第1759期:Learn Scientific Names to Understand Your Plants Better

Plant lovers often look at lists of plants or seeds for sale in the winter to plan their gardens for the coming year. Those lists usually have two names for each plant: a common name and a botanical, or scientific name. The botanical name is not in English, which makes a lot of people unsure about what it means or how to say it. The language is Latin. Its purpose is to help growers be sure that the plant they bring home is the one they wanted to buy. The problem with common names is that they are nicknames, or informal names, for plants. Many plants can share a common name. One plant can also have many common names. You can see how this can cause misunderstandings. For example, you may have heard the name “geranium.” The common name for the true Geranium is perennial cranesbill. The container plant people call the geranium is actually a Pelargonium.

植物爱好者经常查看冬季出售的植物或种子清单，以规划来年的花园。这些列表通常对每种植物都有两个名称：一个通用名称和一个植物学名称或学名。植物学名称不是英文，这让很多人不确定它是什么意思或怎么说。语言是拉丁语。它的目的是帮助种植者确保他们带回家的植物是他们想要购买的植物。通用名称的问题在于它们是植物的昵称或非正式名称。许多植物可以有一个共同的名字。一种植物也可以有许多通用名称。你可以看到这会如何引起误解。例如，您可能听说过“天竺葵”这个名字。真正的天竺葵的通用名称是多年生鹤嘴兰。人们称之为天竺葵的容器植物实际上是一种天竺葵。

The Latin system of naming goes back to the 1700s and Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus. His books Systema Naturae and Fundamenta Botanica created rules for classifying and naming plants in botanical Latin. For this reason, gardeners should try to become familiar with it. Linnaeus spent his life giving every plant and animal that he knew a two-part, or binomial, name. The two parts are: genus and species. These names are often based on the appearance of parts of the plant or animal. Linnaeus' International Code of Botanical Nomenclature sets rules for how plants should be named. They include:

拉丁命名系统可以追溯到 1700 年代的瑞典植物学家、动物学家和医生卡尔·林奈 (Carl Linnaeus)。他的著作 Systema Naturae 和 Fundamenta Botanica 制定了用植物学拉丁语对植物进行分类和命名的规则。因此，园丁应该尝试熟悉它。林奈一生都在为他所知道的每一种植物和动物起一个由两部分组成的或二项式的名字。这两个部分是：属和种。这些名称通常基于植物或动物部分的外观。林奈的《国际植物命名法典》为植物命名设定了规则。他们包括：

A plant name must start with a capitalized genus, The second part of the name is the species, written in lower-case, usual letter. Next, the name includes either a variety (if the plant is found in nature), cultivar (if the plant is created by a breeder) or hybrid name (if it is a cross between two plants, an "x" is used).

植物名称必须以大写的属开头，名称的第二部分是种，用小写字母书写。接下来，该名称包括品种（如果植物是在自然界中发现的）、栽培品种（如果植物是由育种者创造的）或杂交种名称（如果它是两种植物之间的杂交，则使用“x”）。

The International Botanical Congress has gathered every six years to examine and decide on new naming questions. The questions come up because of new genetic research and scientific findings. After all, Linnaeus did not have modern microscopes or DNA testing laboratories to decide which plants are related.For example, bleeding hearts, once officially called Dicentra spectabilis, were moved into the newly created Lamprocapnos genus several years ago. Their name is now Lamprocapnos spectabilis. The snapdragon, a popular garden flower, was once in the Antirrhinum genus. The Congress moved it into the plantain family, Plantaginaceae.

国际植物学大会每六年召开一次，以审查和决定新的命名问题。这些问题是由于新的基因研究和科学发现而出现的。毕竟，林奈 (Linnaeus) 没有现代显微镜或 DNA 测试实验室来确定哪些植物是相关的。例如，流血的心脏，曾被官方称为 Dicentra spectabilis，几年前被移入新创建的 Lamprocapnos 属。他们现在的名字是 Lamprocapnos spectabilis。金鱼草是一种流行的园林花卉，曾属于金鱼草属。国会将其移入车前草科车前草科。

Since no group controls the use of common names, the same plant may have several. Take Rudbeckia hirta. Some call it a black-eyed Susan, others say it is a yellow-oxeye daisy and others know it as the gloriosa daisy. Ask a garden center employee for a snowball bush, and you might walk out with a Hydrangea arborescens or a Viburnum plicatum. There is a big difference. The first one has large round flower heads that bloom in the summer. The second one has groups of smaller flowers and blooms in the spring. But both are beautiful. How can you learn the botanical name for a plant before you buy it? Search for the common name in the Royal Horticultural Society's free online Garden Plant Finder and get a list of the botanical names. You can also search for a botanical name and learn the common names.

由于没有任何团体控制通用名称的使用，因此同一家工厂可能有多个。以金光菊为例。有人称它为黑眼苏珊，有人称它为黄牛眼菊，还有人称它为嘉兰菊。向花园中心的员工要一株雪球灌木丛，你可能会得到一株绣球花或一株荚莲花。有一个很大的不同。第一个有大的圆形头状花序，在夏天开花。第二个有成群的小花，在春天开花。但是两个都很美。在购买植物之前如何了解植物学名称？在皇家园艺学会的免费在线园林植物查找器中搜索常见名称，并获得植物学名称列表。您还可以搜索植物学名称并了解常用名称。