Potentilla orientalis

Mosyakin, Sergei L. & Shiyan, Natalia M., 2017, The genus Sibbaldianthe (Rosaceae): a nomenclatural overview and new combinations, Phytotaxa 296 (2), pp. 101-117 : 102-103

Potentilla orientalis and P. semiglabra : valid (1934) or not (1935)?

The name Potentilla orientalis was introduced by Yuzepchuk in the third volume of the manual of weeds of the USSR (Juzepczuk 1934) in a note under P. bifurca . In this note he mentioned that P. bifurca is segregated into several “races” (“РаспадаетсЯ на несколько рас.”) and provided brief diagnoses of these taxa in Russian: “НастоЯщаЯ P. bifurca L. s. str. распространена главным обраЗом в Сибири и характериЗуетсЯ прЯмостоЯще- оттопыренным опушением стеблей; на КавкаЗе, в Средней АЗии и в Европейской части СССР она Замещена блиЗкой расой P. orientalis Juz. , с прижатым опушением наЗванных частей; на Дальнем Востоке распространена P. semiglabra Juz. , с голыми в нижней части стеблЯми.” (translation: “True P. bifurca L. s. str. is distributed mainly in Siberia and is characterized by erect-patent pubescence of stems; in the Caucasus, Central Asia and the European part of the USSR it is replaced by a closely related race P. orientalis Juz. , with appressed pubescence of the mentioned parts; in the Far East P. semiglabra Juz. occurs, with stems glabrous in their lower parts.”).

Despite the utmost brevity of the provided Russian-language diagnoses, they are acceptable and thus the names should be considered valid, but only if published before 1 January 1935 (Art. 39.1 of ICN: McNeill et al. 2012). However, there is a problem regarding the date of effective publication of the book in which these names and diagnoses appeared. According to Art. 29.1 of ICN, “[p]ublication is effected, under this Code, by distribution of printed matter (through sale, exchange, or gift) to the general public or at least to scientific institutions with generally accessible libraries.” Art. 31.1 further specifies that “[t]he date of effective publication is the date on which the printed matter or electronic material became available as defined in Art. 29 and 30.” Judging from the information provided on the last page of the book, the third volume of the Weeds of the USSR was “approved for printing” (verbatim translation: “signed for print”) on 19 December 1934 (“Подписано к печати 19 декабрЯ 1934 г.”), just 12 days before 1 January 1935. In the Soviet publishing practice, it meant that on that date the actual printing process was approved, or probably started. Lipschitz (1975) in his annotated bibliography of sources on the flora of the former USSR also provided for Vol. 3 of the Weeds of the USSR the date “ 19.XII.1934 ”, but he specially indicated in the Preface that his dates for Soviet-time publications are based on the “approved for publication” dates available directly from the cited sources.

The actual date when the book has become available “to the general public or at least to scientific institutions with generally accessible libraries” may differ from the approval date by some weeks to months, depending on the number of copies, the physical volume of the book, technical conditions at printing facilities, and some other factors. Considering that, Soják (2008) concluded that the book was in fact published in 1935 (“demum 19. Dec. 1934, imprimatur datum est”), and thus the two names introduced by Yuzepchuk are invalid. Soják provided the brief Latin diagnoses and new types to these taxa ( Soják 2008: 357), which he accepted in his article as two subspecies of Schistophyllidium bifurcum .

Is it possible that the books were already distributed in 1935? It is necessary to determine which date we should accept as the date of effective publication in this case: probably the first date when the books arrived to bookshops, or the date when the first “control copies” were delivered to the authors and botanical institutions involved in this publication (such copies, known as “сигнальные ЭкЗемплЯры”, according to the Soviet practice were sometimes available before the main bulk of printed copies), or some other date? Art. 31.1 of ICN ( McNeill & al 2012) also instructs that “[i]n the absence of proof establishing some other date, the one appearing in the printed matter or electronic material must be accepted as correct.” In our opinion, such proof “establishing some other date” is available. For comparison, even in times of modern publishing technologies the “approved for publication” and actual publication dates of recent separate volumes of the series Novitates systematicae plantarum vascularium (“ НОвОсти систематики высших растений ”) reported by Tatanov (“2011”, published 2012) differ by a lag period usually longer than one month. The shortest lag period reported (“approved” / “published”) was “ 12 III 2007 / 28 III 2007 ” (16 days) ; in contrast, for Vol. 40 (approved for publication just 15 days before the New Year) the lag period was more than three months (“ 15 XII 2008 / 30 III 2009 ”). It should be noted that these issues were published in much smaller numbers of copies (from 300 copies of Vol. 31 to 600 copies of Vol. 40) and are physically less voluminous (from 285 to 377 pages, and smaller in size) than Vol. 3 of the Weeds of the USSR (10 175 copies, 447 pages). Thus, effective publication (in the sense of Art. 29–31 of ICN) of this book (or even its “control copies”) before 1 January 1935 was physically impossible, and, consequently, this volume was effectively published in the beginning of 1935 .

Because of that, we support the opinion of Soják (2008) and accept the year 1935 as the year of effective publication of the names P. orientalis and P. semiglabra , which are thus invalid, as well as later nomenclatural combinations based on them.