An Essay on Nomenclature [ 9 



A type as specified in the original publication of a group, or as implied by the in- 

 clusion of a single subordinate group, is unchangeable. Linnaeus and his immediate 

 successors had no conception of the device of types, and it is practically impossible 

 to be certain of the elements which they would have regarded as typical in some of 

 their groups. It remains necessary that the type system be applied to these groups. In 

 some of them, it may be expedient that international authority, proceeding with due 

 caution, declare types arbitrarily. An individual scholar will do better to call what he 

 supposes to be the type of a group by a difTerent term, namely standard (Sprague, 

 1926) : the standard of a group is a supposed type which remains open to debate. The 

 framers of codes have undertaken to make binding the choice of a type by the first 

 author who divides a group. On various occasions, however, this action has been 

 demonstrably mistaken. 



Certain venerable names, as Vermes and Algae as used by Linnaeus, were applied 

 to altogether miscellaneous collections of organisms among which the selection of a 

 standard would be purely arbitrary. Such names are called nomina confusa, and are 

 to be abandoned. 



It follows from the principle of the binomial nomenclature of species that no genus 

 is named until one or more of its species are designated by binomial names. It fol- 

 lows also that in works in which the nomenclature of species is not definitely binomial 

 no names are of any standing. Hence, the point of time from which priority is effective 

 is that of the introduction of binomial nomenclature, namely 1753. The enactment of 

 other starting points for the nomenclature of particular groups is pretended law 

 which is not law, like the pretended laws of American states which attempt to regu- 

 late interstate commerce under the appearance of doing something else. 



The original spelling of names, so far as it is tolerable Latin, is not to be changed. 

 Errors of gender or number, obvious mistakes of spelling, and misprints, are to be 

 corrected. Good Latin is written without diacritical marks: a German Umlaut in a 

 name as published is corrected by inserting an e; accents, cedilles, and other barbar- 

 isms are dropped. The codes err in prescribing changes in spelling beyond those 

 which are here admitted. If they should establish uniformity in the future, it would 

 be at the expense of divergence from the most respected works of the past. 



Specific epithets are capitalized if they are ( 1 ) names in the nominative, in ap- 

 position with the generic names; (2) names of persons, places, or organisms in the 

 genitive; (3) adjectives derived from names of persons. 



Transfer of groups from one kingdom to another does not warrant any meddling 

 with names. When a group is transferred from one kingdom to another, its valid name 

 in the former — its oldest name not previously used in the kingdom in which it was 

 originally published — has priority from the date of its original publication. 



Names of groups higher than genera are in the plural. Some are proper nouns; the 

 remainder are adjectives used as proper nouns, agreeing in gender with the names of 

 the kingdoms in which they are included; either expressing characters of the groups 

 which they designate, or consisting of generic names modified by terminations signi- 

 fying "resembling" or "of the group of." Plurals of generic names are not tenable 

 (de Candolle, 1813) : Ericae means the species of the genus Erica; it does not mean, 

 and can not be used to designate, the genus together with its allies. Names consisting 

 of words other than generic names modified by terminations signifying "resembling" 

 or "of the group of" are not tenable, because they are nonsense: the name Conifer- 

 inae, applied by Engler to a class, is an adjective with an additional adjectival termi- 

 nation superimposed. 



