702 International Code of Nomenclature 



Rule 27. Sect. 7. Orthography and Gender of Names 



in tlie Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature. If no protest is submit- 

 ted within a period prescribed by the Commission, the former "Valid 

 Original Spelling" is added to the appropriate Official Index of 

 Nomina Repicienda for jiriority but not for homonymy. 



Rule 27. Note 1. Recommendation 27h states that s]>ecific epithets 

 should not be capitalized, even when derived from the name of a 

 person. If an author capitalized the specific epithet in a new species 

 name, the epithet is not thereby made illegitimate, but it is recom- 

 mended that subsequent authors use a lower case initial letter. 



Since an adjective used as a specific epithet must agree in gender 

 with the generic name with which it is used to form a species name, 

 Bacterium aeruginosum Schroeter 1872 when transferred to the genus 

 Pseudomonas became Pseudomonas aeruginosa (Schroeter) Migula 

 1900. 



Rule 27. Note 2. The generic name Corynebacterium Lehmann and 

 Neumann 1896 has the combining vowel -e- rather than the con- 

 ventional -0-. However, this form was used by the Greeks; for ex- 

 ample, the Greek lexicon contains compounds such as corynephorus. 

 Corynebacterium conforms to classic usage. Enderlein (1917) pro- 

 posed the spelling Corynobacterium. This is to be regarded as an 

 orthographic variant of Corynebacterium. Had Corynobacteriiun 

 been proposed as a name for a genus having a different type species 

 it would have been a later homonym of Corynebacterium. 



Rule 27. Note 3. See Provision 5 (p. 131) for procedure in requesting an 

 Opinion. Several Opinions correcting orthographic errors have been 

 issued by the Jvidicial Commission. Rule 3 and Rule 4 state that the 

 name of a family shall be formed by the addition of the suffix -aceae 

 to the stem of the name of the type genus. One can usually identify 

 the name of the type genus from the name of the family. Many 

 generic names in bacteriology are compounds with the final com- 

 ponent -bacter or -bacterium, as in Azotobacter and Corynebacterium. 

 The combining form (or stem) of the former ends in -r (genitive 

 -bacteris) . The combining form of the latter ends in -/ (genitive 

 -bacterii) . However, family names such as Achromobacteriaceae and 

 Nitrobacteriaceae have been repeatedly proposed, apparently on the 

 assumption that Nitrobacter and Achromobacter have a stem ending 

 in -/. The Judicial Commission in an Opinion ruled that the correct 

 spelling is Nitrobacteraceae and Achromobacteraceae. However Cory- 

 nebacteriaceae and Chromobacteriaceae are correctly spelled showing 

 derivation from Corynebacterium and Chrojnobacterium , respectively. 



