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Title: International Code of Nomenclature for Algae, Fungi, and Plants

Author
item MCNEILL, JOHN - Royal Botanical Gardens
item BARRIE, FRED - Missouri Botanical Garden
item BUCK, WILLIAM - Botanical Garden, New York
item DEMOULIN, V - University Of Liege
item GREUTER, WERNER - Botanischer Garten Und Botanisches Museum Berlin-Dahlem
item HAWKSWORTH, D - Complutense University Of Madrid (UCM)
item HERENDEEN, P - Chicago Botanical Garden
item KNAPP, S - Natural History Museum - London
item MARHOLD, K - Slovak Academy Of Sciences
item PRADO, J - Non ARS Employee
item PRUD'HOMME VAN REINE, W - Non ARS Employee
item SMITH, G - South African National Biodiversity Institute
item Wiersema, John
item TURLAND, N - Missouri Botanical Garden

Submitted to: International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (Melbourne Code)
Publication Type: Book / Chapter
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/21/2012
Publication Date: 12/20/2012
Citation: McNeill, J., Turland, N.J., Barrie, F.R., Buck, W.R., Greuter, W., Wiersema, J.H. 2012. International Code of Nomenclature for Algae, Fungi, and Plants. Konigstein, Germany: Koeltz Scientific Books. 208 p.

Interpretive Summary: Accurate scientific names of algae, fungi, and plants are essential for communication about these organisms and are especially important when it comes to the international exchange of agricultural, horticultural, or forest products or information about them. In order to ensure that the scientific names of these organisms remain stable, a set of rules have been developed about how their scientific names should be applied. This set of rules is periodically reviewed and altered when a majority of the world's taxonomic scientists decide that this would be useful. This manuscript is the newly revised set of international rules that govern the naming of algae, fungi, and plants. These rules will be used by algologists, mycologists, and botanists worldwide to determine the accurate scientific names of organisms, assuring effective and accurate global communications about these organisms and their agricultural products.

Technical Abstract: Science requires a precise, stable, and simple system of nomenclature used by scientists in all countries of the world, dealing on the one hand with the terms that denote the ranks of taxonomic groups, and on the other with the scientific names that are applied to the individual taxonomic units of algae, fungi, and plants. The purpose of giving a name to a taxonomic group is not to indicate its characters or history, but to supply a means of referring to it and to indicate its taxonomic rank. This International Code of Nomenclature aims at providing a stable method of naming taxonomic groups of algae, fungi, and plants, and avoiding and rejecting the use of names that may cause error or ambiguity or otherwise create confusion in science. It replaces the 2006 Vienna Code, and incorporates the changes and additions approved at the Nomenclature Sessions of the International Botanical Congress in Melbourne, Australia in July of 2011.