Dr. Romualdo M del Rosario (left), is the country's leading ethnobotanist. He is known for his pioneering works in setting up botanical gardens and museums. He brought into world prominence the La Union Botanical Garden, and expanded the present UST Botanical Garden. He is also responsible in setting up, together with the author (right), the Farmers' Museum of the National Food Authority in Cabanatuan City. Doc Del as he is fondly called at UST Graduate School and DLSU (D) Graduate School also served as Assistant Director of the National Museum.
1. Common Names
In general, the plant names you are familiar with are the common or vernacular names such as, morning glory, dama de noche, sampaguita, gumamela, rosal, santan, makahia, citrus, orchids and a host of other common names of plants. These names are meant to identify plants among lay people who have no special knowledge of botanical nomenclature or botanical names. Most often, common names have been in use from generation by people acquainted with the plant, as it grows wild in the rice field, grassland, forest, or by communities who have grown it through the centuries in their gardens. Great numbers of plants, however, even among the larger and conspicuous forms, possess no common names. Of the more than 17,000 species of orchids that have been described, probably not more than 150 have common names. There are countless plants that can be referred to only by their botanical names.
Nurseryman, gardeners, advertisers, plant collectors, and writers have invented common names during recent years. Many of the names maybe descriptive or are mere products of whim and fancy. Examples of these, which are now commonly accepted, are Mother-in-law’s Tongue, Old Man’s Cactus, Polka Dot Plant, Coral Plant, Zigzag Plant and many more. Jatropha multifida takes the name “Coral Plant “from the coral- colored flowers it produces.
Now we see that any common name can be given by anyone and it can be just anything in mind or the person may wish. Common names then are not given according to established botanical rules. It is common for a plant to have different common names. Codiaeum variegatum is commonly called San Francisco, Buenavista, Saguilala, and Croton, the most accepted of which is San Francisco. Common names often vary with each locality, country, or other geographic subdivision. They differ, of course, from one language to another. Thuja occidentalis is known as Sipres, Arbor Vitae or White Cedar, depending upon the locality and preference of the user. One soon discovers that Reindeer Moss, Spanish Moss and Haircap Moss have very little in common and that only one of the three is actually a moss.
Of all these confusions, the use of the same common name for different plants may well be the worst. Cyperus iria and Fimbristylis globulosa are common paddy weeds. Both are locally called “sud-sud”.
Author inspects a species of fern at the UST Botanical Garden
Common names, therefore as we now realized, present a number of problems. First many species, particularly rare ones, do not have common or vernacular names. Second, common names are not universal and may be applied only in a single language. Third, if a plant is well known, it may have a dozen or more common names. Fourth, sometimes two or more plants may have the same common name. Fifth, common names usually do not provide information indicating the generic and family relationship.
2. Latin Names
We also often hear of alternate plant names – the Latin names. These are, however, quite misleading because many Latin names are, in fact, Greek, or are derived from the Greek language and other languages. Acacia, for example, is an ancient Greek name of a spiny Egyptian tree. Antidesma is a name derived from Greek, for and band, alluding to the bark of some species being used as cordage. Guzmania is a generic name after a person, and the specific epithets prostrata, is from the English word prostrate or laying flat on the ground. The specific epithets - chinensis, palawanensis, indica, and madagascariensis all indicate geographical places of origin of these species. For this reason, the term “botanical name” is now being preferred over the “Latin name”.
Now we know that any word in any language can form the basis of a botanical name. These are indiscriminately mixed with Latin or Greek words, all of them “Latinized”. This means that they can be non-Latin words but must follow the rules of Latin grammar. These are used because Latin has widely known rules of grammar that are easily adaptable to names in most western languages. It was the written language of scholars, in the mid-eighteenth century, when the present system of naming plants was adopted. Unlike present spoken languages which change, Latin does not. Therefore it is a language that is intelligible to scientific workers of all nationalities.
3. Scientific Names
We must also be familiar with the term “scientific name” of a plant. The term is also misleading in much the same way as the “Latin name” is, and both may be wrongly applied. Beside one using scientific names is not speaking of it as a language, especially for the fact that Latin is considered a “dead language.” Nevertheless, even if the importance of Latin has diminished, its use in botanical name is retained. The real and only name of any plant is the botanical name.
As a background, the scientific attitude towards the naming of plants was first considered during the 16th and 17th centuries, when Latin was a common language among the intellectuals of Europe. By international agreement among scientists, only one botanical name is assigned to each plant species. It describes precisely an organism in a manner that is least affected, if at all, by the passage of time or the influence of a native language.
The importance of establishing a system of nomenclature is that it organizes organisms according to their biological and evolutionary relationships, categorizing them into kingdom, phylum or division, class, order, family, genus and species. The system attempts to classify all living things on earth as new ones are discovered, and known ones reviewed and subsequently reclassified, if necessary. These categories of classification start at a very general level, the largest of these groups being the five kingdoms proposed and accepted by most scientists - Monera, Protista, Fungi, Plants and Animals. Within the kingdoms, the members – from species level, or sub-species in some cases - are organized into ascending ranks.
4. Botanical Names
Most people are not aware of using aster, dracaena, chrysanthemum, eucalyptus, and begonia as the common names of some large groups of ornamental plants. But, these are also partly their botanical names. There are many more common names that have passed the great lengths of naming plants, and a number of them have earned universal adoption.
Genera, Family, Order, Class, Phylum/Division and Kingdom.
The names of genera and above it are all uninomials. They are composed of a single word. Generic names are singular nouns, while names of taxa above the rank of genus are plural nouns usually in Latin. The generic names are discussed further under the Botanical
Names of Species.
Names of Species.
The family names are based on the name of the type genus for the family. For example, Acanthus for the family Acanthaceae; Euphorbia for the Euphorbiaceae; Magnolia for the Magnoliaceae and Cyperus for the Cyperaceae. The usual family ending or suffix for family names is –aceae as required by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN).
However, there are exceptions in the use of certain family names that have been sanctioned by the Code because of old, traditional usage. These names do not end in the standardized grammatical ending of –aceae. The names of these families along with their alternative names are the following:
- Gramineae (Poaceae);
- Palmae (Arecaceae);
- Cruciferae (Brassicaceae);
- Leguminosae (Fabaceae);
- Guttiferae (Clusiaceae);
- Umbelliferae (Apiaceae);
- Labiatae (Lamiaceae) and
- Compositae (Asteraceae).
Botanists are allowed to use either of the alternatives. Today, many manuals are, however using the –aceae family ending.Of the seven major ranks of taxonomic categories, Order is next in line above the Family level. An Order may contain one or more families and its name ends in –ales. For example, Magnoliales, Papaverales, Urticales, Rosales, and Rubiales. The suborder category ends in –ineae.
An alley of trees, UST Botanical Garden
An order or several orders make up the Class. This has the standardized ending –opsida. For example, Angiospermopsida. The subclass ends in –idea as in Magnoliidae.The Phylum (or Division) ends in –phyta as in Embryophyta. The Subphylum or Subdivision ends in –phytina as in Tracheophytina.
The Kingdom category ends in –bionta as in Chlorobionta (Green Plants).
Continued...
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