for and one did abstain (Pichi-Sermolli, 1954). He also mix up to the present issue the fact among variants the philologically preferable one is not to be used over the one used at publication (Ex.1 to 60.1), which is something completely different from the case of orthographic errors. He widens his smoke-screen by referring to Recommendations on compounding. Even if those are partly turned into rules, they do not define an orthographic error. He also cites an argument, which is the only one I have heard from Eichler, which was that generic names can be formed arbitrarily. For this he refers to Rec 75 A3, in the present Code 62.3 (Turland et al, 2018), dealing with gender of generic names, instead of the relevant 20.1. This testifies of his lack of familiarity with the Code, but the argument can be discussed.

11 To decide if there is a contradiction between 20.1 and 60.1 one has to look at the examples of 20.1. The only example of arbitrarily formed name is the anagram Ifloga. My interpretation has always been that a name may be completely arbitrarily formed and in this case, of course does not obey to any orthography rule, but if it is not completely arbitrary it must be orthographically correct. I will give later the history of 60.1 and 20.1 which explains the apparent contradiction.

12 As can be expected from a great nomenclaturist like Charles Jeffrey, his paper with the other composite specialist at Kew, Hind, is much better written. It sticks to the point of deciding whether Brachyscome is a correctable orthographic error under 73.1 (now 60.1) and uses as main argument that to decide whether an original spelling was erroneous "no one is in a position to make such a decision more authoritatively than the author of a name himself". This paper lists the uses by Cassini from the original publication of 1816 to the correction in 1825. Jeffrey was so attached to the idea that corrections made by the author himself were to be adopted, that this was included in a 56 pages document "Towards a simpler, more logical, more internally consistent and more useful Botanical Code", distributed to the Special Committee on Lectotypification in October 1989. He suggested an addition in this sense to Art. 73.1, with Brachycome as example. The issue being outside the mandate of that Committee was not further discussed.

13 Since two papers in 1988 claimed that the application of the Code led to opposing effects it is understandable that a proposal was made in 1989 to try again to have the issue decided through conservation. This however may not be the best way out, for conservation has not been introduced to rule on divergent interpretations of the Code, but to "avoid disadvantageous nomenclatural changes entailed by the strict application of the rules" (Art. 14.1). For those who consider the strict application of the rules lead to Brachycome, conservation is illogical, as Brachyscome would be for those who hold the opposite standpoint.

14 The justification for resorting to conservation of Brachycome in 1989 is to be found in a strange sentence that appears in the proposal on top of p. 512: "If orthographic error is defined as an unorthodox spelling of a word with no or little change of pronunciation Brachyscome is not an orthographic error for Brachycome, but is a different word contrary to the rules of grammar but not contrary to the rules of spelling the words brachys and come."

15 There are several problems in this sentence and I am surprised Lawrie Johnson who was regularly on my side to defend linguistic correctness, co-authored this, and Nicolson let it be printed. For the last point, Dan was too nice a person and probably reluctant to censor proposals. It is possible Johnson, having to counter Eichler, another leading Australian botanist and the obstinate partisan of Brachyscome, considered conservation was the only way to stop the controversy, but relied on the other co-authors of the proposal for redaction.

16 There are two sophisms in there. One is to start with a hypothesis and then take it as granted, without examining contrary arguments. The second is to make a correct (to the point of being tautological), but irrelevant, statement that brachys and come are correctly spelled. What one has to discuss is not the orthography of the two word elements, but that of the compound. Since the authors admit this is contrary to the rules of grammar, what else than an orthographic error could it be? Unorthodox is not the same thing as erroneous, except for religious fanatics, with the bloody consequences that follow. Orthographic variants which are unusual can be qualified of unorthodox and  maintained, if they have some usage, even limited, as exemplified in Ex. 1 to Art. 60.1. As to the criterion of "no or little change of pronunciation" this is something I have never seen used in another place discussing orthographic errors. Further the change in pronunciation brought by the s is far from small.

17 So what is an orthographical error? The Oxford dictionary, consulted on line, defines orthography as "the conventional spelling system of a language". It thus seems logical to consider that a spelling that does not answer this conventional spelling is an error. I am ready to admit that languages and their spelling varies through space and time and that Classical Latin can have a different orthography from Renaissance Latin and Botanical Latin. This is what gives us orthographic variants. Erroneous spellings are those that never appear in those historical and geographical variations. Usage is the final criterion, but non-conformity to rules can be a first clear indicator, as in the case of Brachycome. This does not conform to the rules of Greek compounding and usage has not sanctioned a name in brachys-, either in classical Greek or Latin, or even modern languages which have formed large number of such compounds.

18 Only through their ad hoc definition of an orthographic error could the authors of the proposal write that Eichler in reinstating Brachyscome in 1965 was "strictly applying the code". The reverse is true: Eichler was refusing to apply the code! The authors of the proposal then stated that opinion being divided, the only solution was a conservation proposal. This negates the essence of the code: what use is a code that does not lead to decisions in case of divided opinions? Under such a philosophy the code can disappear and be replaced by lists of conserved names.

19 Nonetheless, if the need for conservation of Brachycome is disputable, the arguments given by the authors of the proposal for using that spelling are good. It is thus surprising on several counts to read the report of the Committee for Spermatophyta on this proposal (R. K. Brummitt,1993, p. 693). The vote 6 : 6 leads to the final statement that "Although technically the vote is indecisive and the issue may still be argued, it appears now that the spelling Brachyscome should be preferred". No reason for this preference is given and if the fact a majority of the 1950 committee voted against conservation because it was deemed unnecessary is mentioned, nothing is said of the intention of those who voted against in 1993. The report also includes the statement 8 positive vote would have been necessary, while in the voting procedures p.687 it is stated a simple majority is sufficient for spelling, and this is what happened p. 692 for Cyclospermum (7 : 5).

20 Three years earlier Brummitt, together with Taylor had made an important contribution to the issue of correcting or not spellings (R. K. Brummitt and N. P. Taylor, 1990). The introduction sets the problem well and stated that " the opinion that the original spelling should always be retained is clearly contrary to the Article". While agreeing that generic names should be treated with caution, they were in favour of correcting incorrectly spelled names of a type similar to names in brachy-: Ciclospermum to Cyclospermum and Chamelaucium to Chamaelaucium (p. 304) They also considered (p.305) that "authors should be allowed to correct their mistakes", and seem thus favourable to Brachycome, as adopted by Hind and Jeffrey (1988). They however do not take a stand, just mentioning that the Adolphi et al. proposal is under review by the Spermatophyta Committee.

21 The best explanation to Brummitt's change of attitude is that, even if in my experience he was not a versatile person, he sustained strong pressures from Eichler, who, if deceased by the time the report was published, had chaired the committee during the elaboration of this report. Maybe there was a deal Cyclospermum for Brachyscome that Dick found advantageous since Ciclospermum is less evident a correction. It involves the first syllable, the correction was not done by the author of the name himself and evolution of y into i occasionally occurred in some languages and most strikingly in Italian, which has replaced y by i in words derived from Latin, using y only in names borrowed from modern languages like English or French.

22 The unusual character of this report probably explained the General Committee of the days did not decide on it. It may have been put aside for more thoughts and forgotten, even if reversals of the Spermatophyta Committee decision occurred as with Trigonella hamosa.

23 If Brachycome was not taken into consideration by the Orthography Committee reporting to the Berlin Congress, it was by the one reporting to the St Louis Congress of 1999. Among proposals presented in her name, but originating in the work of the orthography committee of the day, Zijlstra (1998) made, p. 926, a proposal (123) to add to art. 60.3, some examples of corrections to be accepted, among which Brachyscome to Brachycome. This was commented with "In the case of Brachycome, the Committee for Spermatophyta did not recommend the proposal to conserve that spelling because five members thought the correction can be accepted without conservation". This probably refers to the 1954 Committee report, for the 1993 report mentioned a 6-6 vote.

24 Prop. 123 would have made of Brachycome a voted example. This was in line with the emphasis placed on this procedure by the Tokyo Code (Greuter & al., 1994). In the preface by W. Greuter and J. McNeill, p.X, it is written "From time to time Nomenclature sections have accepted specific Examples ("voted Examples") in order to legislate nomenclatural practice where the corresponding Article of the Code is open to divergent interpretation or may not even cover the matter at all". Zijlstra's Prop. 123 was technically the best solution, avoiding to conserve a correct spelling. The St Louis Congress, however, was a time of total dissatisfaction with orthography and all the proposals on this matter were rejected. The Editorial Committee followed and did not look at this proposal, despite the fact the Rapporteurs had stated it was editorial. Nobody, me included, wanted to hear from orthography in those days.

25SO WHAT SHOULD BE DONE?

26 I believe conservation is not adequate for ruling on an issue of diverging interpretations of the code, especially if one conserves a spelling that has been considered correct under the rules by so many people. The General Committee could thus finally take a stand on the 1989 proposal stating it cannot be accepted given the split vote but reinstating the 1954 position that Brachycome is the correct spelling under present rules.

27 In the future, those who refuse to correct erroneous original spellings can make a proposal to delete some part of 60.1. Possibilities are:

28- Delete "of a name or" and add a note "The spelling of a generic name can only be modified through conservation". This was Isoviita's suggestion and has the merit of putting an end to discussions such as those which have occurred with Brachycome.

29- Delete "orthographical". This would also stop controversies but will impose a lot of conservation of epithets and will retain a zone of doubt for cases which may be or not typographical errors, a sometimes problematic issue as emphasized by Brummitt and Taylor (1990).

30- Retain corrections of typographical errors for generic names and typographical and orthographical errors for epithets.

31 Anyway the proposal of Zijlstra to add examples to 60 would be useful and it is unfortunate we have just produced a new code and cannot do this right now. With the addition of Agaricus rhacodes in the Shenzhen Code one has an example of correction of an epithet for which Brachycome would be a good parallel for a generic name.

32 One could also think of having a procedure similar to that of doubtful confusability (Art. 53.4) that is to have a decision taken by the GC listed in an Appendix. This is however different: doubt in the case of confusability is not doubt on the meaning of the code. It is an individual issue with subjective aspects for which no general rule can cover everything. The thing is different with orthography. The problem here is that some people do not want to accept what the code says and it is not by adding one more appendix that the situation will change.

33 The fact orthographic errors can be objectively defined is evident if one thinks of the always more detailed orthography correctors in our computers. There is a specialized literature on the subject of orthography in that context. I do not want to add Botanical Latin to the list of options offered by automatic correctors and would not accept Google to rule our nomenclature, but if one can conceive an automatic decision on orthography, this is impossible for confusability. Depending on a context, that, even with the best artificial intelligence programming, a computer will not accurately define, a single letter difference may lead to confusability or not.

34 It seems to me easier, if one wants to honestly tackle the issue, to decide what is an orthographic error, than to decide if two names are confusable. For example one can consider in a first approach that a spelling is orthographically erroneous if it never occurs in Botanical Latin. For generic names it is easy to see that in ING (Farr et al., 1979) for a single Ciclospermum there are 136 names starting in Cyclo- and for one Brachyscome, there are 118 names in Brachy-.

35 Everything well considered I believe the best thing to do is to define what are the orthographic errors that are to be corrected in botanical nomenclature as A. de Candolle did when he introduced the rule.

36THE ORIGIN OF ART. 60 AND 20

37 If de Candolle (1867) had drafted the rules that are often referred as de Candolle's Rules, it should not be forgotten that they were amended and accepted by an International Congress, just as our present Code. The proceedings of the Paris Congress (Fournier, 1867) include the very first edition of the rules (pp. 209-225), preceded by the report of the congress discussions (pp. 177-208). The name "de Candolle's Rules" is probably greatly linked to the fact he appears as author of the 64 pp. volume published separately (de Candolle, 1867). In this publication, the rules as adopted by the congress are accompanied by an introduction and commentaries of his own. Those are interesting to read, but together with the official report of the congress, as recommended by de Candolle himself. Those facts seem often forgotten and many people (including Wikipedia) refer to the first edition of the Code as the one adopted by the 1905 Vienna congress. Even the, otherwise excellent, and detailed history of botanical nomenclature published by Dan Nicolson (1991) presents the 1867 laws as a purely Candollean creation. His focus on the formulation of the congress approval is not in line with the whole context, especially the lengthy proceedings of the discussion of the laws, which include the adoption of numerous amendments to the text prepared by de Candolle.

38 The fact that the title "Lois de la nomenclature botanique" was changed in 1905 to "Règles internationales de la nomenclature botanique" has no more signification than the change to "International code of botanical nomenclature" as used from the Stockholm Congress of 1950 onward. A good bibliography of codes or rules was appended to the Montreal Code (Lanjouw et al., 1961) and clearly shows that our rules go back to the international botanical congress of 1867 and not that of 1905.

39 Historians of science might be interested to ponder if the growing tension of the second half of the 19th century that led to the first world war may not have directed some partisans of the preeminence of Germanic culture to emphasise a congress held in the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, over one that was held in the capital of the French Empire. As one can deduce from Nicolson's history and is clearly phrased by Maire in his biography of Briquet (1933), the problem at the end of the 19th century was that there were a number of cases (development of Kew and Berlin rules for example) of non compliance with the rules, in which nationalism had its part. Maire cites Hochreutiner, who was much involved in botanical nomenclature before World War One, and stated "les amours propres nationaux s'en mêlaient".

40 A turning point may have happened at the 1900 Paris congress. For reasons not clearly stated this was called the first international botanical congress, even if the opening address by the chairman de Seynes, acknowledged the importance of the 1867 congress, especially for having produced the nomenclature laws. The report by Perrot (1900) includes the afore-mentioned speech pp. X-XI and pp. 451-464 the discussions concerning the organisation of the future congresses. It was then that the five year periodicity was decided, but other issues were contentious (language, place...) and even the need to revise the code. This was raised by Bureau, last survivor of the 1867 commission, who uses the expression "Code de la nomenclature" p.451 and gives his narrative of the 1867 congress. It is also there that one finds the decision to designate John Briquet as Rapporteur to prepare a revision at the 1905 Vienna congress (a place to which some Frenchmen would have preferred Geneva...).

41 The personality of this first Rapporteur-général may have been as important as diplomatic factors in having the Vienna Code considered the first one. He was French speaking and from the neutral Switzerland like A. de Candolle, who, even if having spent his childhood in France, was a well-known citizen of Geneva engaged in its political life. Two of the numerous biographies of A. de Candolle, those of Durand and Thiselton-Dyer, both published in 1893, give a concise, but inclusive, view of his numerous activities. De Candolle had been the predecessor of Briquet in the development of botanical institutions in Geneva and certainly was a revered master for him. But is it not frequent that a pupil would like to surpass the master? It would not be surprising if during his long tenure as Rapporteur-général from the Vienna to the Cambridge congress Briquet wished to impose "his" Vienna Code over what logically should have been called the Paris Code, much the work of his predecessor.

42 Nonetheless the Vienna Code starts with a synopsis of concordances between the "Articles de 1867" and "Règles de 1905". If Briquet acknowledged the continuity between the 1867 and 1905 rules, his comments are sometime strange. For our problem, concerning the orthography article 66, renumbered 57, he just states that the redaction adopted by the 1905 congress differs little from that of 1867. What an understatement! In 1867 there were 15 lines, in 1905 four. The first two are the basis of later versions "La graphie originale d'un nom doit être conservée, excepté dans le cas d'une erreur typographique ou orthographique/ The original spelling of a name must be retained, except in case of a typographic or orthographic error". The enu-meration of what constituted correctable orthographic errors had been suppressed, while it was this enumeration that made clear there was no contradiction between Art. 25 and 66 of 1867. In Art. 25 of 1867, after "Ces noms peuvent être tirés d'une source quelconque et même être composés d'une manière absolument arbitraire" figured "sous la réserve des conditions indiquées plus loin". This statement that made clear there were limits to the liberty to form names disappeared from Art. 24 of 1904. It is probable Briquet convinced the congress that the list of correctable errors established by the 1867 rules was not adequate, but it is not evident whether he thought there were too many or not enough of them.

43 For the synopsis of proposals for the Cambridge Congress Briquet (1930) approved "la rédaction mise au point telle qu'elle est contenue à l'art. B.57". This was mostly notes and examples prepared by British botanists, including some well known examples like Gluta renghas, and one may wonder whether he integrally approved all of those three pages. For the article proper there was a major change: to be correctable, orthographic errors had to be non intentional.

44 Deciding whether an error is intentional or not introduces a lot of subjective speculation and this addition was deleted at the 1950 Stockholm congress (Lanjouw et al. , 1952), which reverted to the Vienna wording.

45 I consider it is best to reestablish an explicitation of correctable orthographic errors by an addition at the end of Art. 60.1, inspired of the relevant parts in Art. 66 of de Candolle's laws, with the exception of the last paragraph. This last paragraph stated that names taken from vernacular languages could not be corrected. This could have been the reason of the dissatisfaction of Briquet, who had worked not only with A. de Candolle but also Engler. The later was the first to correct benghas in renghas, in contradiction to the 1867 rules. When the famous example found his way in the code at Cambridge, it was with an elaborate justification that the error was not intentional.

46HOW TO AMEND ART. 60.1 and 20.1

47 I intend to make the following three proposals to amend the code and would welcome the support of those who agree with them.

48 At the end of Art. 60.1, add:

49" Orthographical error to be corrected under this article are those occurring when a name or epithet issued from Greek or Latin is incorrectly written or constructed, as well as when names or epithets derived from the name of a person, a geographical place or a language other than Greek or Latin is written in a way incompatible with the real orthography of the name or word, unless it is an evident intentional latinization under Art. 60.9. In case of doubt, a voted example (Art. 7, Ex. 16, Note 1) may be proposed. When an erroneous usage has been dominant for a long period, conservation may be proposed under Art. 14.11."

50 At the end of Art. 20.1, add after "it must not end in -virus.": “Names containing one or several orthographical errors are not composed in an absolutely arbitrary manner and may be correctable under Art. 60.1. They are not to be considered invalid under Art. 32.1.c".

51 To the examples to Art. 60.1 add the voted example:

52“The generic name Brachycome Cass. (Bull. Soc. Philom. Paris 1816: 199, 1816) is to be so spelled, even though it was originally spelled 'Brachyscome' (see Demoulin in Lejeunia 100, 2019)”.

53 In case my modification of 60.1 is adopted this would not need to be a voted example, but given the long standing controversy about this name, it is nonetheless useful to close the book in this way, whatever the decision on my proposal for the article would be.

54 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

55 The present work started as a discussion with some colleagues from the General Committee for Nomenclature of the IAPT: David Mabberley, president, Karen Wilson, secretary, Wendy Applequist and Werner Greuter. They all contributed informations and opinions, which significantly improved this paper. They may not share all of my opinions but must be warmly thanked for their contribution.

56 LITERATURE CITED

57ADOLPHI, K., SEYBOLD, S. & JOHNSON, L. A. S. 1989. (952) Proposal to conserve Brachycome Cass. (Asteracea). Taxon 38: 511-513.

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59BRIQUET, J. 1930. Avis préalable du Bureau Permanent et des Commissions de nomenclature sur les motions soumises aux débats de la sous-section de nomenclature du Vème congrès international de botanique Cambridge (Angleterre) 1930. Berlin: R. Friedländer & Sohn.

60BRUMMITT, R. K. 1993. Report of the Committee for Spermatophyta : 38. Taxon 42: 687-697.

61BRUMMITT, R. K. & TAYLOR, N. P. 1990. To Correct or Not to Correct?. Taxon 39: 298-306.

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63DAVIS, G. L. 1950. Prop. 14 (to conserve Brachycome Cass. against Brachyscome Cass.). P. 228 in: Lanjouw, J. (ed.), Synopsis of proposals concerning the international rules of botanical nomenclature submitted to the seventh international botanical congress - Stockholm 1950. Utrecht: A. Oosthoek.

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