OK, let my try to make the problem markianum/tigrinum clear, so that each and everyone can me up his/her opinion for him/herself.
Please note that this information is first hand. Nothing hear say.
1. Act: The plant was described as Paph. markianum by Fowlie and to be published in OD. In fact OD was ready and PRINTED but not delivered when all of the sudden Jack got the information that Koopowitz & Cribb also had a MS in the tube.
2. Act: Jack tore the pertinant pages out of a copy of the OD and sent them by FAX to Harvard and to at least one institute in Europe. There is a confirmation from Harvard (Gustavo Romero), and as I was the adressee at the European institute (The Schlechter Institute), I confirmed reception as well.
3. Act: Two weeks LATER (if I remember right), the article of Cribb and Koopowitz was published with the name P. tigrinum. The date is also established and there is no argument about this.
Now to the controvery: Cribb & Koopowitz claim that P. markianum was not effectively published, because the material was sent by FAX. Fowlie called me, and asked me to make a independent ruling on this. So I took the CODE and read the pertinent article. And there it was, written in plain English: "... publication ... is done by DISTRIBUTION OF PRINTED MATERIALS." Now is sending pages of printing materials through a fax machine publication inaccordance with the CODE ... and my answer had to be YES. Jack took a printed paper, and put it into a FAX machine, on the othere side, the fax machines at Harvard in Europe put out a printed copy.
There was no other controversy. And in those days, there was no mention of any other requirements. The article you quote is typically biased. The Schlechter Institute was partly run out of my home (there also was an office in Siegen, and one in Wissmar) ... so what ... If I build cars in my garage it is a production site ... even if it is in my own house. The Schlechter Institute (now directed by Hartmut Mohr) was NOT my brainchild. It was the brainchild of eight botanist that were not at that time employed in an academic position (Hartmut Mohr owns a pharmacy, two othere were medial doctors etc.). It was also argued that The Schechter Institute (by the way, a recognized Institue by the German Government) was privately funded (which ist was, and is). Bo so is Kew, Selby, and many others ... And even is they discreted the Schlechter Insitute (I never understood why?), what do they do with Harvard? When Koopowitz says that the claim Jack sent a fax with the article to Harvard is "rubbish", I don't quite know how he argues Gustavo's confirmation away.
The claim Jack accepted Harold to have published first, simply is NOT true. If it were true, why would he have asked me to look into the matter etc.
Fact is that Koopowitz in those days changed his method of argument ... first the argument was "sending a fax" does not constitute "distribution of printed matter". And as soon as he realized that such argement is nonsense (the thing about "electronic transmission" was not in the Code valid at that time), he changed to "The Schlechter Institute is not an academic institution".
The joke is, that even if Koopowitz's arguments about the Schlechter Institute" would have been true, it didn't matter ... because the CODE did not stipulate that as a requirement. It just required that the material must be made "available to the public". And it was available through Harvard and it was available through the Schlechter Institute.
Now do I care? ... not really ... It is not my publication, and I don't give a cold ... whether anyone uses "markianum" or "tigrinum" ... all what I do is look at the rules. And according to the rules P. markianum was published validly before the publication of P. tigrinum.
Furthermore, the statement that I am the only one who considers "markianum" the correct name is also untrue ... And I never made any fuss about this. The fuss was (and still is) on Koopowitz's side ... because everytime I gave a lecture, I was challanged, and I had no choice as to explain the situation.
As I said ... what the hell ... I think P. tigrinum is an appropriate name for the species, but I maintain (and I always will) that P. markianum has priority. I only wish Harold would stick to the truth, but then, I guess he would get in trouble with Cribb. .....
(just an attempt at some very light humor and poking fun at the craziness present in the world right now, no personal offense intended!)
