Let's Speak Botanic.
Here are some words that could give you a clue as to the looks of a plant just from the name. It is just one of the reasons why plants have botanical names as well as common names.
| BOTANICAL | MEANING |
|---|---|
| nana | dwarf |
| minima or minimus | the smallest |
| prostrata | lies flat on the ground |
| procumbens | creeps |
| fastigiata | erect |
| humile or humilis | low growing |
| horizontalis or horizontale | horizontal growth |
| aurea | golden |
| glauca or glaucus | sea green |
| incana | downy grey |
| hirsuta | hairy leaves |
| macrophylla | large leaves |
| coccinea | scarlet/red in colour |
| caerulea or caerulus | bluey |
| flava | pale yellow in colour |
| alba or albus | white in colour |
Naming Plants
Binomial nomenclature is the scientific system of giving a double name to plants and animals. The first, or genus name, is followed by a descriptive or species name. Modern plant classification, or taxonomy, is based on a system of binomial nomenclature developed by the Swedish physician Carolus Linnaeus (11707 -1778). Prior to Linnaeus, people had tried to base classification on leaf shape, plant size, flower colour, etc. None of these systems proved workable. Linnaeus's revolutionary approach was to base classification on the flowers and/or reproductive parts of a plant and to give plants a genus and species name. This has proven to be the best system since flowers are the plant part least influenced by environmental changes. For this reason a knowledge of the flower and it's parts is essential to plant identification. So take a good look at the flower in the future, it could well help in identifying it.