International Botanical Congress - History

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

Read more about this topic:  International Botanical Congress

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    The history of our era is the nauseating and repulsive history of the crucifixion of the procreative body for the glorification of the spirit.
    —D.H. (David Herbert)

    The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.
    Willa Cather (1876–1947)

    The only thing worse than a liar is a liar that’s also a hypocrite!
    There are only two great currents in the history of mankind: the baseness which makes conservatives and the envy which makes revolutionaries.
    Edmond De Goncourt (1822–1896)