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Botanical Names for Plants

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Botanical Names for Plants BOTANICAL NAMES FOR PLANTS by R. HAWTHORN Botanical names! Lolium perenne! primitive people gathering medicinal Anthoxanthum odoratuml Lotus corni- herbs and it was only in the middle of culatus! Probably these have caused the sixteenth century, during the more worries to groundsmen, especially Renaissance, that the crude lore of the in examinations, than any other section medicine man began to give way to the of the syllabus, and yet if groundsmen knowledge of the scientists. and candidates thought a little differently about these names, there might not be Beginnings of British Botany the same terrific problem. I suppose William Turner, a Northumbrian who most people approach these things was a student of medicine in 1520 at parrot-like: they learn by heart that the Cambridge, mentioned some 300 native botanical name for a daisy is " Bellis species of plants, which he described perennis " and the name itself means from his own observation and experi- nothing to them. It is forgotten that ence. Slightly later, Mathias de l'Obel, these botanical names were derived to a Flemish doctor who settled in England make easier the identification and classi- in 1568, managed to identify another 80 fication of plants. plants which were unknown to Turner. These botanical names are usually In 1629, an expedition left London derived from Latin, and have been used and headed into the wilds of Kent. for hundreds of years. Why was Latin This, although the people concerned used in the first place? This language may not have realised it, was a landmark was understood by educated people in British field botany, because they set throughout the world in the Middle Ages out with the intention of looking for —when the first attempts were made to plants as plants, and not as herbs for identify plants—and although fewer medicinal use. In all these early stages people study and know Latin today, it of the identification of plants, there is still used by scientists as an inter- would be a mass of description of leaf national language. shapes, colour or flower characteristics. When plants were collected and used They would be known by a long, for various purposes, it was necessary descriptive sentence, which to say the to be able to tell them apart. Early, least, would be unwieldy. primitive people knew that some plants had leaves or fruits that could be eaten, John Ray and some provided poisons which could John Ray now enters the scene, and be used on arrows; others could be used he seems to have been a remarkable as dressings on wounds or as medicines. man. A blacksmith's son, he was born Do you ever remember as a child when in Essex in 1627, and through the you were stung by a nettle and you went interest of the vicar of Braintree, who looking for a dock leaf? You put this must have sensed something special on the nettle sting, and almost miracu- about Ray, he went up to Catherine lously the pain of the sting seemed to Hall, Cambridge. He eventually became lessen. a Fellow and then a tutor. He also It was the collection of plants for published a catalogue of plants found medicinal uses that formed the basis of in Cambridgeshire, but this was some- botany in most parts of the world until thing more than a list of plants found the sixteenth century. Today there are in a limited area in Britain, for Ray tried more than 2,000 species found wild in to sort out the chaos of cross-references, the British Isles, but the story of the long and obscure descriptions, and he gradual building up of botanical know- ledge begins in the far off days of the (<contd. on p. 10) (<contd. from p. 8) naming plants introduced by Linnaeus, it is possible that the system would not went a long way towards doing just have had such appeal if it had not also that. introduced the " bi-nomial" method of He produced a manageable mixture naming the plant, instead of the cumber- of names on which he and his successors some polynomial method in use before. were able to build a sound knowledge The bi-nomial method simply means of our plant life. He went on to produce that the plant has only two parts to its other books, one of which was the first name, while the polynomial name had and long-awaited complete description three, four or more parts to it. of British flora, which about this time Linnaeus undertook the task of naming listed about 1,000 species. and classifying the whole living world By the middle of the eighteenth from beetroot to butterflies. What is century, plenty of botanists were carry- more, he achieved his objective; he ing on Ray's work in this country, but brought order out of chaos, and indexed nothing out of the ordinary had the vegetable world on a basis so sound happened. Indeed, in the year 1734 one and acceptable, that to this day most professor of botany at Cambridge did of his names are still in use. not deliver a single lecture—because Of the two names given to each there were no students there to hear plant, the first one is the generic name him! British botany certainly seemed (group of genus). This, if you like, to be at low ebb. corresponds to our surname, the family name, but calling it a family name can Linnaeus cause some confusion, especially when natural orders get involved. The second In Sweden, however, something new name, the specific name (species) is only had happened. Carl von Linne, known given to one plant of the same genus— to the world by his Latin name liken this, if you like, to a person's Linnaeus, was building his system of (contd. on p. 12) classification that was soon to take the botanical world by storm. He hit upon a very simple and very useful method of plant identification. He pointed out FOR FAST GREENS that the number of stamens in a flower is always the same in the same kind of plant—any flower in the Iris family, for example, always has three, any flower in the Amaryllis family has six, and so on. This classification system was most effective, but Linnaeus himself realised that it was not a natural one. Plants with the same number of stamens were not necessarily closely related. For instance, the mint, with its opposite leaves, square stems, strong smell and four stamens is obviously related to the sages which share these characteristics—and different only in the FIT A GRASS COMB number of the stamens, sages only having two. A more natural system TO YOUR MOWER would have been one that classified plants by their ancestry and how they developed. This, indeed, is the now generally accepted system that has been STEWART & CO., evolved by the people who give plants FINE TURF SPECIALISTS their names. EDINBURGH. EH2 2AY In spite of the simpler method of (contd. from p. 10) was used for the treatment of liver complaints, and Cochlearia officinalis Christian or given name. In some cases, (scurvy grass), which contains vitamin a third name is added, when the plant C and was once eaten by sailors to is a variation of the species. This third prevent scurvy. name is the variety or varietal name, Plants are sometimes called after the and can be likened to another Christian botanists who first discovered them, or name, or nickname. reintroduced them to some country. Putting all this into something we Gagea lutea, the Yellow Star of know, let's have a look at two lawn Bethlehem, was named after Sir Thomas grasses, Chewings Fescue and Creeping Gage, and Honeysuckle {Lonicera peri- Red Fescue. Their respective botanical clymenum) was named after Adam names are Festuca rubra commutata Lonicer, a botanist from Frankfurt. and Festuca rubra gruina. Leaving all Some are called alba because they the explanations of the meaning of the are white, some rubra because they Latin names until later, it can be seen are red, some are aquatilis because they that both are in the Festuca class, both grow in water. Some are called vulgaris are in the rubra species, and it is only because they are common, and some in the variety stage that they are pratensis because they grow in meadows. different, thus showing that, for prac- All botanical names have a meaning tical purposes, there is not a great deal but the most important thing about of difference between the two grasses. them is that they can be understood all over the world. Ragwort is a common What those Latin names plant often described as a weed of turf. mean It is also called in various places St The Latin names of plants often refer James wort, staggerwort, stamnerwort, to some part of the plant which makes stinking weed, stinking Willie, etc. A bit it stand out. For instance, the Latin confusing, but it has only one botanical name for Foxglove is Digitalis purpurea, name, and that is Senecio jacobaea, a and it is helpful to realise that digitalis name by which it is known through- comes from the Latin " belonging to out the world. This of course is the the fingers " thence the popular name, real value of botanical names. and purpurea means " purple"—the At first the use of botanical names colour of the flowers. The three common may be strange to a lot of people, but it Plantains are called Plantago major, is only a matter of use.
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