Eventually , all gardeners , as they work up into the horticultural world , realize that the plebeian names of plant have some limitation . Local plebeian names can make disarray . Two nurseryman using a common name could be blab about two different plants and never realize it . A great deterrent example is Eustoma grandiflorum . Do you think the bulb or the native herbaceous plant ? A place like this yell for a more precise nomenclature , right ? And fortunately gardeners the world over have one — botanic Latin .
If you travel anywhere in the world visiting garden — whether you speak the native clapper or not — if the plants are mark in botanical Latin , you ’ll know precisely what plant it is you ’re viewing . This common terminology among gardeners and scientists come to us thanks to Carl Von Linné , who later adopted his own Romance name — Linnaeus .
Linnaeus was a Swedish botanist , Dr. and animal scientist during the 18th century . He is know as the Father of Taxonomy , a branch of scientific discipline that group and classifies plants as well as insects , animate being , snort , etc . Linnaeus designed the binomial ( that is , two - public figure ) categorisation system for flora specie in his 1753 book Species Plantarum . The language of choice was and is Latin , though the dreaded Latin of in high spirits school students is a second dissimilar from botanic Latin . Botanical Latin has been anglicise ; plus , other languages besides Latin are used in plant taxonomy .
The scientific system of classification divide all hold up things into group called taxa . plant are in the land ofPlantae . The six essential terms of flora taxonomy are probably somewhat intimate from high school biota . These groups always follow this special edict :
Family
Genus
Species
Variety
Cultivar
Hybrid
You might be wondering why you should bother to memorize the taxonomy of plants . Well , for one thing , the names indicate relationship and law of similarity in the plant humans . A nurseryman who make love something about the plant fellowship will have a better understanding of the basis for many cultural practices as well as plague and disease common to member of that plant life family . . For example , fire blight is a disease of the rose kinsfolk . If you fuck which genera fall within the rose family , you ’ll be better equipped to name fire blight . Did you know that the rose family include such apparently different plants as apple , cotoneaster , potentillas , yellowish pink , plum , mass ash and loads of other landscape plants ?
The two divisions we will come in to understand this month aregenusandspecies . Within a family of plant there are MANY genera ( which is the plural form of genus . ) Within a genus , there could be trillions of mintage or just one . When you look at a plant recording label at the greenhouse , the Latin name — which is the flora ’s scientific name — consists of the genus and species .
Because taxonomy is a exact system , a scientific plant life name follows sure rule . Genus always comes firstand is ALWAYS capitalized . Species always comes secondand is ALWAYS crushed causa . SO : my name is Frances Boninti , but in the scientific system of plant taxonomy , I would beBoninti frances . And that ’s because there could be billions of Bonintis but only a single frances . Since there are more coinage of Boninti , we could abbreviate the genus , like so : B. andrew , B. kendall and B. caitlin . Now for a industrial plant example : the genus for oak tree is quercus . There areQuercus alba , Q. nigra , Q. rubraand many , many more species of quercus .
But where did these figure total from ? The genus and coinage name could have been chosen in laurels of the flora ’s inventor , or the old Romance name of the plant ( back before Linnaeus come in along ) or the locating of the plant , or a verbal description of the plant — among other thing .
Next month , a few more convention and we are on our way …… ..
resource : International Plant Name Index , www.ipni.orghttp://plants.usda.gov / http://www.ext.colostate.edu / mg / Gardennotes/122.html
