Home / Education and Outreach / Courses and Lectures / The Names of Plants

The Names of Plants (Course)

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Saturday, March 13, 2004

10am to 12pm

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Course Details "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet..." Join Daniel for a discussion about the common and scientific names of plants. Which should be used? Why do they change? What do the Latin names mean?  

Instructor Daniel Mosquin  

Location Meet in the Botanical Garden Pavilion. (Directions to the Botanical Garden)  

Cost (General) $25.00  

Cost (Garden Members) $22.00  

Please Note Advance registration required.  

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Course Registration

Registration is required for courses and requested for lectures.

How to Register

Recommended Resources

Stearn's Dictionary of Plant Names for Gardeners details the meaning and origin of roughly 6000 botanical names. It also includes sections that explain the scientific names of plants and how plant names reflect relationships.

Available from the Shop in the Garden.

Dictionary of Botanical Epithets is a web site that details the meaning of botanical epithets, typically encountered as the latter half of the binomial (e.g., macrophyllum is the specific epithet of the binomial Acer macrophyllum).

The International Code of Botanical Nomenclature governs how the scientific names of plants are to be created or maintained. The code is very legalistic, but the rules for naming plants need to be considerate of the diversity of plant life and the structure required to assure that each species of plant has only one valid scientific name.