Today we use the classification system introduced by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (However the English man, John Ray, was an early pioneer in this field and is commonly forgotten about). Prior to this plants had long winded names which could include ten or more words.
The Linnaeus system splits plant names into two words. The first is the genus (always started with a
capital letter) and the second specific epithet (always in lower case). Plants in the same genus share certain
characteristics which are not always obvious to the naked eye. Allium, Rosa,
Tulipa are all genera, and contained in each genus are species - Allium schoenoprasum (chives), Allium
sativum (garlic), Allium christophii.
The specific epithet gives details about the plant. This could be about where if has come from or
who discovered it:
Locations
- sinensis– from China (Camelia sinensis)
- australis – from the Southern hemisphere (Livingstonia australis)
- europaeus – from Europe (Ulex europaeus – European gorse)
Details about the habitat:
- sylvaticus – from woodlands (Fagus sylvatica)
- pratensis – from meadows (Geranium pratensis)
Descriptive details:
- macrophylla – big leafed (Hydrangea macrophylla)
- grandiflora – large flowers (Magnolia grandiflora)
- sanguineus – blood red (Haemanthus sanguineus)
However as with any system, not everything is
foolproof. There are some plants which
do not agree with their names like Scilla peruviana which actually comes from
the Mediterranean and not Peru
as their name suggests.
No comments:
Post a Comment