The Names Of Plants.pdf

The Names of Plants
names ending in -us are masculine unless they are trees (such as Fagus, Pinus,
Quercus, Sorbus, which are treated as feminine), names ending in -a are feminine and
names ending in -um are neuter; names ending in -on are masculine unless they can
also take -um, when they are neuter, or the ending is -dendron when they are also
neuter (Rhododendron or Rhododendrum); names ending in -ma (as in terminations
such as -osma) are neuter; names ending in -is are mostly feminine or masculine
treated as feminine (Orchis) and those ending in -e are neuter; other feminine
endings are -ago, -odes, -oides, -ix and -es.
Arecommendation for forming generic names to commemorate men or women
is that these should be treated as feminine and formed as follows:
for names ending in a vowel, terminate with -a
for names ending in -a, terminate with -ea
for names ending in -ea, do not change
for names ending in a consonant, add -ia
for names ending in -er, add -a
for Latinized names ending in -us, change the ending to -ia
Generic names which are formed arbitrarily or are derived from vernacular
names have their ending selected by the name’s author. Clearly, a single epithet can
be used to commemorate any number of persons sharing that same surname. For
instance, the epithet ‘meyeri’ can commemorate anyone called Meyer, in addition to
those listed in the glossary.
Species names
The name of a species is a binary combination of the generic name followed by a
specific epithet. If the epithet is of two words they must be joined by a hyphen or
united into one word. The epithet can be taken from any source whatever and
may be constructed in an arbitrary manner. It would be reasonable to expect that
the epithet should have a descriptive purpose, and there are many which do, but
large numbers either refer to the native area in which the plant grows or commemorate
a person (often the discoverer, the introducer into cultivation or a noble personage).
The epithet may be adjectival (or descriptive), qualified in various ways with
prefixes and suffixes, or a noun.
It will become clear that because descriptive, adjectival epithets must agree with
the generic name, the endings must change in gender, case and number; Dipsacus
fullonum L. has the generic name used by Dioscorides meaning ‘dropsy’, alluding to
the accumulation of water in the leaf-bases, and an epithet which is the masculine
genitive plural of fullo, a fuller, and which identifies the typical form of this teasel as
the one which was used to clean and comb up a ‘nap’ on cloth. The majority of
adjectival epithet endings are as in the first two examples listed in Table 4.
Comparative epithets are informative because they provide us with an indication
of how the species contrasts with the general features of other members of the genus
(Table 5).
Epithets commemorating people
Specific epithets which are nouns are grammatically independent of the generic
name. Campanula trachelium is literally ‘little bell’ (feminine) ‘neck’ (neuter). When
they are derived from the names of people, they can either be retained as nouns in
the genitive case (clusii is the genitive singular of Clusius, the Latinized version of
l’Écluse, and gives an epithet with the meaning ‘of l’Écluse’) or be treated as adjectives
and then agreeing in gender with the generic noun (Sorbus leyana Wilmott is a
tree taking, like many others, the feminine gender despite the masculine ending,
and so the epithet which commemorates Augustin Ley also takes the feminine
ending). The epithets are formed as follows
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