Gardener’s Latin
by Bill Neal (1992)
The author of this book was a southern chef, author of a cookbook, and also authored two collections of Southern recipes. He was known as an avid North Carolina gardener. The author of the book’s introduction, Barbara Damrosch, is a landscape designer and author of two gardening books.
Neal’s book is a glossary (partial dictionary) of botanical species names. Although many common plant names provide us with vivid imagery such as pussy-toes and pigweed, knowing a plant’s Latin name can help identify a specific plant and reveal something about the plant itself. For example, the plant we commonly call Baby’s Breath has a Latin name of Gypsophila paniculata. Gypsophila, meaning gypsum loving, reminds us this plant grows best in calcareous soil and paniculata reminds us the flowers are arranged in loose-spreading flower clusters.
As you may know, the Latin nomenclature for plants was developed by Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish naturalist, in the mid-eighteenth century. Linnaeus separated Genera of plants into species using Latin. Later this Latin was adapted to incorporate words from Greek and other languages. Today DNA is being used to identify plant relationships even more accurately. It will be interesting to see in the future what effect this has on plant names.
Neal’s glossary lists the Latin words used in species names which help to describe the origin, habitat, blooms, time of blooming, size, height, etc. of plants. It also provides the words describing plant stems, leaves, flower, and fruits.
The book is sprinkled with bits of information and plant lore. For example: (1) Kalmiaflorus kalmia is a genus of Mountain Laurel named for a student of Carl Linnaeus, who collected plants in the southern states in the 1700s. (2) Andre Michaux, a Frenchman, explored the Piedmont and Mountain regions of North Carolina and was the first botanist to identify Rhododendron catawbiensis (meaning Rhododendron from the Catawba River region of North Carolina) and (3) The Latin name of the plant we know as Spanish Moss is Tillandsia usneioides and get its species name from usnea, a lichen which grows on trees. It is not a moss, but a member of the Bromeliad family.
Unlike other books I have reviewed, this is not a book to sit down and read cover to cover, but one to dip into and out and to use as a reference when considering a plant’s Latin species name or reading some of the plant tags at a nursery.
Holly Sparrow, Headwaters Master Gardener