Made with Xara
© Garden Cottage Nursery, 2011
People have tried to give names to living things as long as there have been people, the problem that there is an awful lot of different things
to name & people like to make up new names. Many plants & animals cover extensive natural ranges & as such over the centuries they
have acquired several common names, e.g. oak in English, is called darach in Gaelic, eiche in German, chêne in French & roble in
Spanish. In the 18th century the Lingua Franca of the Europe was Latin, so when botanists wanted to refer to a plant to someone not from
their country they would name it by giving it a great big long description in Latin. Of course this descriptive name could be a little bit
different every time it was used, it was not a good system. To make things simpler a single universally agreed system would be good & in
1753 a Swedish botanist called Carl Linnaeus published a new, simple & sensible system for naming plants & animals properly. He
suggested giving everything a name in two parts (a binomial), which together would be unique so avoiding duplication & confusion. The
idea was that the first name would be of the group to which the plant belonged; often this was the Roman common name, e.g. quercus for
oak became Quercus to refer to all oak trees wherever they come from & of whatever sort they are. This part is called the Genus. The
second part of the name, the species, tells you exactly what type of plant it is. Sometimes this name is descriptive, e.g. Quercus rubra, the
red oak, noted for its red autumn colour. Sometimes the species name commemorative of a person, e.g. Quercus douglasii, named for
Scottish plant hunter David Douglas. Other times the specific epithet may give a clue as to where the plant originates or the sort of place it
grows, e.g. Quercus mexicana from Mexico or Quercus palustris meaning ‘of the marsh’. What the species name is isn’t really important,
as long as there isn’t another species within that genus with the same name. Plant & animal names are not actually named in ‘Classical
Latin’ but rather a sort of mixture with Ancient Greek & Latin referred to as ‘Botanical Latin’.
Along with an accepted form of making a botanical name there is also an accepted way of writing them in print:
The whole should be in italics so you can see straight away that it is a botanical name & the first letter of the Generic name should be
capitalised & the specific name all lower case, even if it is derived from a proper noun.
Garden forms or ‘Cultivars’ should be named after the binomial, they should not be in italics, appear inside single quotes & be capitalised.
For the last 25 years or so all new cultivar names should also not be in Latin to avoid them being confused with species, e.g. if you found a
new oak tree with blue acorns you couldn’t name it Quercus robur ‘Glans Caerulea’ but you could call it Quercus robur ‘Blue Acorn’. Old
cultivar names haven’t been changed, so Quercus cerris ‘Argenteovariegata’ retains it’s name as it has been around for decades.
To help sort out the relationships between different organisms names are given to different ranks to flesh-out the branches of the family
tree so, for the sessile oak:
Kingdom: Plantae
- All plants
Phylum: Magnoliophyta
- Flowering plants (Angiosperms)
Clade: Eudicots
- ‘True’ dicotyledons
Clade: Rosids
- Large group containing over ¼ of angiosperms
Order: Fagales
- Contains 7 families of forest trees
Family: Fagaceae
- Mostly deciduous trees of temperate & sub-tropical forests including, oak, beech & sweet cheasnut
Genus: Quercus
- Oak trees of which there are around 600 species
Species: patraea
- the sessile or durmast oak native the forests of Scotland & Europe.
Gardeners don’t really need to know about these ranks above the genus names, but the family name can be quite useful to know as similar
characters are often shared across a family’s different genera, e.g. oaks, beeches & chestnuts are all in the Fagaceae & all plants with
daisy flowers are in the Asteraceae.
There are three more ranks below species level that gardeners will regularly encounter, these are always preceded by an abbreviation of
what rank is being referred to.
In descending order of rank they are:
The subspecies, which is written in lower case & not in italics as either “subsp.” or “ssp.” the second is the way we use, e.g. Geranium
sessiliflorum ssp. novae-zelandiae
The variatas, which is written in lower case & not in italics as “var.”, e.g. Geranium sanguineum var. striatum
The forma, which is written in lower case & not in italics as “f.”, e.g. Geranium maculatum f. albiflorum
Where a plant is a hybrid of two different know species it is sometimes given a new named with a lower case “x”, not italicised before the
italicised new name, e.g. Quercus x hispanica is Quercus cerris, the Turkey oak crossed with Quercus suber, the cork oak. The naming of
naturally occurring taxa is governed by International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants.
Cultivated plants often have certain seed strains & horticulturally related groups within a species or as a complex series of hybrids within a
single genus, for such aggregations the phrase “Group” is used, e.g. Phormium tenax Purpureum Group for purple leaved seed raised New
Zealand flax. Cultivars should be clones or show little perceptible variation & the vast cannot be raised from seed & remain true to type &
therefore have the right to that capitalised name enclosed in single quote marks. “Group” plants however cover a range or more aptly, a
theme, so can often have been seed raised, as long as the offspring still fit within the theme. The naming of taxa raised by man is
governed by International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants.
For some large genera (i.e. a genus with lots of different species) the relationships between the species within the genus is of use the
gardener as they can give an idea of likely characteristics & cultural requirements and for certain genera there are ranks here too. The
most commonly encountered are those for ‘species’ Rhododendrons. For Rhododendron there is a full range of sub-generic, supra-specific
ranks (after Chamberlain & Cullen system):
Genus:
Rhododendron
Subgenus:
Hymenanthes
- includes many of the most familiar larger leaved species, characterised by their lack of lepidote scales on
the back of their leaves
Section:
Pontica
- includes all species within the Subgenus
Subsection:
Arborea
- includes 3 different species from W China, Himalayas & Sri Lanka
Species:
niveum
- a tree sized purple flowered species found in E Himalayas
With Rhododendron the Subsection is the most often used by gardeners & nurserymen to give an indication of the sort of Rhodo that is
being discussed.
With Primula it is Section, e.g Prolifera for candelabra types, that is commonly used.
All living things are “Properly” named in the same way, e.g. we are Homo sapiens.
© Garden Cottage Nursery, 2011
People have tried to give names to living things as long as there have been people, the problem that there is an awful lot of different things
to name & people like to make up new names. Many plants & animals cover extensive natural ranges & as such over the centuries they
have acquired several common names, e.g. oak in English, is called darach in Gaelic, eiche in German, chêne in French & roble in
Spanish. In the 18th century the Lingua Franca of the Europe was Latin, so when botanists wanted to refer to a plant to someone not from
their country they would name it by giving it a great big long description in Latin. Of course this descriptive name could be a little bit
different every time it was used, it was not a good system. To make things simpler a single universally agreed system would be good & in
1753 a Swedish botanist called Carl Linnaeus published a new, simple & sensible system for naming plants & animals properly. He
suggested giving everything a name in two parts (a binomial), which together would be unique so avoiding duplication & confusion. The
idea was that the first name would be of the group to which the plant belonged; often this was the Roman common name, e.g. quercus for
oak became Quercus to refer to all oak trees wherever they come from & of whatever sort they are. This part is called the Genus. The
second part of the name, the species, tells you exactly what type of plant it is. Sometimes this name is descriptive, e.g. Quercus rubra, the
red oak, noted for its red autumn colour. Sometimes the species name commemorative of a person, e.g. Quercus douglasii, named for
Scottish plant hunter David Douglas. Other times the specific epithet may give a clue as to where the plant originates or the sort of place it
grows, e.g. Quercus mexicana from Mexico or Quercus palustris meaning ‘of the marsh’. What the species name is isn’t really important,
as long as there isn’t another species within that genus with the same name. Plant & animal names are not actually named in ‘Classical
Latin’ but rather a sort of mixture with Ancient Greek & Latin referred to as ‘Botanical Latin’.
Along with an accepted form of making a botanical name there is also an accepted way of writing them in print:
The whole should be in italics so you can see straight away that it is a botanical name & the first letter of the Generic name should be
capitalised & the specific name all lower case, even if it is derived from a proper noun.
Garden forms or ‘Cultivars’ should be named after the binomial, they should not be in italics, appear inside single quotes & be capitalised.
For the last 25 years or so all new cultivar names should also not be in Latin to avoid them being confused with species, e.g. if you found a
new oak tree with blue acorns you couldn’t name it Quercus robur ‘Glans Caerulea’ but you could call it Quercus robur ‘Blue Acorn’. Old
cultivar names haven’t been changed, so Quercus cerris ‘Argenteovariegata’ retains it’s name as it has been around for decades.
To help sort out the relationships between different organisms names are given to different ranks to flesh-out the branches of the family
tree so, for the sessile oak:
Kingdom: Plantae
- All plants
Phylum: Magnoliophyta
- Flowering plants (Angiosperms)
Clade: Eudicots
- ‘True’ dicotyledons
Clade: Rosids
- Large group containing over ¼ of angiosperms
Order: Fagales
- Contains 7 families of forest trees
Family: Fagaceae
- Mostly deciduous trees of temperate & sub-tropical forests including, oak, beech & sweet cheasnut
Genus: Quercus
- Oak trees of which there are around 600 species
Species: patraea
- the sessile or durmast oak native the forests of Scotland & Europe.
Gardeners don’t really need to know about these ranks above the genus names, but the family name can be quite useful to know as similar
characters are often shared across a family’s different genera, e.g. oaks, beeches & chestnuts are all in the Fagaceae & all plants with
daisy flowers are in the Asteraceae.
There are three more ranks below species level that gardeners will regularly encounter, these are always preceded by an abbreviation of
what rank is being referred to.
In descending order of rank they are:
The subspecies, which is written in lower case & not in italics as either “subsp.” or “ssp.” the second is the way we use, e.g. Geranium
sessiliflorum ssp. novae-zelandiae
The variatas, which is written in lower case & not in italics as “var.”, e.g. Geranium sanguineum var. striatum
The forma, which is written in lower case & not in italics as “f.”, e.g. Geranium maculatum f. albiflorum
Where a plant is a hybrid of two different know species it is sometimes given a new named with a lower case “x”, not italicised before the
italicised new name, e.g. Quercus x hispanica is Quercus cerris, the Turkey oak crossed with Quercus suber, the cork oak. The naming of
naturally occurring taxa is governed by International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants.
Cultivated plants often have certain seed strains & horticulturally related groups within a species or as a complex series of hybrids within a
single genus, for such aggregations the phrase “Group” is used, e.g. Phormium tenax Purpureum Group for purple leaved seed raised New
Zealand flax. Cultivars should be clones or show little perceptible variation & the vast cannot be raised from seed & remain true to type &
therefore have the right to that capitalised name enclosed in single quote marks. “Group” plants however cover a range or more aptly, a
theme, so can often have been seed raised, as long as the offspring still fit within the theme. The naming of taxa raised by man is
governed by International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants.
For some large genera (i.e. a genus with lots of different species) the relationships between the species within the genus is of use the
gardener as they can give an idea of likely characteristics & cultural requirements and for certain genera there are ranks here too. The
most commonly encountered are those for ‘species’ Rhododendrons. For Rhododendron there is a full range of sub-generic, supra-specific
ranks (after Chamberlain & Cullen system):
Genus:
Rhododendron
Subgenus:
Hymenanthes
- includes many of the most familiar larger leaved species, characterised by their lack of lepidote scales on
the back of their leaves
Section:
Pontica
- includes all species within the Subgenus
Subsection:
Arborea
- includes 3 different species from W China, Himalayas & Sri Lanka
Species:
niveum
- a tree sized purple flowered species found in E Himalayas
With Rhododendron the Subsection is the most often used by gardeners & nurserymen to give an indication of the sort of Rhodo that is
being discussed.
With Primula it is Section, e.g Prolifera for candelabra types, that is commonly used.
All living things are “Properly” named in the same way, e.g. we are Homo sapiens.