GUIDE: Plant names
As with anything, it is only once you step back and get a full picture of a subject, that you can really understand a component part of it. Thus it is with plant names.
Science classifies all plants, as it does animals and other forms of life, by their taxanomic rank, as follows:
Kingdom
Division
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species
Variety / Cultivar
Gardeners only use the last three categories in bold type. If their is no variety within the species, only two (the genus and species) need to be used. This is considered the 'botanical name'. A variety is a naturally occurring
Example of a tree
There are no variants of a monkey puzzle tree. It's full scientific classification is as follows:
Kingdom - Plantae (plants)
Division - Pinophyta (gymnosperms)
Class - Pinopsida (conifers)
Order - Pinales (cone producing conifers)
Family - Araucariaceae (ancient cone producing conifers)
Genus - Araucaria (large trees with leathery or needle like leaves and large seeds)
Species - Araucana (the Chilean Pine)
Variety / Cultivar - N/A
Therefore its botanical name is araucaria araucana (genus + species) - an easy way to remember this is that the genus and species are named after Arauco, the region in central Chile where many such plants originated. However, its common name (or vernacular name, as plantspeople would say) is the Chilean Pine. In the UK a famous Victorian barrister once remarked - on seeing an early import - that it would puzzle a monkey to climb it; henceforth in the UK and Ireland it became known as the monkey puzzle tree.
Example using a flower
Let's look at a variety of foxglove which has a light apricot colour. It's full scientific classification is as follows:
Kingdom - Plantae (plants)
Division - Angiosperms (flowering plants)
Class - Eudicots (seeds with two embryonic leaves)
Order - Asterids (such plants with a single integument layer on the embryo)
Family - Lamiales (a large family of such plants with common features)
Genus - Digitalis (a group of around 20 foxglove plants with similar features)
Species - Purpurea (Common foxglove - the original plant of this shape was purple)
Variety / Cultivar - Apricot Beauty
Therefore it's scientific name is Digitalis purpurea 'Apricot Beauty' (genus + species + variety), but its common name is just foxglove 'Apricot Beauty'.
Variety vs Cultivar
A variety of the species is a naturally occurring variation. For example, if a plant is normally blue, but one region has the same plant with white flowers, it would have alba after the genus and species. A cultivar is a CULTIvated VARiety, or a man made variation. This is distinguished from a variety by placing the name in single quotes, such as 'Apricot Beauty' above.
Science classifies all plants, as it does animals and other forms of life, by their taxanomic rank, as follows:
Kingdom
Division
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species
Variety / Cultivar
Gardeners only use the last three categories in bold type. If their is no variety within the species, only two (the genus and species) need to be used. This is considered the 'botanical name'. A variety is a naturally occurring
Example of a tree
There are no variants of a monkey puzzle tree. It's full scientific classification is as follows:
Kingdom - Plantae (plants)
Division - Pinophyta (gymnosperms)
Class - Pinopsida (conifers)
Order - Pinales (cone producing conifers)
Family - Araucariaceae (ancient cone producing conifers)
Genus - Araucaria (large trees with leathery or needle like leaves and large seeds)
Species - Araucana (the Chilean Pine)
Variety / Cultivar - N/A
Therefore its botanical name is araucaria araucana (genus + species) - an easy way to remember this is that the genus and species are named after Arauco, the region in central Chile where many such plants originated. However, its common name (or vernacular name, as plantspeople would say) is the Chilean Pine. In the UK a famous Victorian barrister once remarked - on seeing an early import - that it would puzzle a monkey to climb it; henceforth in the UK and Ireland it became known as the monkey puzzle tree.
Example using a flower
Let's look at a variety of foxglove which has a light apricot colour. It's full scientific classification is as follows:
Kingdom - Plantae (plants)
Division - Angiosperms (flowering plants)
Class - Eudicots (seeds with two embryonic leaves)
Order - Asterids (such plants with a single integument layer on the embryo)
Family - Lamiales (a large family of such plants with common features)
Genus - Digitalis (a group of around 20 foxglove plants with similar features)
Species - Purpurea (Common foxglove - the original plant of this shape was purple)
Variety / Cultivar - Apricot Beauty
Therefore it's scientific name is Digitalis purpurea 'Apricot Beauty' (genus + species + variety), but its common name is just foxglove 'Apricot Beauty'.
Variety vs Cultivar
A variety of the species is a naturally occurring variation. For example, if a plant is normally blue, but one region has the same plant with white flowers, it would have alba after the genus and species. A cultivar is a CULTIvated VARiety, or a man made variation. This is distinguished from a variety by placing the name in single quotes, such as 'Apricot Beauty' above.
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