Abstract

RICO-ARCE, Lourdes. Who amends the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, the participation that the Latin American Herbaria have and how it can be increased?. Rev. Mex. Biodiv. [online]. 2012, vol.83, n.4, pp.1227-1229. ISSN 2007-8706.  https://doi.org/10.7550/rmb.30575.

Changes to the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature are decided upon every 6 years at Nomenclature Sections that are part of International Botanical Congresses (IBC). How the Code is amended? The "decision" to conserve the name Acacia with a new type from Australia, one of the most heated and polarized debates over botanical nomenclature, casting doubt over the legitimacy of the procedure and botanical decision-making is taken as example. Despite a website www.acaciavote.com, for which by July 2011, the votes were: 7 659 opposing the re-typification of Acacia, including 101 votes from people in Australia, and only 110 accepting the re-typification, did not make any affect to influence to amend the Code? Only delegates present at the Nomenclature Section and the number of active institutional votes that they carry can decide the changes to the Code; from 878 distributed to registered herbaria only 396 of these were taken to Melbourne. Australia and the United States were the countries with the largest number of votes. There is little participation of Latin American Countries, in general of developing countries, how this can be increased and effective throughout herbaria institutional votes? In this note the steps to follow up are given.

Keywords : nomenclature; Acacia; herbaria institutional votes.