This section includes information about
  • The International Plant Names Index (IPNI) and Nomenclatures 
  • what a Latin plant name tells you 
  • how to find out what to call the different parts of plants
  • Reference Books which are very helpful to using Botanical Latin and knowing what different plant names and terms actually mean.
  • Botanical Latin for Artists - and useful reference books
  • ​RHS Guidance on Plant Names for Artists - this references the new Exhibitor Factsheet for all RHS Botanical Art Exhibitions
Picture
Botanists at work | Drawings of the Rembrandt School, Vol. 3, Werner Sumowski by author Gerbrand van den Eeckhout

Plant Names
​

Nomenclature - the naming of plants - is similar to taxonomy - but it's also different. ​
  • ​Taxonomy provides a system of categories of plants
  • Nomenclature provides a system for names of plants

Synonyms (in taxonomical terms) are the names of plants that are known by a different name. It is NOT the equal, nor does it have similar status to the current correct name.  It is not interchangeable. 
A nomenclature standard is the specimen or image that forms the definitive reference to interpret the name of a cultivar.
RHS - Nomenclature standards
It's also useful to remember that
Names are hypotheses therefore as our knowledge changes so can names
​Laurence Hill

Binomial nomenclature
​

​Carl von Linne a.k.a. Linnaeus came up with a system for naming in 1753 where each species of plant has a name which has two parts.  This is called Binomial nomenclature. It's a a formal system of naming species of living things. Each of the two parts of the name used Latin grammatical forms.
  • the first word is the name of the genus (see Plant Evolution and Taxonomy). It's usually in Italics and starts with a capital letter e.g. Magnolia
  • the second word is the name of the species. This is usually lower case and also expressed in italics e.g. grandiflora
  • the second word is also called the epithet and it modifies the first word. In effect it describes in more detail the characteristics of the individual and specific plant belonging to the genus. The ending of the second word in the name depends on whether the Botanical Latin name for the first word is masculine or feminine

However a botanical plant name can also have three parts. These are
  • one part only - genus and above
  • two parts - species and above (but below the rank of genus)
  • three parts - below the rank of species e.g. a variety or cultivar (a cultivated man-made variety) may form the third part of a name - particularly in relation to horticulture and popular plants e.g roses and magnolia​
​
Picture
Magnolia grandi flora by Pierre Joseph Redouté
​There are a number of conventions around how names are written - see below.

Plant Names and Terms
​

The International Plant Names Index (IPNI)

There's a set of rules for how plants are named across the world so that people in different countries can know they are talking about the same plant. 

There are agreed sets of rules for arriving at a common name and these are set out in International Codes.
The end result is the The International Plant Names Index (IPNI). It is produced and published due to a formal collaboration between three institutions - 
REFERENCES:

RHS Standard

Nomenclature standard is also a term used by the RHS to define a specimen held in a collection - against which others can be judged​
INTERESTING FACT:
​One of the top ten most downloaded books from the Biodiversity Heritage Library is a book published in 1900 - all about plant names - with botanical and popular synonyms and vernacular, German, French and Spanish names.

Below is the title page of:
Plant names, scientific and popular, including in the case of each plant the correct botanical name in accordance with the reformed nomenclature, together with botanical and popular synonyms by AB Lyons
(You can download the book from BHL)
REFERENCES:
Wikipedia:
Other

Botanical Epithets
​

The use of the word 'epithet' has declined over time. 
An epithet has been variously defined.
In relation to Botanical Epithets, the authority who defines how they may be used is the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (see below)
the part of a taxonomic name identifying a subordinate unit within a genus
Merrian Webster
a glorified nickname - a descriptive term (word or phrase), accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage
Wikipedia
an adjective or phrase expressing a quality or attribute regarded as characteristic of the person or thing mentioned.
Oxford Dictionaries
23.1. The name of a species is a binary combination consisting of the name of the genus followed by a single specific epithet in the form of an adjective, a noun in the genitive, or a word in apposition, or several words, but not a phrase name of one or more descriptive nouns and associated adjectives in the ablative (see Art. 23.6(a)), nor certain other irregularly formed designations (see Art. 23.6(c)). If an epithet consists of two or more words, these are to be united or hyphenated. An epithet not so joined when originally published is not to be rejected but, when used, is to be united or hyphenated, as specified in Art. 60.9.23.2. The epithet in the name of a species may be taken from any source whatever, and may even be composed arbitrarily (but see Art. 60.1).
International Code of Botanical Nomenclature

Plant terms

There is a large vocabulary of names and terms for different parts of the plant and plant functions. It's useful to know what these mean - or at least to have a book where you can look them up when you come across them!
See Botanical Terms - Dictionaries and Glossaries

REFERENCES:
The Cambridge Illustrated Glossary of Botanical Terms by Michael Hickey and Clive King

​RECOMMENDED: This is the #1 Best Seller in Biological Taxonomy & Systematics.
I bought my copy from the Cambridge University Press shop in Cambridge (opposite the Senate House)
It covers 2400 botanical terms used to describe vascular plants. These mainly relate to structures visible to the naked eye or when using a x10 lens.

The term is defined precisely and is accompanied by a line drawing. It not only provides a reference for plant terms but also provides a guide for how certain structural elements can be drawn in pen and ink (line and stipple). The diagrams are good examples of how illustrations could be produced by authors and by students.

Michael Hickey trained in botany and horticulture and has been awarded RHS Medals for his pen and ink botanical drawings.

Clive King spent 30+ years at Cambridge Botanic Garden as Assistant Taxonomist and Librarian
Paperback: 222 pages
(of which Illustrations use 127 large format pages)
Also available on Kindle.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication date: 12th reprint - 16 Nov. 2000 ​​
Average Customer Rating out of 5 stars:
  • in UK: 4.8 based on 20 customer reviews
  • in USA: 4.1 based on 4 customer reviews​ (biased by a negative review of this book on Kindle)
BUY THIS BOOK​
​Americans might want to review the cost of buying in the UK + international shipping given the listed cost of buying in the USA
The Kew Plant Glossary - An Illustrated Dictionary of Plant Terms 
​by Henk Beentje  (text) and Juliet Williamson (Illustrator)
This very accessible guide to plant terms contains 3,600 botanical terms.

Each of the terms is explained in terms of a full definition plus detailed illustrations which help to identify a plant - and to identify this part of the plant on a live specimen. 

​The book is written by Henk J. Beentje who is a botanist working at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. He has considerable field experience in Africa and Madagascar. He authored titles on Kenyan trees, Zanzibari forests and Madagascar palms, as well as on African vegetation in general and plant glossaries. His main interests are in regional Floras, field guide production and conservation, and he was editor of the Flora of Tropical East Africa at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, which completed in 2012.
Juliet Williamson is his wife.
Paperback: 170 pages
Publisher: Royal Botanic Gardens Kew
Publication: 30 April 2010

Average Customer Rating out of 5 stars:
  • in UK: 4.9 based on 13 customer reviews
  • in USA: 5.0 based on 1 customer reviews​

BUY THIS BOOK​
The Kew Plant Glossary - Amazon.co.uk
A Botanist's Vocabulary by Susan K. Pell and Bobbi Angell

​HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
This book explains 1300 botanical terms and illustrates these using Bobbi Angell's impeccable pen and ink botanical illustrations.
​Hardcover: 228 pages
Publisher: Timber Press
Publication date: May 25, 2016

​BUY IN THE USA
Rated an average of 4.6 out of 5 stars by 20 customer reviews

​BUY IN THE UK
Rated an average of 5 out of 5 stars by 1 customer review
​Reviews: 
About the authors:

  • Susan K. Pell, Ph.D., former Director of Science at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, is the Deputy Director and Science and Public Programs Manager at the United States Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C.
  • Bobbi Angell has been drawing plants for the botanists of the New York Botanical Garden since 1978 after graduating with a degree in botany. She's a member of the American Society of Botanical artists and New England Society of Botanical Artists.
Bobbi Angell creates richly detailed pen and ink drawings for botanists at the New York Botanical Garden and other institutions, and for many years illustrated the New York Times Garden Q&A column. A gardener and printmaker as well as an illustrator, she lives in southern Vermont.
Author profile

Index Kewensis
​

The aim of Index Kewensis (IK) is to register all botanical names for seed plants at the rank of species and genera.

​It came about because of the efforts of Benjamin Daydon Jackson of the Linnaean Society and Joseph Dalton Hooker at Kew. Charles Darwin provided the funding for the indexing project.

The Index Kewensis is maintained by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. It later came to include names of taxonomic families and ranks below that of species.
REFERENCE:

The Plant List
​

This is a working list of all known plant names. It provides:
  • the Accepted Latin name for most species,
  • an explanation of all Synonyms by which that species has been known in the past.
REFERENCE:

TIP: Identifying the correct name!
​

Picture
Chinese Lanterns
I take lots of photographs of plants while working out what to do next - as either an individual drawing or a series of plant drawings. 

I've learned the hard way to remember to take photographs of the plant names as well!
Picture
Caption for Chinese Lantern - including the correct Botanical Latin name 'Physalis alkekengi' (remember when names are in capitals you can't tell which should have a lower case as the first letter)

Botanical Latin for Artists
​

It's worth knowing that artists submitting work to RHS exhibitions have had their work downgraded in medal terms because their plant names were not correctly expressed!

Hence if you have aspirations to becoming a serious botanical illustrator or artist there are going to be times when it's worth taking time out to get a name:
  1. correct in both genus and species
  2. spelt correctly
  3. capitalised and italicised correctly
After all the original (and ongoing) reason why plants are recorded as images is to enable the correct identification of plant material!
Scientific names are written in italics. The first name starts with a capital letter and the second name always starts with a lower case letter e.g. Pinus sylvestris. Cultivars are shown in single quotes and not in italics eg. Pinus strobus ‘Contorta’.
BISCOT: Instructions for Labelling

The Basics of Botanical Latin 
​

Plants have Latin names because Latin was the international language of science when systems for naming plants were first formalised.

Botanical Latin is a major challenge for many botanical artists and illustrators. Common reasons are:
  • they've never ever studied Latin. Hence the grammatical structures used for Latin and the precise nature of the word endings are a complete foreign language!
  • The structure of plant names if formal - and needs to be learned. For example, the Latin name for each species has two parts. The first part indicates the "genus" and the second part indicates the "epithet".
  • even if they've learned the correct name they've got absolutely no idea how to pronounce it because Latin is a dead language. The only place most people hear it is on television gardening programmes.
On the other hand one of the advantages of Botanical Latin is that it is universal. It might be a new language for everybody - but it is also common to everybody. This means that everybody uses the same name no matter which country they live in!

In 2012

Two excellent reference books for Botanical Latin are highlighted below.

Botanical Latin is best described as a modern Romance language of special technical application, derived from Renaissance Latin with much plundering of ancient Greek, which has evolved, mainly since 1700 and primarily through the work of Carl Linnaeus (1707–78), to serve as an international medium for the scientific naming of plants in all their vast numbers and manifold diversity. 
William T Stearn
Commentary on Botanical Latin
Botanical Latin References: Plain Latin Conventions
Botanical Latin: History, Grammar, Syntax, Terminology and Vocabulary
by William T. Stearn
This is the STANDARD TEXT on Botanical Latin.

British botanist William Thomas Stearn CBE was an expert in both the history of botany and classical languages. His book 'Botanical Latin' is an internationally renowned handbook. It covers:
  • the history and origin of Latin names
  • the grammar and syntax of botanical Latin - in summary
  • reviews symbols and abbreviations
  • identifies terms used for colour
  • and a lot more!
Rated an average of:
USA: 4.2 out of 5 stars by 13 customer reviews
UK:   4.7 out of 5 stars by 9 customer reviews
Paperback: 560 pages
Publisher: Timber Press;
Publication date: 4th Edition April 15 2004

Average Customer Rating out of 5 stars:
  • in UK: 4.7 based on 9 customer reviews
  • in USA: 5 based on 8 customer reviews​

BUY THIS BOOK​
Botanical Latin from Amazon.com
RHS Latin for Gardeners: Over 3,000 plant names explained and explored

​RHS - included in the UK version of this book - stands for the Royal Horticultural Society)
If you want your botanical illustration to be taken seriously you need the full botanical Latin name - and some acquaintance with Latin can be a big help here. 

The book has an alphabetical list of over 3,000 Latin names which also tells you how to pronounce each word.

It shows you how Latin plant names can reveal:
  • where a plant originally comes from (and thus its preferred growing conditions),
  • its properties e.g. shape, form, colour, taste, and smell.
Hardcover: 224 pages
UK Publisher: Mitchell Beazley 
USA Publisher: University Of Chicago Press 
Publication date: Oct. 2012

Average Customer Rating out of 5 stars:
  • in UK: 4.5 based on 105 customer reviews
  • in USA: 4.3 based on 23 customer reviews​

BUY THIS BOOK​
Latin for Gardeners - Amazon.com

RHS Guidance on Plant Names and Labels - for Artists
​

The RHS provide a very helpful and comprehensive guide for all artists aspiring to exhibit at their shows (see reference below).

This is designed to avoid artists contributing to their medal being downgraded due to a poor understanding of botanical names / labels and how they should be written.
Summary
  • All artwork must be labelled with the scientific (Latin) name of the plant or plants depicted and such names must be written in italics or underlined.
  • The abbreviations for subspecies, variety and forma (subsp., var., and f.) must not be italicised.
  • Plant family names must be italicised.
  • Cultivar names must be in Roman and placed within single quotation marks. Genus names must begin with a capital (upper case) letter.
  • Species names must begin with a small (lower case) letter.
  • The main words in a cultivar names must begin with a capital (upper case) letter.
​
​From Botanical Illustration - Exhibition Factsheet (2017)