History
Prior to the first International Botanical Congress, local congresses concerned with natural sciences generally had grown to be very large, and a more specialized but also international meeting was considered desirable. The first annual IBC was held in 1864 in Brussels, in conjunction with an international horticultural exhibit. At the second annual congress (held in Amsterdam), Karl Koch made a proposal to standardize botanical nomenclature, and the third congress (held in London) resolved that this matter would be dealt with by the next congress.
The fourth congress, which had as one of its principal purposes to establish laws of botanical nomenclature, was organized by la Société botanique de France, and took place in Paris in August 1867. The laws adopted were based on those prepared by Alphonse de Candolle. Regular international botanical and/or horticultural congresses were held but made no further changes to nomenclature until the 1892 meeting in Genoa, which made some small changes to the laws of nomenclature. Subsequent meetings are as follows:
| Year | City | Country | Major actions | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | 1900 | Paris | France | Decisions on nomenclature deferred |
| II | 1905 | Vienna | Austria | First binding Rules of Nomenclature; French became the official language of the meeting; requirement for Latin plant descriptions from 1908 onwards (not enforced) |
| III | 1910 | Brussels | Belgium | Establishment of separate starting dates for nomenclature of fungi |
| IV | 1926 | Ithaca | United States | Decisions on nomenclature deferred |
| V | 1930 | Cambridge | United Kingdom | The type method incorporated; Latin requirement deferred until 1932 |
| VI | 1935 | Amsterdam | Netherlands | |
| VII | 1950 | Stockholm | Sweden | Adoption of the first International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants; arbitrary dates defined for some foundational works; decision to hold future congresses every five years (except four years for the next one) |
| VIII | 1954 | Paris | France | |
| IX | 1959 | Montreal | Canada | |
| X | 1964 | Edinburgh | United Kingdom | |
| XI | 1969 | Seattle | United States | Established the International Association of Bryologists. |
| XII | 1975 | Leningrad | Soviet Union | Official versions of the code in English, French, and German (the English version to take precedence in case of discrepancy); rejection of species names allowed in a few special cases |
| XIII | 1981 | Sydney | Australia | Official versions of the code in English, French, and German (the English version to take precedence in case of discrepancy); conservation procedure (and rejection) extended to species names "of major economic importance"; fungi starting date restored to 1753 with sanctioned name status established; the types of genera and higher categories become the types of species (i.e., the taxon themselves are no longer types, only specimens or illustrations) |
| XIV | 1987 | Berlin | Germany | Official version of the code only in (British) English; later translations in French, German, and Japanese. |
| XV | 1993 | Tokyo | Japan | Moves towards registration of plant names; extensive re-arrangement of the nomenclature code; official version of the code only in (British) English; later translations in Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and Slovak |
| XVI | 1999 | St. Louis | United States | Refinement of type requirements; illustrations as types mostly forbidden from 1958; morphotaxa for fossils. Proposals defeated included the BioCode and registration of plant names |
| XVII | 2005 | Vienna | Austria | Morphotaxa and regular taxa for fossils; illustrations as types mostly forbidden from 2007; glossary added to the code of nomenclature |
| XVIII | 2011 | Melbourne | Australia | Electronic publication permitted; registration of fungal names; English or Latin descriptions from 2012; the concepts of anamorph and teleomorph (for fungi) and morphotaxa (for fossils) eliminated |
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