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 Linnaean Plant Name Typification Project, headed by Charlie Jarvis. I applied for the job and was granted an interview, where I managed to convince the panel that I had grasped the rudiments of nomenclature and was familiar with databases, such that I was offered the job. I happily accepted and spent the next few days reading the Code, then the Berlin Code, from cover to cover (details of all editions of the Code, and of the International Botanical Congresses referred to in this guide, can be found in Chapter 14). This proved to be a good move, because the baptism of fire that followed immersed me in Linnaeus’s 18th-century world, or rather a late 20th-century interpretation of it. Original material, Linnaean annotation, lectotypes, neotypes, epitypes, current usage, effective typification, conservation, and rejection all became everyday words. But alas all good things must come to an end, and my fixed-term contract terminated in 1997, when I moved to a new position working on the Flora of China at the Missouri Botanical Garden, Saint Louis.

In 1999, Saint Louis was the venue for the XVI International Botanical Congress. I attended the Nomenclature Section there with keen interest, and was delighted to be invited by the then Rapporteur-général, Werner Greuter, to serve on the Editorial Committee for the Saint Louis Code. There followed much work verifying proposed corrections to Appendix IIB (of conserved family names) for the Saint Louis Code, and then further work on the Special Committee on Suprageneric Names, which reported to the Vienna Congress of 2005. In 2003, the Rapporteur-général for the Vienna Congress, John McNeill, proposed that I be Vice-rapporteur. This entailed my working closely with him to co-edit the Proposals to Amend the Code column in Taxon, prepare the synopsis of proposals prior to the Vienna Congress of 2005, assist at the Nomenclature Section in Vienna, and serve again on the Editorial Committee to produce the Vienna Code. In the years leading up to the Melbourne Congress, I participated in the Special Committee for Electronic Publication, which developed the rules that now permit electronic material to be effectively published, and was I served again as Vice-rapporteur at the Melbourne Congress of 2011 and on the Editorial Committee for the Melbourne Code. At the Melbourne Congress, John McNeill had decided not to seek re-election as Rapporteur-général for the Shenzhen Congress of 2017, and I was nominated, and elected, as his successor. While the Melbourne Code was in production, I worked on the user’s guide to the Code that was the first edition of The Code Decoded, published in 2013, when I also moved from Saint Louis to Berlin to start a new position as head of publishing at the Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Berlin. In the years leading up to the Shenzhen Congress, I worked with the new Vice-rapporteur, John Wiersema, to edit the 397 proposals to amend the Code and publish the synopsis of proposals. I also served on the Special Committee on By-laws for the Nomenclature Section and the Special Subcommittee on Governance of the Code with respect to Fungi. These committees wrote the rules that became Division III (Provisions for governance of the Code), and the latter committee was instrumental in establishing Chapter F (Names of organisms treated as fungi). At the Shenzhen Congress, I was re-elected as Rapporteur-général for the Rio de Janeiro Congress of 2023. The Shenzhen Code was published in June 2018 only 11 months after the Congress, thanks to the efficient work of an excellent Editorial Committee. Serving as Rapporteur has been immensely satisfying, and I look forward to continuing to serve during the coming years.