
If Its a Rose by Any Other Name, You
Could Look It UpBy Hank Becker February 13, 1997Ever try to find the scientific name of your favorite plant when all you
know is the common name? A new book compiled by scientists with USDAs Agricultural Research Service and the
Missouri Botanical Gardens should make the
search easier. Scientific and Common Names of 7,000 Vascular Plants in the
United States offers the most complete list of common names for plants of
all types--vegetable crops, weeds, shrubs, trees, grasses and flowers. The book includes an index of almost 200 pages of common names of
plants--11,000 names in all. The 92 rose entries range from
Arkansas rose (Rosa arkansana) to rose-ring blanket-flower
(Gaillardia pulchella) to wooly rose mallow (Hibiscus
lasiocarpus). Each scientific entry is linked with at least one common name. Many species
have several aliases. Viburnum alnifolium, for example, is known as
American wayfaring-tree, devils-shoestring, dogs-hobble, dogberry,
hobblebush, moosewood, tangle-foot, White Mountains dogwood and witchs
hobble. Unlike scientific names, no rules exist for recognizing a single accepted
common name for a particular plant. Common names can vary by region and change
over the years. Gardeners often must rely on the Latin name to find the plant most
appropriate for their needs. Gardening success can hinge on choosing the right
plant in terms of factors such as flowering time, cold hardiness, drought
tolerance or disease resistance. The book features 70 pages of scientific names with an index for each word
in the common name (like kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate), 14 pages of
important synonyms of the scientific name and an 8-page listing of the
scientific family tree of featured plants. The book is published by
the American Phytopathological
Society, St. Paul, Minn. Scientific contact: Amy Rossman, USDA-ARS
Systematic Mycology and Botany
Laboratory, Beltsville, Md., phone (301) 504-5364 U.S. Department of Agriculture | |