Reviewing Forgotten 'Pre-Linnean' Generic Names Validly Published in the Third Volume of Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopédie in 1753

PASTORE, JOSÉ FLORIANO BARÊA; MARTINEZ, AGUSTINA

Belém, Pará, Amazonas

Congreso; 73º Congresso Nacional de Botânica; 2023

Sociedade Botânica do Brasil

The Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, par une Société de Gens de lettres better known as the Encyclopédie of Diderot and d'Alembert, published in 18th century Paris, was a groundbreaking work consisting of 28 volumes and over 72,000 articles. It covered various subjects and involved numerous authors. The publication was presented in French and spanned from 1751 to 1772, leaving an enduring legacy in the intellectual and cultural history of the time. The responsibility early botanical and zoological articles in the Encyclopédie fell upon the naturalist Louis Jean-Marie Daubenton (1716 – 1800), a close collaborator of Buffon. A significant number of names published by Daubenton in the third volume (1753) onward, have nomenclatural relevance being considered validly published according to the requirements of the ICN (Turland et al., 2018), as they were published, after the Linnaeus’ Species plantarum, 1 May 1753. The generic names found in the third volume of the Encyclopédie were based primarily on the pre-Linnean work of Tournefort, as well as on works of P.Micheli, and Plumier. These names often included textual copies of the original descriptions of these later authors. Despite their significance, plant names in the Encyclopédie remained largely overlooked for over two hundred years. In our analysis of Encyclopédie, we have identified 21 names as being validly published. Notably, among these names, we recognized five generic names (Castanea, Chamaemelum, Chrysanthemoides, Citreum, and Cydonia) with Daubenton as the authority according to priority. Consequently, the Miller's names from 1754 are considered later homonym of them. Upon examining Tournefort’s article (1705: 238), it becomes evident that the description of Chamaebuxus in the Encyclopédie is identical to that of Tournefort (1705), and the entire entry, including the name Chamaebuxus, should be attributed to “Tournefort, Mém. de l’Acad. royale des Scienc. ann. 1725”, indicating that the generic name should be credited to Tournefort (Art. 46.2, Ex. 11 & 15). Additionally, our study reveals that the generic name Chamaebuxus takes priority over Polygaloides Haller. As result, we propose a new combination, Chamaebuxus paucifolia (Willd.) J.F.B.Pastore & Agus.Martinez.