Plant latin Lesson : From "Gardening by the Yard"

If you're in search of a specific plant--especially through catalog or Internet sites--you want to make sure you get the real thing. You could always ask for it by its common name, of course, and chances are you would get exactly that. But you might not. Knowing the plant's genus and species would help you be sure.
Common names vary widely for the same plant, depending on where you live. On the other hand, the plant's Latin name is based on an internationally accepted system and doesn't change. That's why plants and all other living things are named according to their genus and species.
Plus, gardeners often encounter more than just the genus and species names. There are also variety names, which usually are in Latin or occasionally Greek, and cultivar names, which aren't in Latin or Greek. These names are just as important as genus and species if you're shopping for a specific plant.
Variety names are subspecies of a given plant. The terms subspecies and variety are often used interchangeably. A variety is a plant that is slightly different from the species in some minor but noticeable way, and may some day become a species.
In catalogs or on plant tags, variety names follow the genus and species names and may be preceded by the letters ssp. indicating a subspecies; var. or simply v designates variety. Cornus florida is the Latin name for the common flowering dogwood. But Cornus florida ssp. urbiniana describes a flowering dogwood that has bluish leaves, pink petioles and unsually large flowers. Variety names are italicized (you may find them not italicized in catalogs).
A plant that's been selected for its incredible color, unusual shape or some other characteristic and can be successfully propagated may be given a cultivar name. These names are easy to recognize because they aren't italicized and are commonly wrapped in single quotations marks. The cultivar for coral bark willow is: Salix alba var. vitellina 'Britzensis'.
So make sure you know a plant's complete Latin name before you order.

Ok, I think I'm getting it now! Jill

Great information Jill!

thanks!

thanks, jill-- perhaps you know, then...

How do you do a search on Plant Files for 'verbascum' if you don't know if'verbascum' is the family, genus, species, or what... is there a clue to ID that from the word?

Does this make any sense?

Ithanks for all the info. t.

General Search - it at the very top in the writing. Then put in the word and you will get all the plants with that word, or part of the word that is in there.

Brilliant! I have looked all over the place for that! How blind am I?!! Thank you, 75154.

t.

no prob Mitch

Tabasco, I'm really 'new' at this (thus my posting the info) , I'm glad that 75154 was able to help, I would have guessed! Thanks 75154!

Jill, of the plants that I do know, I know their full names pretty well. But I still have a devil of a time with the family / genus / sp.. I use the general search quite a bit!

Well, I have a devil of a time trying to keep straight family/genus/species/cultivar/variety and which is what and when you italicize or use a capital letter, etc., etc..

I didn't pay enough attention to Biology class in highschool and I was terrible at Latin class, and then, the experts keep changing their minds on what goes where, anyway...

I wish I could 'get it' though. What momof2 posted is so true if a gardener really want sto 'fine tune' their garden design with certain plants, they really have to be conversant in the latin names...(I think, anyway.) (Maybe that's why my garden was such a 'dud' this year.)

btw, momof2d--I'm pretty new at gardening language here, too, so I'm glad you posted the info. And I never post anything on Plant Files because I don't know what is considered a 'family' or a 'genus', etc., etc. and I'm afraid I'll get it into the wrong category.

Maybe I should make some vocabulary flash cards like my kids had in fourth grade...

If it helps the standards are:

The entire botanical name is italicized, where this isn't possible, such as on plant tags, then it is underlined. I tend not to do this in posts so technically I write them wrong but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it :)

The family name always has a capital initial and (currently) they all end in -aceae, e.g. Papaveraceae

The genus name always has a capital initial e.g. Verbascum

The specific epithet (species in the PF) is always in lower case e.g. blattaria

The varietas/subspecies/forma are also lower case, italicized and depending on which group they belong to, an abberviation such as var. is placed before the name e.g. var. filifolium

The cultivar name is always written in normal font and initial letter capitalized, they are also placed in quotation marks e.g. 'Pink Panther' (but the PF system actually adds those quotation marks for you so you don't need to add them in the PF)

The entire name would be written in this manner Verbascum blattaria var. filifolium 'Pink Panther'
(due to previous problems, please note this plant does not exist, I made it up for this purpose)

If you want to enter anything into the PF and are unsure of anything, please ask us at the helpdesk, we're here to lend a hand :)

This message was edited Oct 7, 2005 9:54 AM

LOL, I'm glad I'm not alone! If I ever make it to horticulture school maybe 'then' I'll be able to decifer the latin language of the Plant world! I just know that even the common names when I tell friends and family that "this is the such & such"...... they all say ---- oh geeze, I'd never remember that! Maybe if I'd pay more attention to the family,genus,ect. I'd give my brain such a workout that my fading memory would magically become "unforgetful" again - LOL!

I'll tell ya a funny story, my sister was thrilled when she found a small 'multi-colored' rose plant that stays on the ground like a ground cover and that 'mounds'.......when I got to her home in Omaha I was able to see her amasing 'rose' plant ------ they were Dianthus! Very pretty, but here (until I saw them) I had thought that she found a new rose cultivar and I had been busting my rear running around trying to find this amazing plant in my neck of the woods! Got-a-love her, I think she thinks 'Dianthus' is another name for a rose now.

Tabasco and Moby, flash cards is a great idea! Maybe I could get my Grandson into gardening with flash cards! Now I want to see if there is such a thing as a "color wheel' type of plant learning tool's, where instead of colors it would be plant basics,ect,hummm.... I wonder.

Baa, thanks! I've added your description to my 'gardening' file on my desk top, you've made it really clear! Now I just need to get brave and go talk to the college regarding starting up in some type of horticulture classes. It would be a dream come true for me if I could 'work' in the plant world instead of the office! I'm so tired of office work, boring -- day after day!

You mean like "dial a plant" , momof2d? We used to have one for wine when we were young--you know, we're having chicken, so we would dial up chicken and the wheel would tell you 'chardonnay'...it was so funny in restaurants to use it, we would laugh ourselves silly...

so for plants, you could dial up "wet shade" for instance at the nursery, and it would tell you hosta seboldei something or other...this is really where I get confused with the species and the cultivars, and so on...maybe this would have to be a two tiered dialler. Very complicated plant world...I need to work on this idea a little! LOL

Baa--thanks so much for repeating that good information again. You explain it very well, now if I could just remember it when I need to use it!

And, momof2d, btw, there are a few online extension classes in plantsmanship and design, and there are lots of weekend seminars at university extensions that might work as well for you as going back to traditional school...You may have to pay a little more $$ but it may be worthwhile for the speed and convenience. I have learned lots and lots just off the internet and talking to nurserypeople...and asking (dumb) questions on DG.

Happy gardening this weekend. It's getting cold and rainy here and I'm affraid I'm going to have to bring in my plants...) t.