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The ancient Greeks and Romans began classifying plants over 2,000 years ago. In the monasteries and universities of Europe where the work was continued, the universal language was Latin. So for centuries Latin names were used to describe individual plants. Each plant needed a long sentence to describe it so that schollars could recognise it. The scientific descriptions were unwieldy and did not always correspond to each other in different parts of the world, so there were many misunderstandings. Common names for plants were not satisfactory either. One plant may have several different common names in different localities and, conversely, the same name can be given to different plants. |
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The Binomial System In the 18th century the Swedish naturalist, Carl Linnaeus (1707-78), created a system for methodically naming and classifying the whole living world 'from buffaloes to buttercups'. His system, the binomial system consisted of two names for each plant.
Since then, the Linnaean system of classification has been developed by scientists so that the entire plant kingdom is divided and subdivided into what amounts to a 'family tree' according to each plant's botanical characteristics. There are now international rules as to the naming of plants.
Linnaeus grouped plants together into families and then divided each family into smaller groups called genera (singluar genus).
Plant familiesAll flowering plants are grouped into particular families based purely on the structure of their flowers. The family name always has a capital letter and ends in -acae or -ae. For example Rosaceae is the rose family; Ranunculacaeae is the buttercup family; Liliaceae is the lily family; and the Umbelliferae family includes plants that have clusters of small flowers like cow parsley and angelica. |
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Genus and speciesEach plant family is then divided into smaller groups called genera. The binomial (two-name) system gives each plant name two words. The first is the genus name, for example Ilex (holly).
The second name is the specific, or species name, (which is equivalent to a person's Christian or given name), for example aquifolium is the name for the common holly tree and means
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