Native Plants
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Ask Mr. Smarty Plants
Ask Mr. Smarty Plants is a free service provided by the staff and volunteers at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
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Friday - September 02, 2011
From: Plainville, IL
Region: Midwest
Topic: General Botany
Title: Dictionary of botanical names
Answered by: Nan Hampton
QUESTION:
I am looking for an online resource that will tell me what the botanical names mean, for example, Cornus florida. Why is it named that? Surely somewhere there is information that explains the meaning of each. I have a list of botanical names I would like to look up. Thank you for your time and consideration.ANSWER:
Here are several sites with definitions of botanical names:
Dictionary of Botanical Epithets
Botanary on Dave's Garden webpage.
The Meaning of Latin Plant Names from the SeedSite.
This next link is a group of short biographies of people whose names appear in the botanical names of Eastern Sierra plants:
These last two links tells how the Latin names are formed:
Botanical Binomials — What Do Plant Names Mean?
What Scientific Names of Plants Mean
Finally, here are three excellent paper resources:
Gledhill, David. The Names of Plants. 4th edition. 2008. Cambridge University Press. Older editions often can be found at secondhand book stores.
Stearn, William. Botanical Latin. 4th edition. 2004. Timber Press.
Borror, Donald. Dictionary of Word Roots and Combining Forms. 1960. McGraw-Hill.
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