Annals of Botany 91: 404, 2003
© 2003 Annals of Botany Company
Gledhill, D. The names of plants. 3rd edn.
The names of plants. 3rd edn.
Gledhill D. 2002.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
£18·95 (softback). 326 pp.
The first 56 pages of this book present an authoritative and scholarly account of the history, etymology, anomalies and rules of plant nomenclature for native and garden plants. This, the third edition, has been updated to include explanations for the International Codes for both Botanical Nomenclature (2000) and Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (1995). The second part, which is a glossary in alphabetical order comprising over 7000 generic and species terms, has been expanded to include more commemorative names. The book concludes with a comprehensive bibliography.
Although there seems to be little justification in placing the morphological figures at random in the glossary, and although it would have been of interest to see a more detailed explanation for words like Sequoia and gratianopolitanus, these are very minor criticisms. Some knowledge of the phonetics of the Greek alphabet may be needed to appreciate fully all of the etymological references, and some basic Latin might also be useful, though help on this is freely available in the first part of the text.
The word botany is almost certainly derived from bos, Latin for ‘cow’, and relates to ‘the study of the plants eaten by cows’ (incidentally also giving us the word ‘butter’). For those of us interested in such facts, this book is an essential reference source, enabling a greater appreciation of the origins and definitions of some of the words in our own language, as well as satisfying our curiosity about the meanings of the names that we apply to plants, and often providing us with additional descriptive information helpful in taxonomy.
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