Tony Dickerson answers your questions
Q
I’m confused about how plants are named. Can you explain, please. Brian Gore, by email
A
The first thing many gardeners find confusing is plants are named in a largely redundant language – Latin. The reason for this is our plant naming system was devised by Carl Linnaeus in the 1700s when Latin was the universal means of communication between the educated classes. It’s retained today, so while few of us could understand a Russian or Chinese gardening book, we could immediately pick out the plant names as they would be in Latin.
The system is a binomial one – each plant belongs to a genus, which is a group of related plants that share a number of significant features. For example, most gardeners would have no trouble recognising plants of the genus clematis. The genus name is followed by the species name – for example Clematis montana. These are both correctly written in italics and refer to the wild species.
Due to natural variation and wide geographic spread, there may be some species that show some slight, but distinct, differences. These are referred to as subspecies (abbreviated to subsp. or sometimes spp). Individual populations of a species exhibiting less distinct differences are referred to as varieties (var.), or forms (f.) such as C. montana var. rubens, which is a naturally occurring, pink-flowered plant – again in italics.
Selections of the species that have arisen in cultivation are written in normal text with quotation marks, such as C. montana var. rubens ‘Pink Perfection’. To keep plant labels short, or save magazine space, these are often abbreviated to simply C. ‘Pink Perfection’.
Hybrids resulting from plants crossing are shown with a multiplication symbol, such as Clematis x cartmanii. These can result in offspring with widely varying characteristics so particularly good ones selected may be given a variety name enclosed in single quotation marks, but not written in italics, such C. x cartmanii ‘Avalanche’.
So what of common names? The problem with these is that there is no accepted system, so completely different plants can be known by the same common name. For example, there are three completely different plants called bluebell. In Scotland, it’s Campanula rotundifolia, while in England it’s Hyacinthoides non-scripta. It’s Sollya heterophylla in Australia. It’s not difficult to see why a more precise system is necessary.