Latin Plant Names By Jess Adams, Cygnet, Tas.
A learner’s perspective of the value of a little Latin in the garden. Knowledge of Latin plant names tends to be the mark of a keen gardener or horticulturalist. While standard schooling has introduced most of us to the concepts of taxonomic classification and binomial names, few of us really run with it or learn how to describe our gardens with precise names. When it is useful
Through working on a flower farm, I have moved from the camp of ‘that plant there with silver leaves’ to someone making a conscious attempt to memorise a library of plant characteristics, mentally stapled onto their Latin names. (Many thanks to my employers for on-the-
job educational supplements!) In the process, I have expanded my vocabulary of common names too, which I suppose can be thought of as a ‘first language’ in the gardening world. Though I’m still nowhere near binomial fluency, at least I am on the way. Of course, Latin names will also hold you in good stead if at some stage you want to engage with gardeners from abroad in an exchange program or otherwise. Common names won’t take you very far. Latin names come into their own when you have to communicate about plants outside your own mind, such as in a teamwork scenario. It’s elegant simplicity when anyone
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can say ‘Helichrysum’ and you can understand they mean Helichrysum Bracteantha bracteata, without juggling the common names of strawflower, paper daisy and everlasting daisy. I will admit that the plot thickens when occasional reclassification of plants enters the picture. For instance, Helichrysum Bracteantha bracteata has had a change of genus and since 1990 is officially Xerochrysum bracteatum. As they say, old habits die hard, and this plant which has been in the Helichrysum genus since 1805 will, for many people, remain a Helichrysum. Another example is the leafy
