Stearn's Dictionary of Plant Names for Gardeners: A Handbook on the Origin and Meaning of the Botanical Names of some Cultivated Plants - Softcover

Stearn, William T.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 088192556X ISBN 13: 9780881925562

Publisher: Timber Press, 2002

Synopsis

In this book Stearn gives the meaning and origin of some 6000 botanical names, selecting those most likely to be encountered by gardeners and horticulturists. No other single source provides so much etymological information for the gardener, the result of years of scholarship and original research by the distinguished author. Also listed are 3000 of the most widely accepted vernacular names, cross-indexed to their correct scientific names, an invaluable reference for gardeners, writers, and historians. Plant classification and binomial nomenclature are explained, and there are notes on the structure and pronunciation of botanical Latin. No other single source provides so much etymological information for the gardener.

About this title

About the Author

William T. Stearn (1911–2001) was one of Britain's most eminent botanists. During a career based first at the Royal Horticultural Society, then at the Natural History Museum, Stearn wrote some 470 books, articles, and monographs, ranging from detailed studies of plant genera, through histories and biographies, to books on botanical taxonomy, many of which have become standard works of reference.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The technical legality of botanical names is, unfortunately, little understood by many gardeners. Botanical names have no standing, that is have no claim to use and acceptance, unless they have been published and are otherwise in accordance with the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature. The rules and recommendations in this code have been the subject of debate and consideration at international congresses over a long period. Before 1866 there were no such internationally agreed rules, but long before then botanists had come to accept certain guiding principles and to follow procedures made standard by the example of leading botanists, notably Augustin Pyramus de Candolle (1778-1841) of Geneva.

DeCandolle, who was the author of numerous monographic works, set out in his Theorie elementaire de la Botanique (Paris; 1813) the main considerations, of which the basic ones were that the names should be (1) either Latin or of Latin form, because Latin was then the common language of civilized people, and (2) formed according to the rules of grammar, avoiding bilingual hybrids, such as a word part Latin, part Greek like aculeaticarpa, and that (3) the first to discover or to distinguish a plant had the right to name it, hence names should not be changed without good cause. He accordingly emphasized priority as a means of fixing names.

Edition details

• Publisher: Timber Press
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 088192556X
• ISBN 13: 9780881925562
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 373