Pamphalea Lagasca (1811: 34)

Platt, Fernando Henrique, Bündchen, Márcia & Miotto, Silvia Teresinha Sfoggia, 2016, Nomenclatural notes on Pamphalea (Asteraceae: Nassauvieae), Phytotaxa 273 (2), pp. 139-140 : 139

Pamphalea Lagasca (1811: 34) , “ Panphalea ”

The genus was described under the name Panphalea by Lagasca (1811: 34) and its spelling was readily and deliberately changed to Pamphalea by Candolle (1812: 68). Candolle’s spelling has been largely followed by the academic community— with the exception of Cassini (1819). Lately it was Crisci (1974) to take the original spelling and promote its use in the recent literature (e.g. Katinas 1995, Pruski 2004, Katinas et al. 2008, Trujillo et al. 2014), but caused nomenclatural instability.

The name Pamphalea is a compound word formed by the agglutination of the Greek roots “ pan ” and “ phalos ” and, in this process, the consonant dental “ n ” in juxtaposition becomes the labial “ m ” ( Jacob 1841: 10, Greenough & Kittredge 1894: 3 & 7, Gildersleeve & Lodge 1903: 5). Therefore, Candolle (1812) effected an orthographic correction in accordance to the rules of the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi and plants—Melbourne Code ( McNeill et al. 2012, Art. 60.1), and the spelling Pamphalea must be maintained because this correction was widely accepted by the botanical community.