Latin Plant Names
| Plant names can be confusing to both new and old gardeners. A while back, a garden center customer kept referring to all of our hydrangeas as "macrophylla". Hydrangea macrophylla is the name for a particular species of Hydrangea commonly called "Big Leaf" hydrangea. And as you may have noticed when visiting your local garden center, there are many different species of Hydrangea. |  |
| Hydrangea macrophylla is an example of a binomial name, often called the Latin name because they are usually written in Latin and have two parts. The use of Latin, which only recently is being made optional, comes from Latin being the lingua vitae, the language of life. Latin was used in the scientific world because it was regarded as a universal language. Over the years, many non-Latin words have crept into the naming system, so most names today bear only a superficial resemblance to classical Latin. Our example of Hydrangea actually comes from a combination of Greek and Latin terms- the Greek hydr and Latin angea, itself being derived from the Greek. It refers to the cup-shaped seed vessel of the plant. The introduction of the binomial naming system is credited to Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish botanist. His work Species Plantarum in 1753 is universally accepted as the starting point of the modern plant identification system. The first part is always the Genus name and the second the species name, these two are the important ones. You will often find them followed by a cultivar or variety name also, but not necessarily. Where a lot of confusion comes in is that plant breeders and nurserymen like to give fancy names to their products. These names can often be a mish-mosh of genus, species, and cultivar names used interchangeably. For example, let's go back to the Hydrangea. Proven Winners has a beautiful Hydrangea called "Limelight", Hydrangea paniculata "Limelight." In this case, paniculata refers to the flowers which are considered panicles, which for our discussion, are more cone shaped than the regular Hydrangea flower. Here are a few variations that you will see this plant described as-
Other times you will see plants described using regional or common names, or even part of the Latin name that has been adopted through wide use as the common name, that are easier for consumers to remember. These will often include the name of the seed company, the name of the discoverer, or where it was discovered. australis- Southern echin- Spiny folium- Leaf hortensis- From the garden macro- Large macrophylla- Large leaved minor- Small occidentalis- Western officinalis- For medicine, medicinal paniculata- Having panicles petra- Stone phyllo- Leaf phyto- Plant pseudes- False repans or reptans- Crawling rhiza- Root sinensis- From China tetra- Four variegatus- Variegated vulgaris- Common zygos- Joined
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