A
plant sign at the San Francisco Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum in Golden
Gate Park.
Notice the name at the top right of the sign. It ends in -aceae (Proteaceae),
which tells you that this plant is in the protea family.
The second name, Isopogon formosus, is the botanical name.
The third name, rose cone-flower is the common name.
The Botanical Name of a plant
Each plant family is (usually) composed of a number of species of plants, the species being the smallest unit in plant classification. Although there are many discussions about the definition of what constitutes a species, a working definition is to think of a species is a "type" of plant.
Each species is given its own unique botanical name. By giving each type of plant its own individual botanical name, botanists working in different parts of the world avoid a lot of confusion. Because botanical names are internationally recognized, a scientist working in San Francisco and a scientist working in Tokyo can communicate using botanical names without worrying that they might be talking about two different plants .
When you visit a retail nursery, you will see the botanical name of each plant on the plant label. A well-run nursery will also have botanical names on signs placed by the nursery to assist customers. When you visit an arboretum where plants are used both for education as well as enjoyment, you will see plant signs with botanical names.
The botanical name is composed of two parts: the genus (or generic) name, and the species (or specific) name. Because the botanical name consists of two names, it is called a binomial (two name) system. In the example above, Isopogon is the genus and formosus is the species.
A few things to remember:
1. The generic name is always capitalized, the specific name
is all lower case.
2. The generic and specific names are italicized or underlined in print
3. Grammatically, the generic name is a noun and the specific name is an adjective
modifying the noun. For example, Pinus canariensis is a pine (Pinus),
from the Canary
Islands (canariensis). Pinus edulis is a pine(noun) with edible (adjective)
pine nuts.
Pinus coulteri is a pine named
in honor of Dr. Thomas Coulter who first described it.
There a many rules dictating how a species name is spelled
when it is named in honor of
a person. Endings such as "-ii", "-ae", "-orum", "-ana", "-anum", "-iana" and "-ianum"
indicate
that a plant was named in honor of someone.
By now you have noticed that the botanical name looks like Latin. The names are Latin or latinized because when the binomial system was developed in the 1700's by Carl Linne' (1707 - 1778), Latin was considered the "universal" language among scientists. Carl Linne' was latinized to Carolus Linnaeus; after being knighted in 1753, Linnaeus' name was Carl von Linne'.
Binomial names of plants can be somewhat intimidating, especially when you try to say them out loud. Don't get to hung up on pronunciation; even professional botanists differ in how they say the scientific name of plants. Most people learn botanical pronunciation from others; when you visit a nursery listen to how nursery workers pronounce the botanical names (you will notice that they vary also).
There is a website, http://www.taunton.com/finegardening/pages/spg017.asp,
that has audio files so you can hear how botanical names are pronounced.