Botanary - What is in a name?

[M Farooq]

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose...so wrote Mr. Shakespeare. Human names have many things implicit in them, for example, names can hint us about the cast, creed, country of origin, and at times religion etc. In the same way, the Latin names in this flora database have meanings. The Latin/ Greek names of plants may be intriguing for some or meaningless sounds for others. These names describe leaf forms, usage, colours, name of the discoverer, origin of the plant, history, and fragrance etc. Interested readers can make use of an excellent resource called BOTANARY (botanical dictionary) by Daves Garden. Almost, every plant name is available in this dictionary with a meaning.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/botanary/

For instance, our Neem, is Azadirachta indica, simply means a free tree from India. A careful re-reading of the genus Azadirachta will read like Azad... "Dirachta"...or Darakht or a free tree. Perhaps the person who named it saw the Neem growing freely everywhere in India.

In the same way, the plant, Bellis perennis means a "handsome perennial" and indeed it is. Once you read this entry, you will have to agree!

Plumeria rubra = Name of a French monk and rubra tells us that the flowers must be red :-)

[Muhammad Arif Khan]

Only true for the species

[Mustansir Billah]

Very interesting information Farooq sb.

[KBW]

Very interesting topic Farooq sb. There is a lot that we can learn from the scientific names of plants and animals. Every name has a reason and its very interesting to find what it is.

[M Farooq]

Very interesting information Farooq sb.

Very interesting topic Farooq sb. There is a lot that we can learn from the scientific names of plants and animals. Every name has a reason and its very interesting to find what it is.

Thanks. Another funny thing is that botanists, whenever they discovered a new plant, had to describe the whole plant in Latin. It is only one or two years that the international community started to accept English as a means of describing newly discovered plants. At times, scientific branches behave as a "closed group" so that nobody else can understand what they are talking about :-). I had purchased a Latin dictionary out of this hobby but it turned out that it is nowhere near the "free" Daves garden dictionary- in fact the best one so far in my quest for an online resource.