Smith & Figueiredo (2021: 1395-1396) published a proposal to amend the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (hereafter the [botanical] Code) to permanently and retroactively eliminate from the scientific nomenclature in use for algae, fungi, and plants a set of some epithets with the root “caf[e]r-”or “caff[e]r-” that are considered to be an offensive racial slur, by replacing them with epithets with the root ‘afr-’. To effect this amendment, it was essentially proposed that the ‘c’ should be dropped from such epithets. In practical terms, what Smith & Figueiredo (2021) proposed was the addition of an Article, Art. 61.6, to the Code’s Chapter VIII, Orthography and gender of names. For ease of reference, the proposal of Smith & Figueiredo (2021) was given the number “126” and was recorded as “Prop. G [Art. 61.6]” in Turland & Wiersema (2024: 391).

The Rapporteur-général and Vice-rapporteur commented on this proposal as part of their synoptic review of proposals on nomenclature submitted to the XX^th International Botanical Congress (hereafter IBC or XXth IBC, Madrid 2024) to amend the Code (Turland & Wiersema 2024). They, inter alia, stated on page 391: “Prop. G [Art. 61.6] seeks to eliminate the racial offence inherent in epithets such as cafra, caffra and cafrorum, which refer to a region of southern Africa and its inhabitants and derive from a noun that is a racial slur in languages such as Afrikaans, English, Portuguese and Spanish. The proposers [Smith & Figueiredo (2021)] have devised a way of neutralizing these epithets by retroactively treating, e.g., cafra as an orthographical variant of afra, among which only afra may be retained (which means African, or of or pertaining to Africa). [...] Alternatives to Prop. G seem less desirable: the epithets could remain in current use and continue to offend; […].”

The voting on the proposal of Smith & Figueiredo (2021) took place in two stages: (1) a preliminary guiding vote—the so-called “mail vote”—prior to the Nomenclature Section (hereafter NS) meeting; and (2) an in-person vote, including personal and institutional votes, at the NS of the XXth IBC in Madrid.

Simultaneously with publication of the synoptic review of Turland & Wiersema (2024) in February, a ballot sheet was distributed by the office of the International Association for Plant Taxonomy (IAPT) in Bratislava, Slovakia, to people eligible to participate in the preliminary guiding vote on proposals to amend the Code. These were: (1) individual members of the IAPT; (2) authors of any of the proposals; and (3) members of the nine Permanent Nomenclature Committees (see Turland & al. 2018: Div. III, Prov. 2.5 and 7.1). However, no institutional votes are allowed during the preliminary guiding vote (Turland & al. 2018: Div. III, Prov. 3).

The results of the preliminary guiding vote (the “mail vote”) record that the proposal of Smith & Figueiredo (2021) was voted on by 156 individuals. In the sequence tabulated by Turland & al. (2024), the proposal received 67 ‘yes’ votes (43%), 74 ‘no’ votes (47%), while eight votes (‘edc’) suggested that the proposal should be referred to the Editorial Committee for the Code, and seven votes suggested that a Special-purpose Committee should be set up to deal with the proposal. If referral of the proposal to the Editorial Committee is assumed to reflect an automatic acceptance for implementation, the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ votes were virtually the same.

Since the proposal received only 74 ‘no’ votes (47%), it was not automatically rejected—75% or more ‘no’ votes in the preliminary guiding vote are required for such an auto-rejection to be implemented (Turland & al. 2018: Div. III, Prov. 5.5)—and it thus became one of the proposals to amend the Code placed before the NS of the Madrid IBC. Incidentally, an automatically rejected proposal can be revived for discussion, amendment, and voting at the NS if a proposal to discuss it is moved by a member of the Section and supported, i.e., seconded, by five other members (Turland & al. 2018: Div. III, Prov. 5.5).

Against this background, the proposal to add Art. 61.6 to the Code, in order to eliminate this set of offensive epithets from botanical nomenclature, was discussed and voted on during the post-lunch, afternoon session on 18 July 2024. After discussion from the floor, the matter was brought to a vote at 15:19 h. A card vote (secret ballot) was requested, which allowed for institutional votes to also be cast by those delegates authorised to carry such votes. Although this is normally achieved using two boxes, one for ‘no’ votes and the other for ‘yes” votes, in this particular case voters had to write ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on the ballot card/s. This meant that voters could place their card/s in either the ‘Yes’ ballot box, or in the ‘No’ ballot box, to maintain the secrecy of the ballot and allow for a free vote without fear of discrimination against Section members based on the direction of their vote.

At 16:05 h, the result of the card vote was announced, as follows: ‘Yes’ [i.e., in favour of accepting the proposal]: 351 votes (63.13%); ‘No’ [i.e., in favour of rejecting the proposal]: 205 votes (36.87%); and spoiled votes [i.e., using the wrong card number and / or not clearly indicating ‘Yes’ or ‘No’]: 17. The number of spoiled votes did not affect the result of the voting.

For any proposal to amend the botanical Code to succeed, a supermajority, i.e., at least 60% of votes cast must be achieved (Turland & al. 2018: Div. III Prov. 5.1(a)). As this proposal received over 63% support, the outcome of the vote at the NS means a new Article, Art. 61.6, will be introduced into the Code that retroactively eradicates the designated set of epithets from botanical nomenclature. The mechanism through which this is done will form part of Art. 61 of the botanical Code (Turland & al., 2018), where orthographical variants are regulated.

Fifteen years after 18 July was instituted by the United Nations, in 2009, as International Nelson Mandela Day, to honour Mandela’s global contributions and legacy, a repulsive racial slur used across demographics was voted out of botanical nomenclature by the users of the botanical Code, as represented by the members of a NS (Turland & al. 2018: Div. III, Prov. 1.1). Under Div. III, Prov. 4.4, this decision became binding on Saturday, 27 July 2024, when a resolution moved by the NS was accepted by the plenary session of the XXth IBC, in Madrid.

Over the past three years, since the proposal was published and until the final voting took place, doomsday scenarios for the future of nomenclature were spread in the literature, in parallel to abhorrent messages of intimidation being placed on social media platforms. This hostile climate has resulted in many botanists refraining from getting involved in this issue. It is evident that removing offensive names from biological nomenclature can be undertaken within the framework of the codes of biological nomenclature, in a cordial way. The world is now aware of the way in which the discussions were conducted at the Madrid NS, and of the progressive decision taken by the botanical community. It is anticipated that what botany has achieved in this regard will be taken into account when those bodies that regulate the naming of other biological organisms deliberate on how to deal with racial slurs in use in their spheres of decision-making. Other similar names, such as the scientific name of the Cape buffalo, inevitably come to mind.