The game of the name: nomenclatural instability in the history of botanical informatics

Botanical nomenclature of vascular plants dates back to the first edition of Linnaeus in 1753. Since then a series of attempts have been made to deal with the problem of name stabilityâhow to ensure that a given species will have the same name all over the world and over time. In the 1820s the Kew rule was developed out of Kew Gardens to deal with priority in generic names; in the 1860s George Bentham worked on two large projects to stabilize systematics. In the 1890s the Berlin rule (limited priority for names that had either fallen into disuse or never been accepted) came into conflict with the Philadelphia rule (according to which priority was absolute). Throughout the past century a series of international conferences have dealt with issues arising from these controversies. The principal issues are twofold. On the one hand, it is highly desirable to be able to change the names of plants when new scientific insights come into place. On the other hand, it is extremely difficult and costly to change