Spirit of the Woods Garden Club Inc. held its monthly meeting on July 13. Deanna Hedlund, consumer horticulture educator with West Michigan MSU Extension, was the guest speaker. Her topic was Botanical Plant Names.
Plant taxonomy is the science of classifying and naming plants. It provides a globally consistent scientific name for every plant. There can be many common names for the same plant, especially regionally. So the scientific names eliminate ambiguity. Genetic research is causing many plants to be re-classified. The International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi and plants is the set of rules and recommendations dealing with botanical names.
Carl Linnaeus formalized the two-part format known as binomial nomenclature in the 1750’s. Every species name has two parts. The first part is the Genus which is a group of related plants. The second part is the specific epithet. This is often a descriptive word and it identifies a species within the genus. The names are derived from Latin and are italicized (or underlined when hand written). The genus is capitalized, the specific epithet is lower case. For example Purple Coneflower has a scientific name of Echinacea purpurea.
Within a species there can be naturally occurring variations, known as a variety and notated by “var.” Hybrids formed from crossing two different species are designated with an “x”. A subspecies is a group within a species that occurs naturally and results from differing geographies. It is represented by “subsp”. Cultivars are created through human selection and breeding. They are represented by a name in quotes and are not italicized. For example Hydrangea quercifolia ‘Little Henry’.
The next meeting will be held at noon on Monday, Aug. 10, at Oak Grove Hospitality Center. Cody Selewski, restoration and forestry specialist for Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy will present “Prescribed Burns – Restore and Sustain Protected Lands.”
For additional information about club meetings and activities, contact Beth Markowski at 616-401-3387 or via email at spiritofthewoodsgc@gmail.com. or visit Facebook page Spirit of the Woods Garden Club Manistee.
Spirit of the Woods Garden Club is a member of Michigan Garden Clubs Inc. and National Garden Clubs Inc.
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