RHS Latin for Gardeners: Over 3,000 Plant Names Explained and Explored: More than 1,500 Essential Plant Names and the Secrets They Contain

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This is a well made book, with beautiful illustrations and belongs on the bookshelf of every serious gardener. His carefully chosen alphabetical plant lists are useful once the reader has established the relevant chapter. RHS Latin for Gardeners by Lorraine Harrison explains all those tricky-to-pronounce botanical words attached to our dear plants, herbs and flowers. Flaveola and lutea mean yellowish, flavens means yellow, and luridus means pale yellow (the last being the opposite of what an English speaker might expect).

It contains 1,500 of the most useful and most widespread Latin names, organized into thematic chapters including Colour, Size, Form and Habitat. In addition, there are plant profiles and short biographies of plant explorers who have been memorialized in many genus and species names.Actually, most of Latin for Gardeners is a dictionary of epithets – the second or specific names of plants, not the first or genus name.

These are some of the questions answered in Peter Parker’s adventurous exploration of the mysteries of Botanical Latin. On the other hand, you might expect a plant with the epithet melliodorus ( Eucalyptus melliodorus) to be foul-smelling, but actually its name means it has the scent of honey. I very much enjoy learning what’s behind a name and have several books – alas, not this one but it sounds great. I learned that a tomato Solanum lycopersicon is from the Greek lyco "wolf" and persicon "peach" so a tomato is a wolfpeach, but here the genus name Solanum was ignored. Latin for Gardeners is useful, surprising, and beautiful—an accessible dictionary for everyone who puzzles over botanical identifications, an opportunity to get better acquainted with the extraordinary discoverers and namers of so many of our favorite plants, and a treat for all who enjoy the art and lore of the garden.Individual plants are also profiled throughout, showing how their names can illuminate their hidden histories. This book is a great starting point for beginning to learn the meaning of some common "Latin" botanical names. I love this site, full of top tips for growing your own and lots to appeal to those of us trying to do it on a budget. Beside history, genera and species, I want a list of vernacular names – those of the wild flowers with which we have been familiar all our lives.