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Two Finnish botanists try to set the record straight on the names Musa balbisiana and Musa velutina.
January 2010
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M. Hakkinen
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Musa velutina (left) should get its name confirmed, whereas Musa rosacea, whose name became used to denote Musa ornata (right), is facing rejection.
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The rules of botanical nomenclature dictate that the first name used to describe a plant has priority over all later names. In two instances, however, Henry Väre and Markku Häkkinen from the Finnish Museum of Natural History propose deferring to usage.
In the first of two notes published in Taxon, the journal of the International Association for Plant Taxonomy, the authors note that even though Musa dasycarpa was described before M. velutina, the name dropped out of favour after the Kew botanist John Gilbert Baker treated it as a synonym in an 1893 paper, rather than as the legitimate name. To support their case for conserving the name M. velutina, the authors performed a Google search in which M. velutina racked up 16,500 hits, compared to 143 for M. dasycarpa.
In the second note, the authors propose conserving the name M. balbisiana after establishing that it is the same species as the previously described Musa rosacea. They argue that changing the name of this well-known species to M. rosacea would only create confusion given the checkered history of that name. They point out that the name M. rosacea has often been erroneously given to plants that belong to a different species, Musa ornata.
At its next meeting, the taxonomic committee will vote on all the proposals published in Taxon over the preceding year. If the committee accepts these proposal, M. velutina and M. balbisiana will become valid names and the older ones will automatically be rejected.
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