TAXON 68 (6) • December 2019: 1363–1371 Barkworth & Rabei • (2728) Conserve Datura innoxia stage of plant taxonomy in China. Most unfortunately, the type of H. hui, deposited at the herbarium of the Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem (B), was destroyed in 1943. However, an image of the type specimen taken by Mr. Qin Renchang in the 1930s is fortunately available now (Institute of Botany Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1959!). Since H. caudatifolia is currently used in much literature, and H. hui has not appeared in any other literature since its publication, I here propose to conserve, under Art. 14 of the ICN, the later heterotypic name H. caudatifolia against H. hui. This is the best choice to avoid eventual disadvantageous nomenclatural change for a well-established name, and thus to preserve nomenclatural stability. Author Information RJW, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4985-8281 Acknowledgements The work was financially supported by National Science Foundation of China (31770217). I am also grateful to Professor ZHU Xiangyun (Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences) for valuable comments. (2728) Proposal to conserve the name Datura innoxia (Solanaceae) with that spelling Mary E. Barkworth1 & Sami H. Rabei2 1 Intermountain Herbarium (UTC), Utah State University Department of Biology 5305 Old Main Hill, Utah 84322-5305, U.S.A. 2 Botany and Microbiology Department, Faculty of Science, Damietta University, New Damietta, Damietta, Egypt Address for correspondence: Mary E. Barkworth, mary.barkworth@usu.edu DOI https://doi.org/10.1002/tax.12172 First published as part of this issue. See online for details. (2728) Datura innoxia Mill., Gard. Dict., ed. 8: Datura No. 5. 16 Apr 1768 (‘inoxia’) [Angiosp.: Solan. / Solan.], orth. cons. prop. Typus: “Stramonium Americanum maximum, flore albo, fructu rotundo spinoso, Tourn. 1758”, ex Chelsea Physic Garden No. 1843. (BM barcode BM000645432). Datura innoxia is a widely established species native to the New World. Miller (Gard. Dict., ed. 8: Datura No. 5. 1768) published the name as D. inoxia, with that spelling. In the protologue, he stated “Datura (Inoxia) pericarpiis spinosis inoxiis ovatis propendentibus, foliis cordatis pubescentibus”. He followed this with the following statement, in English: “Datura with an oval hanging fruit, whose cover is beset with harmless spines, and heart-shaped hairy leaves.” This leaves no doubt that the epithet refers to the spines not being harmful, noxi/us/a/um being a Latin adjective meaning harmful and “in” a Latin prefix that effectively translates to “not”. In other words, the Latin diagnosis, like the English version, established that one of the features of the species is its harmless spines. Presumably, Miller was referring to the fact that, although the spines on the fruits of his new species are finely pointed, they are not rigid, in contrast to those of the previously treated species, D. ferox. The type of D. innoxia is a neotype designated by A.S. Barclay (in Bot. Mus. Leafl. 18: 255. 1959) who selected a specimen from the Chelsea Physic Garden sent to the Royal Society [of London] as part of the Garden’s 1757 consignment that was received by the Society in 1758 (see Wilmer in Philos. Trans. 51: 96–100. 1760; Barclay, l.c.: t. 52). It is now in the Sloane Herbarium at BM. Although the Tournefort phrase-name by which the specimen (Wilmer, l.c.: 99. no. 1843) is identified (see above) is not mentioned by Miller (l.c.), the specimen was collected during the period that Miller was 1370 superintendent of the Chelsea Garden, and is clearly of the species to which the name is applied, showing the distinctive pubescent, heart-shaped, entire-margined leaves and large flowers of that species. According to Fosberg (in Taxon 8: 52–57. 1959), the spelling of the epithet was first changed to “innoxia” by de Chazelles and Holandre, translators of the Gardeners dictionary into French (Bruxelles edition) (Miller, Dict. Jard., nouv. éd., 3: Datura No. 5. 1787). McNeill (pers. comm.) suggested that this might have been no more than a routine correction of what was assumed to be an error on Miller’s part. There were, of course, no rules concerning the making of such corrections in 1787. Despite this, Fosberg argued that the correction was inappropriate because Miller had deliberately used “inoxia” twice in the paragraph describing the species rather than the more correct form “innoxia”. In addition, he altered, accidentally or deliberately, the “innoxiis” used by Boerhaave (Ind. Alter. Hort. Lugd.-Bat. 1: 262. 1720) to “inoxiis” in the synonym he cited. In support of his view, Fosberg cited Art. 73 of the then current Code (Lanjouw & al. in Regnum Veg. 8. 1956), which stated, “The original spelling of a name or epithet is to be retained”, but omitted to mention that the sentence went on: “except that typographic or orthographic errors should be corrected”. Fosberg also cited two examples that he had listed earlier, Mesembryanthemum L. and Amaranthus L., as supporting his opinion. The same edition of the Code also stated (Art. 73, Note 4) that “The liberty of correcting a name must be used with reserve, especially if the change affects the first syllable, and above all the first letter of the name.” Both statements are also in the current Code (Turland & al. in Regnum Veg. 153. 2018: Art. 60.1, 60.3), the former still with the qualification “except for the correction of typographical or orthographical errors”. Version of Record TAXON 68 (6) • December 2019: 1363–1371 Barkworth & Rabei • (2728) Conserve Datura innoxia Fosberg’s argument appears to have been accepted by many, but not all, taxonomists with the result that both spellings are currently in use. Even the global databases, which many consult for reliable information on botanical names, disagree. For example, the International Plant Names Index (https://ipni.org, accessed 3 Aug 2019) has entries for both Datura innoxia and Datura inoxia with no indication as to which is correct; the World Flora Online (http://www. worldfloraonline.org, accessed 3 Aug 2019), successor to The Plant List (http://www.theplantlist.org/; accessed 4 Aug 2019), lists Datura inoxia as accepted and has no entry for Datura innoxia. The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (https://www.gbif.org/, accessed 3 Aug 2019), on the other hand, accepts Datura innoxia, treating Datura inoxia as a synonym. Tropicos (http://www. tropicos.org/, accessed 3 Aug 2019) goes one step further, showing Datura innoxia as the accepted name and Datura inoxia as invalid with the annotation that “‘in-’ is an inseparable particle prefixed to an adjective to reverse the meaning. The adjective here is noxius/a/ um so the correct form of the compound is innoxius/a/um”. Wikipedia, a frequently consulted non-specialist resource, transfers a search for Datura inoxia to its Datura innoxia page, where the entry begins “Datura innoxia, often spelled inoxia, …” To determine whether both forms of the name are still in use and, if so, which is preferred, we conducted two pairs of searches on 28 August 2019, one using a general Google search, the other using Harzing’s Publish or Perish (https://harzing.com/resources/publishor-perish, accessed 28 Aug 2019) to search Google Scholar for articles using one of the two forms in their title. The general search retrieved 102,000 hits for “Datura innoxia” and only 86,500 for “Datura inoxia”. Some of the articles found, however, reflected names used in the references cited in the paper. Searching Publish or Perish for use of the two forms in article titles revealed 183 articles with “Datura innoxia” in the title, 16 of which were identified as highly ranked, whereas the search for “Datura inoxia” revealed only 52 articles, of which 9 were highly ranked. These results indicate that, although more articles, including more highly ranked articles, are using D. innoxia, D. inoxia is still being used, including in some highly ranked articles. Because both spellings are in use, we propose that Datura innoxia be conserved using the etymologically correct and more widespread form of the epithet to maintain stability and reduce confusion. Rejection of this proposal would be seen to imply that the name should be spelled Datura inoxia, a decision that disagrees with prevailing practice among taxonomists as well as being etymologically incorrect. Author Information MEB, https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9785-1538 SHR, https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6042-5877 Acknowledgements We thank Dr. John McNeill for his advice, assistance, and careful editing of this proposal, and Robert Bye, Mark Damen, Kanchi Gandhi, Sandy Knapp, and Pierre Morisset for responding to requests we made concerning it. Version of Record 1371