Bacteria and Viruses 37 



Rule 6. Sect. 1. Naming of Taxa 



terium cliryseum the golden Bacterium: Microinotiospora 

 chalcea the bronze Micromoy\osporn. 



A compound Greek adjective: Treponema calligyrum the beauti- 

 fully bent Treponejna; Streptomyces phaeochromogenes the 

 giay-color-producing Streptomyces: Pseudomonas cyanogenes 

 the dark-blue-producing Pseudomonas. 



An adjective jormed jrom a place name: Brucella melitensis the 

 Maltese Brucella; Vibrio beroUnensis the Berlin Vibrio; Actino- 

 myces californiciis the Californian Actinomyces. 



An adjective formed from the name of a person: Clostridium 

 pasteiirianiim the Pasteur Clostridium: Zoogloea beigeliana 

 the Beigel Zoogloea. 



A participial adjective formed from a present participle: Eriuiyiia 

 citrimaculans the orange-spotting Envinia; Bacteroides co- 

 agulans the clotting Bacteroides. 



A participial adjective formed from a past participle: Nocardia 

 maculata the spotted Nocardia: Clostridium malenominatum 

 the badly-named Clostridium. 



(2) Substantives as specific epithets in apposition. A substantive 

 (noun) in the nominative case, in apposition with the generic name, 

 may be used as a specific epithet. This type of modifier is found in 

 most modern languages, as Victoria regina; London the novelist; 

 Burns the poet. In general the epithet expresses some characteristic 

 of the generic name with which it is in apposition; it has an adjectival 

 connotation. Examples: Bacillus radicicola. Bacillus the root dwel- 

 ler; Pseudomonas conjac the conjac Pseudomonas: Vibrio coynma the 

 comma Vibrio. 



Some specific epithets taken from languages foreign to Latin are 

 of such form or spelling that they are not adaptable to Latin de- 

 clensions. Some words of this type were assimilated into Latin and 

 treated as undeclinable. For example, there are hundreds of per- 

 sonal and place names in the Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible. 

 The use of such undeclinable nouns as specific epithets is not in ac- 

 cord with Principle 4, which advises that as far as possible such names 

 be given appropriate Latin endings. In several genera of bacteria, as 

 in the genus Salmonella, it has become the custom to use the name of 

 the city or locality where the organism was first found as a specific 

 or subspecific epithet. There are hundreds of names stich as Salmo- 

 nella london, S. lexington, S. tennessee in the literature. For the 

 most part these organisms are differentiated on the basis of their 

 antigenic structure; they are infrasubspecific forms (serotypes) . 



