Festuca polovina (Bednarska, 2009)

Mosyakin, Sergei L., Sokolova, Irina V. & Fedoronchuk, Mykola M., 2018, On validation and typification of the name Festuca × polovina (Poaceae): a correction and comments on indication of types of names of new taxa, Phytotaxa 371 (2), pp. 127-132 : 128-129

The epithet polovina : a true epithet or hybrid formula?

Another point regarding the name F. × polovina should be addressed here because it has been mentioned (and initially questioned) by one of reviewers of an earlier version of our manuscript. When proposing the name for the hybrid (or nothospecies, as it was originally called by the author), Bednarska (2009) disregarded Recommendation H.10A.1 of the ICBN (Vienna Code that was actual in 2009: McNeill et al. 2006): “In forming epithets for names of nothotaxa at the rank of species and below, authors should avoid combining parts of the epithets of the names of the parents”. The same Recommendation is also present in the Melbourne Code ( McNeill et al. 2012) and the current Shenzhen Code ( Turland et al. 2018). The example of Bednarska in her naming of that hybrid (or nothospecies?) contrary to Recommendation H.10A.1 should not be followed, but that does not make the name invalid (see Preamble, 6, of the ICN: “names contrary to a Recommendation cannot, on that account, be rejected, but they are not examples to be followed”; Turland et al. 2018).

The epithet in the name Festuca × polovina does not meet the criteria for a hybrid formula as defined in Art. H.10.2 of the ICN because, whereas its epithet combines the first part of the first epithet and the whole of the second epithet in the names of the parental species, more than the termination of the first epithet is omitted (Art. H.10 of the ICN; Turland et al. 2018). The epithet “ polesica ” coined by Zapałowicz (1904) refers to the toponym Polesie in Polish spelling (ПОЛіссЯ in Ukrainian, ПаЛессе or ПаЛесьсе in Belarusian, and ПОЛесье in Russian), a natural physiographic and geobotanical region located mainly in northern Ukraine and southern Belarus, with much smaller extensions in adjacent areas of southeastern Poland (Lublin Province, Województwo Lubelskie) and westernmost Russia (Bryansk Region, БРЯнсКаЯ ОБЛасть). Consequently, the stem of this epithet is “ poles -”, and that stem was altered in the epithet “ polovina ”. Besides, the epithet “ polovina ” is not only a combination of parts of the epithets of parent taxa, Festuca polesica and F. ovina , but also the Latin transliteration of the Ukrainian word (and the almost identical Russian word) пОЛОвина, meaning half [of], and that wordplay was in fact intended by Bednarska (2009).

Thus, polovina is a true epithet (see Art. H.10 Example 4 of the ICN, which is directly applicable to our case), and the name Festuca × polovina is not to be considered under Art. 23.6(d) of the ICN ( Turland et al. 2018) as a formula designating a hybrid.

However, in view of the current wording of the Shenzhen Code ( Turland et al. 2018) we should critically reconsider the issue of valid versus invalid publication of the name F. × polovina by Bednarska in 2009.