A LITTLE BOOK OF LATIN FOR GARDENERS by Peter Parker

Little Brown, £12.99 ISBN 978-1408706169

A discursive and informative introduction to botanical Latin and a fun exploration of the history of naming of plants. Reviewer Rory Dusoir is a Kew-trained gardener and writer. Botanical Latin is an almost unique remnant of an age when Latin was the common language among European scholars. Many may lament its continued use, but there really is no alternative – to insulate scientific names from the constant flux in usage that characterises a living language, it makes perfect sense that they are written in a dead one. And the famously terse nature of the Ancient Roman tongue makes it particularly suitable, somehow, for the extraordinary feat of compression that is required to describe a living organism in no more than two words.

Pithy it may be, but of course Latin has been no less subject to the contortions of etymology than any other language. To this base has been applied a disjointed layer of botanical research approximately two millennia deep; it is hardly surprising that the results can sometimes be bewildering. Botanical Latin is an ancient battlefield, strewn with the vagaries of human knowledge and of vegetable behaviour – and we should all be thankful to an author who has broached this chaotic scene with relish and does a great job of sharing his enthusiasm for the subject.

A Little Book of Latin has not been written to rival Stearn’s imperious Dictionary of Plant Names for Gardeners. Although there are short glossaries of relevant specific names at the end of each chapter, the author does not attempt anything remotely comprehensive in terms of defining the Latin (or Latinised Greek) words used in plant names. Instead this is a lively, discursive introduction to the essentials of botanical Latin, a highly readable account that relishes the tortuous byways of a language and of scientific endeavour.