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The purpose of this second edition of The Code Decoded is to serve as a user's guide to the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (“Code”), specifically the Shenzhen Code (Turland & al., 2018). My objective, as for the first edition (Turland, 2013), has been to create a text that is reasonably clear and simple, which inviriably means it will fail to cover every rule and explain every circumstance that you, the user, will encounter. A very simple guide would be forced to gloss over so many important derails that I fear it would be of limited use, whereas a truly comprehensive guide would be even more complex and intimidating than the Code itself. These two hypothetical guides would seem to defeat the objective, so instead I offer what I hope is a middle path, neither oversimplified nor unnecessarily complicated. While I realize the futility of trying to satisfy all potential users, I hope that this guide will be useful to those who are new to the Code as well as to veterans who nevertheless are not familiar with every arcane derail. The chapters are arranged so that the guide may be used for quick reference, e.g. important dates for certain rules, how to publish a new name, how to find the correct name for a taxon, how to designate a type, or even how to try to change the Code itself. Again with quick reference in mind I have employed subheadings, boxes, bulleted lists, tables, and key words in boldface. I have tried to explain the text of the Code in plain language, although it is necessary to know some technical terms in order to follow this guide (and for those, see Chapter 2).

In preparing this second edition, my aims were as follows: (1) update the guide according to the Shenzhen Code; (2) correct any errors discovered in the first edition; (3) delete any obsolete content in the first edition; (4) add new content that would improve the guide; and (5) try to improve clarity and precision without adding too much complexity.

Some readers will be aware of other guides to biological nomenclature, in various languages. I do not attempt to list them all here, bur will mention three English-language examples. Biological nomenclature (Jeffrey, 1989), in its third edition, is quite broad in its scope, dealing with issues of biological nomenclature in general and discussing the contemporary botanical, zoological, and bacteriological codes. Plant names: A guide to botanical nomenclature (Spencer & al., 2007), in its third edition, deals with botanical nomenclature (i.e. plants, not algae or fungi) and cultivated plant nomenclature. The names of plants (Gledhill, 2008), in its fourth edition, deals with the nomenclature of algae, fungi, and plants and includes an extensive (381-page) glossary of generic names, epithets, and word particles together with their meanings.

You may be curious as to how I became involved with biological nomenclature, in which case the short autobiographical sketch that follows may be of interest. In 1993 I was working on floristic projects in the Department of Botany at the Natural History Museum, London, mostly as a volunteer. Then a position became available working on the 7