THE NAMES OF PLANTS The Names of Plants is an invaluable reference for botanists and horticulturalists. The first section gives an historical account of the significant changes in the ways by which plants have been known and named. It documents the problems associated with an ever-increasing number of common names of plants, and the resolution of these problems through the introduction of International Codes for both botanical and horticultural nomenclature. It also outlines the rules to be followed when plant breeders name a new species or cultivar of plant. T he second section comprises a glossary of generic and specific plant names, and components of these, from which the reader may interpret the existing names of plants and construct new names. With explanations of the International Codes for both Botanical Nomenclature and Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants, this new edition contains a greatly expanded glossary, which includes the Greek, Latin, or other source of each plant name. THE NAMES OF PLANTS FOURTH EDITION David Gledhill CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK First published in print format ISBN-13 978-0-521-86645-3 ISBN-13 978-0-521-68553-5 ISBN-13 978-0-511-47376-0 © David Gledhill 2008 2008 Information on this title: www.cambrid g e.or g /9780521866453 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org p a p erback eBook ( Adobe Reader ) hardback Contents Preface to the first edition vii Preface to the fourth edition ix The nature of the problem 1 The size of the problem 4 Towards a solution to the problem 9 The rules of botanical nomenclature 14 Family names 16 Generic names 17 Species names 20 Epithets commemorating people 20 Geographical epithets 22 Categories below the rank of species 22 Hybrids 23 Synonymy and illegitimacy 24 The International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants 26 Graft chimaeras 29 Glossary 30 Figures 413 Bibliography 421 Index 424 v [...]... endings but means the significance of the noun to the meaning of the sentence in which it is contained It is also expressed in the endings of the words In the sentence The flower has charm’, the flower is singular, is the subject of the sentence and has what is called the nominative case In the sentence ‘I threw away the flower’, I am now the subject and the flower has become the direct object in the accusative... of plant names, such legislative requirements take precedence over the Rules of the Cultivated Code The Cultivated Code accepts the International Rules of Botanical Nomenclature and the retention of the botanical names of those plants which are taken into cultivation from the wild, and has adopted the same starting date for priority (precedence) of publication of cultivar names (Species plantarum of. .. avoid botanical names The specialist plant breeder, however, shows certain similarities to the apothecaries of an earlier age Like them he guards his art and his plants jealously because they represent the source of his future income and, also like them, he has the desire to understand every aspect of his 12 Towards a solution to the problem plants The apothecaries gave us the first centres of botanical... accusative case In the sentence ‘I did not like the colour of the flower’, I am again the subject, the colour is now the object and the flower has become a possessive noun and has the genitive case In the sentence The flower fell to the ground’, the flower is once again the subject (nominative) and the ground has the dative case If we add ‘with a whisper’, then whisper takes the ablative case In other words,... condition in the labelling of plants for sale in some nurseries 25 The International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants There can be no doubt that the diverse approaches to naming garden plants, by common names, by botanical names, by mixtures of botanical and common names, by group names and by fancy names, is no less complex than the former unregulated use of common or vernacular names The psychology... represent their own idiosyncratic interpretation of the known facts In addition to having no firm record of the early evolutionary pathways of the flowering plants, the systematist also has the major problems of identifying clear-cut boundaries between groups and of assessing the absolute ranking of groups It is because of these continuing problems that, although the Code extends to taxa of all ranks, most of. .. little regard either to the previous use of the same name or to names that had already been applied to the same plant It is because of this aspect that one often encounters the words sensu and non inserted before the name of an author, although both terms are more commonly used in the sense of taxonomic revision, and indicate that the name is being used ‘in the sense of or ‘not in the sense of that author,... as the major force directing an inevitable process of organic change Our conception of the mechanisms and the causative factors for the large evolutionary steps, such as the demise of the dinosaurs and of many plant groups now known only as fossils, and the emergence and diversification of the flowering plants during the last 100 million years, is, at best, hazy The great age of plant hunting, from the. .. (1877–1916) was the first person to clarify the manner in which the characters are transmitted from parents to offspring when he described the behaviour of ‘chromosomes’ during division of the cell nucleus Chromosomes are thread-like bodies 7 The Names of Plants which can be stained in dividing cells so that the sequence of events of their own division can be followed Along their length, it can be shown, the sites... one new one Since the bulk of research is carried out on the individual species, most of the revisions are carried out at or below the rank of species On occasion, therefore, a revision at the family level will require the transfer of whole genera from one family to another, but it is now more common for a revision at the level of the genus to require the transfer of some, if not all the species from . organisms. The names given by the breeders of the plants of the garden and the crops of agriculture and arboriculture present the same problems as those of vernacular. plant names, and components of these, from which the reader may interpret the existing names of plants and construct new names. With explanations of the