Brian explains about the importance of using Latin Names for wild flowers and trees, illustrated by reference to the Mallow family of flowers
Why use Botanical Latin?
In most wild flower guides the species are identified by their English or “common name” and by a two-word Latin name or “binomial”. For example, the Common Mallow seen growing in the grass of the Martello fields and in pavement cracks all around Seaford, has a botanical Latin binomial which is Malva sylvestris.
This Latin term is precise and is the same wherever you find the plant growing. The common name will obviously alter with the local tradition or language. Moreover the binomial has been agreed by botanists internationally, as will be the case for any changes.
An example, which is often cited, shows the problem with common names The term “Bluebell” may refer to
- The native woodland wild flower Hyacinthoides non-scripta
- The introduced Spanish Bluebell Hyacinthoides hispanica
- The Hybrid between these two Hyacinthoides x massartiana
- In Scotland, the Harebell Campanula rotundifolia
As a matter of interest the three Hyacinthoides species listed above are also called bluebells in Scotland
All four of these could be found in the Seaford area and if our records are to be useful it does appear that using the Latin names would be best.
How does it work?
The first word of the binomial for Common Mallow is the genus (Malva) and the second is the species epithet (sylvestris). The combination is unique to this plant species. It is often written in books with an abbreviation for the name of the botanist who first used the name. In this case, that would be Malva sylvestris L., for Linnaeus…(see below).
Subspecies and microspecies are sometimes recognized and Dandelions are a good example of the latter. The genus (plural genera) is a group of similar species. “Similar” in that anatomical features and genetic analysis indicates that the similarities and differences between those species are the results of evolution from a common ancestor.
The other species[1] in the genus have their own epithets, for example, moschata and arborea are another two of those in Malva and both can be found in our locality.
Genera are grouped into families which also have English and Latin names.
Mallow family
The Mallow family is Malvaceae. Plant family names all end in ***aceae
which is pronounced “ācee” with the “a” long, the “c” soft and double “e” as in “meet”.
Familiar genera from the Mallow family, apart from the Malva genus, are Marsh-mallow (Althea) and the garden plants occasionally found growing wild, Hollyhock (Alcea), and Abutilon (Abutilon), the garden shrub Hibiscus. and, perhaps surprisingly, Lime trees (Tilia). The common features that justify this grouping in the Malvaceae are the flowers and seed-heads but genetic analysis also mandates the grouping with lime trees
Flower structure of Mallow Family – reading the Latin binomial
Malva sylvestris L.
As noted above our Common Mallow is Malva sylvestris L.
The “L” indicates that this name was the one applied by the 18th century Swedish doctor and botanist, Carl von Linné or “Linnaeus” as he is almost always known. While it is not essential to add it, many books do so. It is of interest because it tells us how the name came to chosen.
Linnaeus’ book “Species plantarum” published in 1753 described all the plants that he knew about. He gave each one a binomial and he knew about a very large number. Obviously there had been earlier names and descriptions of the Common Mallow but the convention is to start with the Linnaean name from 1753 and any alterations, justified by new studies, are from then on. And there have been plenty of such alterations (see below)and of course new plant descriptions. However, Malva sylvestris has not needed changing since Linnaeus wrote that edition of his book.
Who first named the malva?
It so happens that a classical Roman naturalist originally gave the name Malva to Mallow. He was Pliny[2], the polymath who studied almost anything and everything. He died “with his boots on”, observing the eruption of Vesuvius while trying to rescue the refugees from Pompeii by sea. Malva translates as “soft”. In Pliny’s day and later, the leaves (which are soft) were used in a salve to soothe or soften skin problems or other irritations such as cough. As a doctor, Linnaeus would have known of this use and as an academic, he would have read Pliny in the original Latin. Hence, his adoption of Malva in his book[3]. However, the species epithet sylvestris was probably his own idea. It means “of woodland”, which may be where it is most often found in Sweden but, here in England, it is most often a plant of waste and rough ground by roads and railways. However, there is an agreed code of rules for making up names. While the botanists may agree that the genus name may be altered from that chosen by the first describer, the species epithet in always left the same. Hence sylvestris it will remain.
Researching the meaning of the Latin binomials can be a interesting topic. We are starting a page which will have, in alphabetical order, the Latin names of plants featured in our blog together with their English meaning. If you want more on that subject, we suggest reference to a book by David Gledhill, “The Names of Plants”[4].
More mallow names
For now, here are the some of the other Malvaceae chosen to show how they received their names
Malva moschata L.
Musk Mallow. moschata means “musk-like” and it isn’t really Latin but a transliteration of classical Greek μοσχος (with which Linnaeus would have also been familiar). More of a garden plant in British Isles, where it is at the northern limit of its natural range, you should watch out for it round here on grassy banks and fields with rich soils. It has been recorded and seems to be increasingly frequent.
Malva arborea (L.) Webb & Berthel.
Tree Mallow. Common in Seaford. Our photo shows a group in the Sea Garden. While this can be over 1 metre tall, it is not really a tree. The detail image of the “trunk” shows the leaf scars and this is simply a very robust main stem that has become woody. Its detailed structure is not that of a tree trunk. arborea means “tree-like” of course. It is native to British Isles but always near the sea on West and South Coasts especially.
The bracketed (L) indicates that it was first described by Linnaeus but that since then the genus name has been changed from the one he used. In fact, he called it Lavatera arborea. “Webb & Berthel” were two Victorian botanists who were known for their studies the flora of the Canary Islands. Their full names were Philip Barker-Webb and Sabine Berhelot. They did not consider the Tree Mallow different enough to merit being in a different genus and re-assigned it to Malva. Their view has prevailed and much more recently it has been supported by genetic studies. They are now the first describers but, by the rules, preserving Linnaeus’ species epithet. Thus he remains part of the name structure, but in brackets.
“But” you will be saying, “there are a whole group of garden plants called Lavatera”. True and they are considered by many (but not all) botanists to be a distinct genus from Malva. They mostly come from Southern Europe and around the Mediterranean. They have not naturalised in the British Isles and so do not appear in wild flower lists. The commonest one to find that has escaped over the garden wall, is the cultivated variety (or cultivar) Lavatera x Clementii Cheek. The Garden Tree Mallow. The x indicates it has been bred by hybridising naturally occurring species and/or cultivars.[5] Lavatera means nothing to do with washing or toilets. It commemorates two Swiss doctor/botanists, the Lavater brothers, who were Linnaeus’ contemporaries. Although the genus Lavatera is said to have been “raised” by another distinguished botanist of the time, de Tounefort, the first accepted publication of the name was by Linnaeus in his 1753 book, the starting point for derivation of the present names. While none of this helps much in identification, it does illustrate that Botanical Latin may not always be as precise as we would like to believe. It is important to check the currently agreed name which could have changed several times since your wildflower book was published (see footnote 5).
Althea officinalis L.
This is the Marshmallow and downstream of Alfriston along the Cuckmere, is one of THE places to find it in Sussex. Southern British Isles is about the northernmost extent of its natural range. Its root has a very long history of, being used for medicinal properties. Linnaeus as a doctor, would have been well aware of this.
He adopted the genus name Althea, (“Healer”) from a classical Greek author, Theophrastus. You may not heard of him but you probably recognise the name of Aristotle (4th Century BC) who like Pliny, studied everything. When he died he left his collections to Theophrastus who had been his pupil. Although it is not always clear what Theophrastus was describing, quite a number of Linnaeus’ names are taken from his writings.
The officinalis species epithet is very frequently applied to plant names. It means that the plant was used medicinally. It translates as “of the office”, that is the apothecary’s shop or the doctor’s rooms.
No other Althea species grows wild in British Isles but there is another one, A. cannabina, that can be found in gardens. The name reflects the cannabis- like leaves. Its natural home is the Near East. Note that the Genus name is usually abbreviated to A. like this, when its name has already been given elsewhere in the piece you are reading.
Alcea rosea L.
This is the garden Hollyhock and this is one of Linnaeus’ names. Again, he took it from a classical author, in this case Dioscorides. He was a Greek living in Rome during 1st century AD and he was a very successful doctor. Indeed most doctors in Rome at that period were Greek. He wrote a five volume book “De Materia Medica” which included descriptions of a huge number of medicinal plants. Again, one cannot always be sure what he was describing, but his book was still being read in Linnaeus’ day and he used many of the plant names given there. There is no particular meaning to the name Alcea but you might guess that rosea means pink.
Hollyhocks, long ago escaped from the garden. The gone-over flower heads will often contain viable seeds so they come up on tips from garden throw-outs, in Central and Southern England. It could easily turn up to be recorded in Seaford. It is classed as an Archeophyte which means introduced (probably) and naturalised or (possibly) native but certainly known to be growing wild in British Isles from Medieval times i.e. before 1500 AD. This date is used because from about that time, people started to study Botany more systematically, recording what plants they saw and where they were. Hence that is a date for which we have records of what was growing in the British Isles then and what must have arrived later (Neophytes).
Actually the origin of the English name is more interesting than the Latin one in this case. “Holihoc” is a Middle English[6] name meaning holy hoc and it actually referred to the medicinal Marsh Mallow. In turn, this comes from Old English “holiġe” (meaning “holy”) and “hoc” (meaning “mallow”). Holy because it was medicinal and hoc being a name for Mallows. Mallow it itself is of Middle English origin Mealwe which in turn comes from Malva the classical name used by herbalists from the days of Pliny in Roman times.
Abutilon theophrasti. Medik. is really a garden plant. It has the typical Mallow flowers and can escape from the garden to appear as a so-called “casual” plant here in British Isles. A flower was illustrated above (fig 2). The genus is tropical and subtropical so it won’t naturalise in Seaford. If it did come up, it would usually behave as an annual but in my garden one has come up two years running, though it did not set seed.
Note Linnaeus did not include this in his 1753 book. The genus Abutilon was named by Philip Miller who was head gardener at the Chelsea Physic garden in the 18th century. He was contemporary with Linnaeus but did not much like the binomial system. Look him up on the web Philip Miller – Wikipedia. However, Linnaeus praised Miller’s “Gardeners Dictionary” and used some of Miller’s plant names in later editions of his own book. This was period when exotic plants were being brought back by merchants from all over the world and named here in Europe by gentlemen botanists with classical education. However, Abutilon actually comes from medieval Arabic. The specific epithet seems to simply be a compliment to Theophrastus (above) and it was applied by another contemporary of Miller and Linnaeus, Friedrich Medikus who was director of the Botanic Garden at Mannheim in the Palatinate. It must have been described and named after Linnaeus published his first edition in 1753. Hence they get the credit as first describers (Miller for the Genus and Medikus for the species). Thus you may see just the genus “Abutilon Mill.” or the species Abutilon theophrasti Medik. Since the botanist’s names are usually abbreviated like this you can look them up through Wikipedia if you wish,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_botanists_by_author_abbreviation
Hibiscus L.
This final one is a classical Latin name that occurs in the poetry of Virgil. Some readers like me will have struggled to translate his work for O-level Latin. In turn it comes from Greek and meant (to Virgil) ..
Marsh Mallow. I never came across it then but Linnaeus must have done so.
Figure 7 Hibiscus Trionum |
The woody shrub Hibiscus syriacus L. self seeds easily (at least mine does) so it naturalises in suburban gardens and parks. However it is not usually listed as a wild plant in British Isles. That privilege goes to an annual herbaceous plant H. trionum L. This is Bladder Ketmia …
Ketmia is now an English word but again, being derived from an Arabic name. It comes from the Mediterranean, North Africa and Western Asia. As the English name suggests, its sepals inflate around the fruit to form a a bladder rather like Chinese lantern (Physalis). However, the Mallow-type flowers give away its family. If you find some it will be most probably a bird seed alien. trionum means “three claw” but I have to find one to see what feature of its anatomy that refers to. The Sussex Flora gives it recorded in Brighton and south of East Grinstead, but that was over 20yrs ago. Do keep an eye out for it. While not a “megatick” it’s well worth recording and, in any case, it is very attractive.
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[1] “Species” is both singular and plural
[2] Gaius Plinius Secundus also known as “Pliny the Elder” to distinguish him from his nephew who also wrote on natural history.
[3] Incidentally, his book was written in Latin which at that date would have still been understood by all university educated men in Europe.
[4] Gledhill, D. The Names of Plants, Cambridge University Press 4th Ed. 2008
[5] There is a different code of rules for naming horticultural varieties. This name was given by Dr M.R. Cheek from Kew but in his authoritative 4th Edition of “New Flora of the British Isles” Clive Stace refers this plant to Malva. Thus its full Latin name (at present) is Malva x Clementii (Cheek) Stace. Dr. Cheek is better known for his extensive studies on the Pitcher plants (Nepenthes) in the region called Malesia, corresponding to Malaysia, Indonesia (excepting New Guinea), the island of Borneo and the Philippines.
[6] i.e. the English that evolved after the Norman Conquest. It was the language of Chaucer. Modern English dates from around the Tudor period , the language of Shakespear and the King James Bible. “The language all foreigners should understand provided you speak clearly , slowly and, above all, LOUDLY.”
Brian Livingstone
