Since the first printing of Carl Linnaeus's '' Species Plantarum'' in 1753, plants have been assigned one epithet or name for their

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of ...

and one name for their genus, a grouping of related species. These

scientific names In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

have been catalogued in a variety of works, including '' Stearn's Dictionary of Plant Names for Gardeners''. William Stearn (1911–2001) was one of the pre-eminent British botanists of the 20th century: a Librarian of the Royal Horticultural Society, a president of the Linnean Society and the original drafter of the '' International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants''. The first column below lists seed-bearing species epithets from ''Stearn's Dictionary'', ''Latin for Gardeners'' by Lorraine Harrison, ''The A to Z of Plant Names'' by Allen Coombes, ''The Gardener's Botanical'' by Ross Bayton, and the glossary of Stearn's ''Botanical Latin''. Epithets from

proper noun A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (''Africa'', ''Jupiter'', ''Sarah'', ''Microsoft)'' as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (''continent, ...

proper adjective English orthography sometimes uses the term proper adjective to mean adjectives that take initial capital letters, and common adjective to mean those that do not. For example, a person from India is Indian—''Indian'' is a proper adjective. Etymo ...

s, and two or more nouns are excluded, along with epithets used only in species names that are no longer widely accepted. Classical and modern meanings are provided in the third column, along with citations to Charlton T. Lewis's ''An Elementary Latin Dictionary''. __FORCETOC__

Key

:LG = language: (L)atin or (G)reek :L = derived from Latin, or both Classical Latin and Greek (unless otherwise noted) :G = derived from Greek :H = listed by Harrison, and (except as noted) by Bayton :D = listed in ''Stearn's Dictionary'' :S = listed in Stearn's ''Botanical Latin'' :DS = listed in ''Stearn's Dictionary'', with the word or root word listed in ''Botanical Latin'' :C = listed by Coombes