Broome. C.R.. E.E. Terrell and J.L Reveal                        

   Lycopersicon esculentum P. Miller is rejected in favor of L. lycopersicum (L) Karsten as the scientific name of the tomato.                 

In the May 1983 TGC Report, we reported on the fact that the correct scientific name for the tomato was being disputed by botanical nomenclaturists. The controversy centered around the use of the familiar Lycopersicon esculentum P. Miller, rather than Lycopersicon lycopersicum (L) Karsten. The latter name, it was argued by some (mostly European) authorities, is more technically correct because the original Linnaean species epithet “lycopersicum” should have been used by Miller when he split the tomatoes out of the genus Solanum and established Lycopersicon in 1768. Instead Miller chose not to create the “near-tautonym” Lycopersicon lycopersicum. A tautonym is a binomial in which the name of the genus and the name of the species are identical. Tautonyms are forbidden by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN) as acceptable botanical names. Since Lycopersicon lycopersicum is not a letter-for-letter tautonym, the generic name having been derived from Greek (hence the terminal “-con”) and the species name from Latin (“-icum”), one side in the controversy maintains that it is the correct name under the ICBN. The opposing side, which we summarized in our “Proposal to conserve the name of the tomato as Lycopersicon esculentum P. Miller and reject the combination Lycopersicon lycopersicum (L) Karsten (Solanaceae)” (Taxon 32:310-314. 1983), maintains that Karsten’s combination is an effective tautonym since the two words are merely orthographic variants of each other. Furthermore we argued that a change from the longstanding L. esculentum was not in the best interests of stability in botanical nomenclature, especially in the case of so important an economic species. This past June, in response to our 1983 proposal, the General Committee on Botanical Nomenclature voted 7 to 5 in favor of retaining the scientific name Lycopersicon esculentum P. Miller for the tomato. This committee, sanctioned by the United Nations as well as all botanical organizations, is virtually the final authority on nomenclatural decisions such as this one. Their favorable vote was nonetheless one short of the necessary two-thirds majority in matters of conservation of a species name. As a result, the name the international scientific community will almost certainly be obliged to use for the tomato is Lycopersicon lycopersicum (L) Karsten. As of this writing, the committees ruling has been announced but not as yet published. Once it is published, the Committee report must be ratified at the Fourteenth International Botanical Congress, to be held in the summer of 1987 in Berlin. To our knowledge, the full Congress has never failed to adopt a decision rendered by the nomenclatural committee. With the decision not to conserve Lycopersicon esculentum seeming imminent, it now becomes necessary to consider what changes will need to be made to numerous federal and state laws to conform with this ruling. Most important are the import-export laws, the various plant protection and seed acts and the laws dealing with plant diseases and quarantine. Although we do not agree with the reasoning of the Committee, we will have no choice but to adopt, in our publications and in commerce, whatever name is mandated by next summer’s Botanical Congress.