Guest Author - Wendy Lee

Scientific names are very important to correctly naming what specific plant you may have or want. Depending upon the region of the world you are in. The common name of money plant can be a Jade or a Devil’s Ivy depending upon who you talk to. There is quite a difference between the two and this would be very confusing to someone trying to identify the plant without a picture or the plant present to help you troubleshoot pests and disease or care for it properly.

The technical name for the classification of scientific or Latin names is binomial nomenclature. This means two names. Every organism on the planet has two names. Humans are known as Homo sapiens. Corn plant is Dracaena fragrans. Note that in both of these examples the first name is capitalized while the second is not. The first name is known as the genus. A genus names a group of plants or animals that all have the same characteristics whether they are leaf and flower structure or arrangement. Think of all the different kinds of Aloe plants that are available. Each one has the same genus of Aloe but each different kind has its own species name. There are at least two Aloe species named for every letter in the alphabet except Z (1 species named) and Q (0 species named). when listing different species of the same genus, the genus, once recognized is then abbreviated to just the first letter for each following species.

Species names are often descriptive of the plant itself. Such as in the genus of Oak trees, Quercus, there is Q. alba (white), Q. rubrum (red), Q. velutina (black) and others. As you may have noticed, alba is the Latin or Spanish name for white; rubrum comes from the Latin ruber for red. Velutina however, refers to the hairy or ‘velvety’ buds on the Black Oak. Species names can also some from the person who discovered and or named the species to begin with. For example, the Tibetan antelope has a Latin name of Pantholops hodgsonii for the biologist B. H. Hodgson who did research in Nepal in the 1800’s.

As you may have noticed in this article, previous articles, and all over, in print both the genus and species names are italicized. When hand written they are to be underlined. This may only be to differentiate them from common names and to signify that it is a taxonomic name and other similar species can be found by that genus.

There is also sometimes one other name associated with binomial names that will be in un-italicized print and in quotes. This name is known as the cultivar. This is a plant that may have been bred for a certain coloration, leaf modification, size, or fragrance such as in roses. For example, the variegated species of Spathiphyllum is called ‘Domino’ this cultivar name differentiates it from any green peace lily on paper as a variegated one.

There are many individuals that were involved with scientifically naming and categorizing organisms such as Aristotle. However, though used before him, Carl Linnae (later changed to Linnaeus) was the person who made binomial nomenclature the standard for both zoologists and botanists. This started with his 1735 publishing of Systema Naturae. For more information on the history of Linnaeus, see the link at the bottom to National Geographic’s June 2007 article on him.