Do you use botanical names when discussing plants?

I voted working to use more Latin names. I often forget common names, so Latin is the way to go for me.

Aren't the scientific names derived from both Latin and Greek?

I think we're going to need a separate thread to report sightings of wren's spell check!

I think the spell check took off a couple of days ago so it could be anywhere. You would not believe some of the words that it gives me when I need help!!! LOL

Latin and Greek are the primary sources but there are a number of names derived from other languages and quite a few named after botanists and explorers. I think most of the names that describe some characteristic of the plant are in Latin.

I love my spellchecker, but would never let one attack a document unchecked. There is no replacement for a brain and no programmer has yet been able to code up all the decisions people might make.

Arctostaphylos (Greek - bear grapes) pungens (Latin - pointed (as in the leaves)) is a good mixed example. Hope some biologist doesn't decide the leaves aren't really very pointy one day ...

I think spelling was left out of my brain. Part of the problem is I can not hear some sounds. I use to hate it when some one told me to look a word up--if you can not spell it you can not find it!!! LOL

Well, the scientific community may occasionally decide to reclassify something, but at least they're still talking about the same plant. Try looking up "moon flower" or "button weed" sometime....

No argument with the scientific naming being more tied to a single plant and more universally recognized. I see the science as being a work in process - a work aimed at increasing understanding of what is. Seeing it as something we have achieved, completed, and that will not change misses the point.

Reclassification is great. Or understanding grows at an exciting rate these days.

Tying the absolute name to the classification is problematic. My favorite is when they decide that two plants are really the same one, when the phenotypes are so clearly different as to render their similarity academic. Then I have to worry about Chusquea nigricans becoming Chusquea culeou var. Nigricans (see how the latinate names creep into varietals, even when they've been banned?) and a new variety showing up as Chusquea nigricans. Then no one knows what we're talking about. And when subspecies are treated as genus names (because they constantly adjust their status) everyone gets Alsophila excelsa var. cooperi, Sphaeropteris cooperi, Cyathea cooperi, Alsophila australis, etc. so tangled up that no one knows what to call them or what they have when it's labeled as such.

It would be nice to have a name which stuck with a plant, regardless of language, country, or classification. Alas, there is no such designation. Names like Poppy and Aster are as abstract as Freedom or Justice, and we'll continue to struggle with their translations in the same way when talking to non-plant people and Iquitos and Martians and each other.

Now there is an idea. An absolute name separate from the classification. Like hurricanes: Ivan, class IV. Still gets messed up when they decide two different plants are the same one though.

I have two groundcover Oreganos in my front yard.
Origanum vulgare hirtum 'Humile'
Origanum compactum 'Nana'
Some claim these are the same plant. I bought both of them from different nurseries. 2 sources of the Humile, 1 of the Nana, but one of the Humile sources had changed the name from the Nana to the Humile at some point. They are growing next to each other. They are not the same plant. The plant shipped to me with the name Nana on the tag grows in a tighter form. Its better as a groundcover.

Also, in case you are interested, I have both Origanum heracleoticum and Origanum vulgare. Both seed packets claimed to be the "True" Greek Oregano while the OTHER one really wasn't. Elsewhere I've seen written that these are the same plant and the vulgare name is the correct one. Whatever (rolleyes). They don't look exactly the same and the one labeled heracleoticum tastes better. True Greek or not, thats the one that gets put in food.

I tend to use botanical epithets exclusively--- as far as pronounciation goes-- as a professor from my college days once told me "say it with authority and everyone will think you're right"

And I'll bet even the Romans couldn't agree on the correct pronunciation of Latin words.

Then you have all that
Northern Roman Empire Germanic pronunciations vs
the Southern Roman Empire w/ their Aegyptian drawl....
and don't me started on those Britons ...... they can't even pronounce Herb right.......

And they you have us Southern that really pronounce things funny. Y'all should hear me when I am trying to talk to some one from India when I have computer problems!! Poor people can not figure out what I am saying. LOL

Didn't vote as I couldn't find MY answer. It would have been: mostly common names as I often don't know the botanical names and nobody that I usually talk to knows them either. On the other hand, I certainly know that they exist!

LOL!

Now I'm going to have to look up O. heracleoticum.

I don't think we can solve the problem of multiple name or varieties being the same thing, because that's an identification and management problem, not a nomenclature problem. Basically it's the problem that we manage with fingerprint/DNA testing in humans. It will be inherent in all naming systems until we come up with rapid genetic id systems, and even then we'll have to figure out a way to identify typical mutation patterns of landraces and outbred plants.

And frankly, I'd be fine with the duplicate name problem. If they'd just stop renaming my plants. ^_^

For years we called crinum lilies CR long I num. Then suddenly they became Cr-ee-num

Aloe was A-low and now it is A-low-ee

Ka-lan- cho has become KAL AN KHO EE

I have a hard enough keeping up with the name changes, much less changing the pronunciations on me...grin

And the original Native pronunciation of Yucca is YOUc-cah not Yuck-ah.

...whatever works at that moment (kinda like the rest of life)

Spelling is my problem , I would use the botanical name more often but I am a terrible speller.
I also like some of the common names they are so colorful. (Love lies bleeding) (cupids dart)

Just when you think you've mastered Greek pronunciation, you'll want to talk about a Heuchera (named after a German and not pronounced in German AT ALL like you are thinking)
(Love in a mist/ puff;, Lamb's ear- is so much easier to call Lamb's ear than Stachys)

Stachys sounds like a disease or bad mold who would want that?^_^

HA ha, it does!

I wish Botanical names where more "user friendly." It's hard to wrap ones tongue around some of them. I can't even pronounce my hubby's medicines - I just check the pill bottles and say: "Yes, that's it!"

The botanical name are user friendly ... after you spend 2 years or more studying each language. Once you know Latin and Greek they just roll off the tongue. Except for Heuchera that is.

When you move from one country to another with a completely different language, you're really thankful for latin names, which are the same the world over.

Re spell checkers: I bought my Apple here in Finland, and it only has an American English spell checker; so I'm having to teach it to spell colour, neighbour, recognise, cheques .......

Years back when I bought Word 2, the spell checker had never heard of Microsoft!

Since I have to use scientific names at work I have created some extra dictionaries with plant and animal scientific names and various technical terms that I use frequently. It's pretty easy to add them to Word, I'm not sure about other software though.

My spell check has given up & lets me type the abbreviations for iris classes (not botanical) It doesn't like pumila or any other botanical iris species so I just ignore the red line.

There is very little botanical-wise my spell-check likes....so then I have to go look it up to see which one of us is correct....grin

Both..and it completely depends on who I'm talking to.

My son taught me the importance of knowing both. When talking to a typical homeowner/landscape customer, I'll use common names. According to DS it keeps you from sounding like a snob. When talking to folks at the college or the botanical garden I use Latin, that keeps you from sounding like an amateur.

I'm still working on the Latin names, because as Todd_Boland said above....the Latin stays the same.

I almost always use common names. I love flowers and they're almost family. I cannot imagine calling my neice ms Augusta Maine, She would probably be Gus.
My favorite flower is Foxgloves not Digitalis purpura. I immediately see a purple diget. LOL
Think i'm fairly science minded and use latin terms for anatomy etc.... as in clavicle for sholder blade.
Wren, Think i saw your spell check running down the mountain with mine and Andre was close behind.
Vickie

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This message was edited Dec 3, 2009 11:00 AM

Thank you.

This message was edited Dec 3, 2009 11:55 PM

cando thanks, so that's what the brat has been doing today that Canine is almost as much pain as my spell check. lol

I am trying to learn the botanical names. Sometimes, they give you information about the characteristics of a plant. However, I am not a professional botanist etc. so I basically know the common names. Sometimes, when people blog and only give only the botanical names, I just skip the information because the information just isn't worth looking up all the botanical names.
I use the resources in this website a lot to figure out what the botanical names mean.

I like to talk about beans and squashes, which interest me, especially their seed saving requirements. Without the botanical names ie phaseolus coccineus or cucurbita maxima, many of my posts would not make any sense. However I tend to mix and match and use terms such as 'moschata squashes need warmth to succeed' or 'vulgaris beans cross very rarely'.

What annoys me is that seed packets frequently do not give the botanical name and when they do sometimes the wrong one, which leads to a lot of confusion.

As others have said, I use both depending on who I am talking with. I just mostly know what I know from books , DG, and just experience. And also feel like Galina above, it is annoying that seed companies cannot give the botanical name on seed packages.

Donna