How To Identify Plants At The Santa Rosa Plateau: Plant Names
Because plants are important medicinally, it is very important to make sure you have the right plant!
Due to the problems of common names, prior to 1735 treatises described each plant, in Latin, without a name, in enough detail to make sure you got the right one.
Carolus (Carl) Linnaeus had a good idea in 1735: he published a flora, with the usual description of each plant, and then gave each plant a binomial name, in Latin.
The first part of the name, the genus, lumped together similar species, and corresponds to your last name. The second part, the specific epithet, identifies uniquely the species within the genus. Both parts are italicized (common names are not).
This is not a difficult concept! Examples: Homo sapiens, Tyrannosaurus rex, etc.
These binomial names solved the problem of knowing precisely which plant is being referred to. "You could look it up".
Bottom line: the only way to make sure which plant you are dealing with is to know its Latin name.
http://tchester.org/srp/plants/how_to_id/7.html
Comments and feedback: Tom Chester
Last update: 16 October 2003.