# International Botanical Congress

**Section:** History

| - | Year | City | Country | Code | Major actions concerning nomenclature |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | 1900 | Paris | France | - | Decisions on nomenclature deferred. |
| II | 1905 | Vienna | Austria | Yes | First binding Rules of Nomenclature; French became the official language of the meeting; requirement for Latin plant descriptions from 1908 onwards (not enforced); end of the Kew Rule. |
| III | 1910 | Brussels | Belgium | Yes | Separate starting dates for nomenclature of fungi established. |
| IV | 1926 | Ithaca | United States | - | Decisions on nomenclature deferred. |
| V | 1930 | Cambridge | United Kingdom | Yes | The type method incorporated; Latin requirement deferred until 1932; "absolute homonym rule" accepted, or "once a later homonym always illegitimate (unless conserved)", which altered the status of many names, including many that had previously been conserved. |
| VI | 1935 | Amsterdam | Netherlands | - | English became the official language of the Congress, replacing French. No formal Code was published. |
| VII | 1950 | Stockholm | Sweden | Yes | Adoption of the first International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants; arbitrary dates defined for some foundational works; decision to hold future congresses every five years (except four years for the next one). |
| VIII | 1954 | Paris | France | Yes | Two additional principles added, II and III, dealing with types and with priority. Proposals to conserve or reject specific names were rejected, but a committee was established to find ways to improve the stability of names. |
| IX | 1959 | Montreal | Canada | Yes | Presentation of a completely reworked list of conserved and rejected names necessitated by changes made at the 1930 congress, but the list for species was not accepted. |
| X | 1964 | Edinburgh | United Kingdom | Yes | No major changes to the code. |
| XI | 1969 | Seattle | United States | Yes | Established the International Association of Bryologists. |
| XII | 1975 | Leningrad | Soviet Union | Yes | Official versions of the code in English, French, and German (the English version to take precedence in case of discrepancy); rejection of species names allowed in a few special cases; organ-genera for fossil plants are eliminated, replaced by form-genera. |
| XIII | 1981 | Sydney | Australia | Yes | Official versions of the code in English, French, and German (the English version to take precedence in case of discrepancy); conservation procedure (and rejection) extended to species names "of major economic importance"; fungi starting date restored to 1753 with sanctioned name status established; the types of genera and higher categories become the types of species (i.e., the taxa themselves are no longer types, only specimens or illustrations). |
| XIV | 1987 | Berlin | Germany | Yes | Official version of the code only in (British) English; later translations in French, German, and Japanese; conservation extended to species names that represent the type of a conserved generic name. |
| XV | 1993 | Tokyo | Japan | Yes | Moves towards registration of plant names; extensive re-arrangement of the nomenclature code; official version of the code only in (British) English; later translations in Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and Slovak; conservation extended to all species names; rejection permitted for any name that would cause a disadvantageous nomenclatural change; epitype concept introduced. |
| XVI | 1999 | St. Louis | United States | Yes | Refinement of type requirements; illustrations as types mostly forbidden from 1958; morphotaxa for fossils. Proposals defeated included the BioCode and registration of plant names. |
| XVII | 2005 | Vienna | Austria | Yes | Morphotaxa and regular taxa for fossils; illustrations as types mostly forbidden from 2007; glossary added to the code of nomenclature. |
| XVIII | 2011 | Melbourne | Australia | Yes | Electronic publication permitted; registration of fungal names; English or Latin descriptions (or diagnoses) from 2012; the concepts of anamorph and teleomorph (for fungi) and morphotaxa (for fossils) eliminated. |
| XIX | 2017 | Shenzhen | China | - | - |