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Introduction: History of Botanical Latin

As the late Professor William T. Stearn succinctly puts it in the Introduction to his monumental “ Botanical Latin ” (1992a): “Botanical Latin is best described as a modern Romance language of special technical application, derived from Renaissance Latin with much plundering of ancient Greek, mainly since 1700 and primarily through the work of Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778), to serve as an international medium for the scientific naming of plants in all their vast numbers and manifold diversity”.

The classical Latin language and its alphabet originated from Latium, a small tribal region in central Italy with Rome as the capital, but it has had a chequered history right from the start. Firstly, there is reasonable certainty it was not the original dialect of the ancient Romans, but evolved relatively rapidly from a combination of external influences:- (a) absorption of dialects of other tribes, mainly to the north of the Latium area, who were subjugated by the Romans during the 4^th century BC; and (b) an alphabet adapted from tribal predecessors of the Romans, the Etruscans, who peopled the area in central Italy, Etruria (a region mostly including modern Tuscany), who previously had acquired it from the Greeks. Further significant modification occurred when, during the 3^rd century BC, the Romans invaded the then group of Greek colonies, Magna Graecia, on the southern Italian peninsula and Sicily, where for the first time Latin came directly under Greek cultural influence. From this, the vocabulary and grammar went through a profound transformation at the hands of writers such as Cicero, Ovid, Pliny, Vergil and the Caesars and, after considerable further modification over the next 1000-odd years, led to the New Latin of science we see today.

However, in parallel to this Latin of classical authors, orators and poets, there was evolving a colloquial vernacular, the idiom spoken (but rarely written) by the common people: public servants, slaves, soldiers, traders, farmers, etc. in their everyday life throughout the provinces of the Empire (Bodmer 1944, Elcock 1960); from this vernacular there developed what has become referred to as Vulgar Latin. Following the collapse of the Roman Empire and the rising influence of Christianity, the various regions started to develop individual dialects of Vulgar Latin, which began to assert themselves in literature and over a lengthy period evolved into the modern Romance languages: Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Provençal, French, Italian, and Rumanian (Brown 1956).

Relevant to the subject of plants, however, among the first writers of classical Greek and Roman times were (1) the Greek pupil of Aristotle, Theophrastus (370–287 BC.)(“Enquiry into Plants” and “History of Plants”), credited with founding the scientific study of botany; (2) Gaius Plinius Secundus, Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD)(“Natural History”, 13 volumes of which were on botany alone!); and (3) the Greek physician Pedanios Dioscorides (c. 40–90 AD), whose great herbal in Greek describing some 600 plants he later translated into Latin as “De Materia Medica”.

There followed various modifications to the erudite written word of the classical authors, the changes no doubt somewhat influenced by the colloquial Vulgar Latin. During the late Middle Ages (in its narrow sense spanning roughly the 11^th–15^th centuries AD), like most writers on natural history of the day, the European herbalists used Mediaeval Latin, derived from the classical, as a medium for exchange of botanical information, while basing much of their writings on (often grossly misinterpreted) works from classical writers such as those noted above. Concurrently, as previously mentioned, variations of Vulgar Latin were gradually differentiating into the modern European Romance languages.

The rise of the Italian Renaissance during the 14^th century, with its cultural and scientific re-awakening, initiated a new round of major change and expansion of Mediaeval Latin culminating, especially during the 18^th–20^th centuries, in the modern, specialized New Latin we have today. The basic motivation for these last changes has been the discovery of many new plants and their (often microscopic) parts, requiring adoption of thousands of original Latin and Greek words. Creation of much of the new terminology was achieved by applying the simple device of assigning many of them new and technologically precise (but more-or-less analogous) meanings, meanings which in a botanical context would have been largely unintelligible to the original classical and mediaeval users; e.g.: calyx , “shell”; corolla , “garland”; stigma , “point”, “mark” or “brand”; etc.

From all this developmental modification, botanical taxonomy has acquired a vast and valuable literary legacy. As Stearn mentions ( loc.cit. p.9), original descriptions/diagnoses in Latin now exceed 400,000, and there are many standard monographic and floristic works in Latin containing comprehensive botanical information. Of these, Linnaeus’ Species Plantarum (1753) and Genera Plantarum (5^th edn 1754), are, of course, the starting points of modern botanical nomenclature. Other major ones include Kunth’s Nova Genera et Species Plantarum (1816–25) and Bentham & Hooker’s Genera Plantarum (1862–3). Multi-authored works include De Candolle’s Prodromus systematis naturalis regni vegetabilis (1824–69) and Monographiae Phanerogamarum (1878–93), andEngler’s Das Pflanzenreich (1900–). For Australia, particularly, should be mentioned Robert Brown’s Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae (1810) and Ferdinand von Mueller’s Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae (1858–82).

The ability to read botanical Latin has thus become virtually essential for plant taxonomists. A modest ability to write in it is also necessary for purposes of valid publication of new plant names, where a Latin diagnosis or description has been obligatory since January 1935 (see McNeill et al . (2006), ICBN, Art. 36.1). Thus the advantage to taxonomists of being able to understand botanical Latin is clear; but there exist other benefits, perhaps less obvious. For example, as William Stearn points out ( loc .cit., p. 12): “The care needed to draw up a description in Latin is often in itself an aid to exact description in the writer’s mother tongue...”. Indeed, although not obligatory for new taxa (the minimum requirement is adequate Latin diagnoses), the ICBN recommends (Art. 36A.1) that an author, as well as providing diagnoses, should also publish full Latin descriptions, in addition to those in the language of the paper or monograph. Stearn goes on to stress the additional benefit to botanists of adapting, for their own use, drafted Latin descriptions by their skilled predecessors. Another, associated purpose where a knowledge of Latin/Greek terminology etc. can be useful is the coining of generic and epithet names for new taxa.

It follows that a practicing plant taxonomist at an early stage needs to become reasonably conversant with botanical Latin grammar, syntax and terminology, and a bilingual glossary, inter alia , is obviously an essential tool. Several such printed works already exist, mostly in one of the European languages including English (e.g. the extensive Vocabulary incorporated in William Stearn’s “Botanical Latin” ). However, the coming of the computer age has created powerful tools previously unavailable to the Latin lexicographer. Not only has it given the opportunity for huge savings in storage space of the written word, allowing far greater and more detailed coverage, but also the ability for instant manipulation by the user (searching, sorting, filtering and rearranging) for cross-referencing purposes of dictionary-type word lists. These advantages are the motivation for this electronic Glossary.

Scope of the Glossary

As the main aim of this work is strictly practical from the botanist’s viewpoint, I have made no serious attempt to go into semantics of the original Latin and Greek from which the names and terminology have evolved. The interested user can readily extract this information from some works listed in the Bibliography below, especially Brown (1956), Hereman (1868), Jackson (1928), Jaeger (1966), Lewis (1997) and Liddell & Scott (1974), as well as conventional dictionaries. For transliteration of Greek characters into Roman, I have tried to follow as closely as possible the advice of Stearn (1992a).

The subject matter here is centred on plant morphology, but peripheral subjects such as geography, ecology, chemistry, measurement, etc. are included where thought relevant. All parts of speech are treated, but with a strong bias towards nouns, adjectives (including a wide selection of comparatives and superlatives), adverbs, suffixes, prefixes; also prefixal “1st component” stems (mostly of Greek noun and adjective origin) potentially involved in compound terms . (In the case of geographical place names, only those mostly in use as adjectival epithets are listed as such; but the Locative case-inflexion for geographical nouns has been excluded, being rarely used in Latin script except in the case of book titles). Of pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions and verbs , only those considered the most useful in a botanical context have been covered. In the case of verbs, the 1^st & 3^rd person singular and plural (active and, if existent, passive voices) of the present and perfect indicative are usually given plus their infinitives (and in a few cases subjunctives ), with their conjugation groups (1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th) indicated in the Column 5 of the glossary’s Table. A few of the more useful deponent and irregular verbs are also included under this treatment; but gerundives and the large number of participles (active present and perfect past) are all treated as adjectives , since in modern botanical Latin (as is so often the case in English) it is this purpose for which they are most useful. However, where their origin is directly from a verb, this is indicated by “gerundive”, “participle” or “part.” in Column 4.

The great majority of the above Latin “adjectives” have been given their true English literal meanings; but it was considered superfluous to also include the alternative English terms that are merely close transliterations of the equivalent Latin (e.g. campanulate = bell-shaped, from campanulatus ). As these are readily reconstructed from Latin into English they have been largely excluded, unless (a) there’s no precise English equivalent, (b) they’re too obscure to be able to translate concisely, (c) they have an additional, more general English meaning, or (d) they are synonyms or modifications of other Latin terms.

I have leant heavily on a range of printed publications for source material (some going back to the 19^th century). These include language textbooks & histories; botanical glossaries and other terminological dictionaries; and various floras and related botanical works; (see the Bibliography below). Of these, the following works of more recent date are particularly recommended as useful adjuncts to the Glossary: Baranov (1968); Brown (1956); Jackson (1928); Jaeger (1966); Lawrence (1995); Lewis (1997); Liddell & Scott (1974); Prior & Wohlberg (1995); Simpson (1964); Stearn (1992a); Woods (1966).

Table Structure, Contents & Use

This electronic, database-structured Glossary of English/Latin/Greek terms consists of a simple “flat file” Table of 15 columns (“Fields”) and about 25,000 rows (“Records”). This matrix structure is considered most suitable for easy “dictionary-type” referencing, since it lends itself to both the rapid re-arranging of fields, and the searching, sorting and filtering of individual records.

( Note: No Table column or row can be permanently added or deleted ).

The following operational notes are intended for first-time users (a general familiarity with basic computer, keyboard, mouse, scroll- and tool-bar operation, and the Microsoft Windows™ operating system, is assumed), and can be ignored by those who are familiar with Microsoft Access™. More comprehensive instructions can be found from the pull-down Help menu after opening the glossary Table.

To save screen/column space, various symbols and abbreviations have been used in the Table; (see under Symbols & Abbreviations below). All English words are listed individually, but numeric values and terms of measure, because they are basically mathematical, for convenience are listed under these two English alphabetic headings. Other groups (colour, geography and nomenclature) can be found initially by searching/filtering for these terms from the Part of Speech Field.

Viewing the structure of the Table’s Fields:

An overall view of the Table structure can be obtained by clicking the “setsquare” button labelled “Table View” on the top-left of the screen (or by selecting Table Design from the View pull-down menu). The Design View will appear showing a list of the Fields on which the database is built, together with a brief explanation of each. At the same time, the Table View button will have changed from a “setsquare” to a “table matrix”; click this button again to return to the Table (Datasheet View) .

( Note: The contents of Design View cannot be changed ).

Selecting and Resizing the Table’s Fields and Records, and moving Field columns:

Whole Fields (i.e. columns) are selected by clicking the mouse pointer on the Field heading (the pointer will become vertical). Individual Records (i.e. rows) are selected by clicking in the marginal column at extreme left of the window and adjacent to the record needed (the pointer will change to horizontal).

To resize a column, adjust the pointer onto the right margin of the Field name heading until it changes to a double-arrow, then double-click. This will automatically resize the column width to suit the longest entry showing on the screen in that column, or the Field Name, whichever is the longer. However, it can also be adjusted manually by dragging the double-arrow to left or right, as desired. To resize rows, in the extreme left margin adjust the pointer onto the border between two rows until it changes to a double-arrow, then gently drag up or down; this will resize all rows automatically to your choice of depth.

Fields can be temporarily re-arranged relative to each other on the screen. Place the pointer on the Field heading to obtain a down arrow, and click (the column will be selected and the arrow change to upward-diagonal), then click-and-drag to the margin between the Fields where you want to move it. This margin will darken to indicate the moment to release the mouse button.

Finding data:

To find a particular term in a Record, select the Field in which it is thought to occur, then choose Find from the Edit menu (or click the “Find” button on the toolbar). In Find What of the displayed dialogue box, type the value required and if necessary select other optional search criteria available from this box, then click the Find First button. Access finds the first occurrence, and if you think there are others, go on clicking the Find Next button, until no more have been found.

Sorting:

The contents of any Field (column) can be quickly sorted alphabetically (either ascending or descending order) by selecting the required column, then choosing Sort from the Records menu (or click the appropriate “Sort” button on the toolbar).

Filtering:

Although it is generally useful to have a particular Field sorted alphabetically, with such a large number of Records it is tedious to have to scroll a long way to find the word or group required; and in any case some may not always occur as the first word of the Record entry in that Field. More convenient would be to retrieve immediately only those records specifically containing the term needed.

Retrieval by Filtering can be achieved in more than one way (see Help menu for a full coverage). However, the simplest method is to do a Find as instructed above - the first ‘find’ will be selected. Cancel the Find dialogue box, make sure the particular term wanted is highlighted, and then from the Records/Filter menu choose Filter by Selection (or click the “Apply Filter” button on the toolbar) to produce the filtered list. If the Field column under consideration was not already ordered alphabetically, if needed the resulting filtered list can now be sorted. The filter can be cancelled by selecting Records/Remove Filter/Sort (or by clicking the depressed toolbar button, now flagged as “Remove Filter”). ( Note: standard abbreviations of Latin/Greek terms are not listed alphabetically, so the filter method needs to be applied anyway, either individually or simply by searching/filtering for the term “abbr.” to provide a list).

Freezing/Unfreezing fields:

If it is required that one or more Fields remain visible while scrolling horizontally across others, these can be ‘frozen’ on the left of the screen. For example, for a particular operation you might always want to see the English and Base Fields. To do this, click the arrow on the Field heading (to select more than one, drag the arrow across adjacent Fields). Then from the Format menu, choose Freeze Columns . To release the ‘freezing’ choose Unfreeze Columns in the Format menu. Note that if columns away from the leftmost are selected for freezing, they are moved automatically to the left of the screen, and will remain there even after unfreezing. To return them to their original position, select those columns and drag them to where you want them, then release the mouse button.

Hiding/Unhiding Fields:

Occasionally you may want to ‘hide’ (temporarily eliminate from the screen) one or more columns that you are not currently using so as to see more of other columns. To do this, select the column(s) by clicking on the Field heading, and from the Format menu choose Hide Columns . To restore the hidden column(s), from the same menu choose Unhide Columns and select the one(s) required by restoring a tick to their box(es), then click the Close button. The same process can be achieved by just selecting from the Format menu the Unhide Columns option first, and then quickly ‘hiding’ or ‘unhiding’ appropriate columns.

Printing:

All or any part of the glossary can be printed by selecting Print from the File menu, then indicating in the dialogue box particular details required. If only some records or columns are wanted, highlight those before selecting Print .

Bibliography

• Baines, James A. (1981). “Australian Plant Genera”, Soc. Growing Australian Plants.
• Baranov, A. (1968). “Basic Latin for Plant Taxonomists”, Harvard Univ. Herb., Cambridge, Mass.
• Bodmer, F. (1944). “The Loom of Language” (ed. L.Hogben), Allen & Unwin, London.
• Brown, Roland W. (1956). “Composition of Scientific Words”, (rev. edn; 1978 repr.), Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C.
• Debenham, C. (1978). “The Language of Botany”, revised edn, Soc. Growing Australian Plants.
• Eckel, P.M. (2009). “Mrs Zander’s Libelli Latini” ( Res Botanica web site, p.p.). Missouri Botanic Garden, St. Louis.
• Elcock, W.D. (1960). “The Romance Languages”, Faber & Faber, London.
• Gepp, C.G. & Haigh, A.E. (1888). “A Latin-English Dictionary”, (1925 impr.), Longmans, Green & Co., London.
• Greuter, W. et al . (ed.)(2000). “International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (St. Louis Code)”, Regn. Veg . vol. 138, Koeltz Sci. Books, Königstein, Germany.
• Hendricks, Rhoda A. (1969). “Latin Made Simple”, W.H.Allen, London.
• Hale, G.H. & Buck, C.L. (1903). “A Latin Grammar” (repr. 1973), Alabama U.P., Huntsville.
• Hereman, Samuel (1868). “Paxton’s Botanical Dictionary”, 2^nd edn, Bradbury, Evans & Co., London.
• Hyam, R. & Pankhurst, R. (1995). “Plants and their Names: A Concise Dictionary”, Oxford U.P., Oxford.
• Jackson, B. Daydon (1928). “A Glossary of Botanical Terms”, 4^th edn (1953 repr.), Duckworth & Co., London.
• Jaeger, Edmund C. (1966). “A Source Book of Biological Names and Terms”, 3^rd edn, Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Illinois.
• Jeffery, C. (1989). “Biological Nomenclature”, 3^rd edn, Hodder & Stoughton, London.
• Lawrence, E. (ed.) (1995). “Henderson’s Dictionary of Biological Terms”, 11^th edn, Longman Sci. & Techn., Harlow, U.K..
• Lawrence, George H.M. (1951). “Taxonomy of Vascular Plants”, Macmillan Co., New York.
• Lewis, Charlton T. (1997). “An Elementary Latin Dictionary”, (new impr.), Oxford U.P., Oxford.
• Lewis, Charlton T. & Short, Charles (1879). “A Latin Dictionary” (1984 impr.), Oxford U.P., Oxford.
• Liddell, H.G. & Scott, R. (1974). “Greek-English Lexicon” (abridged), Oxford U.P., Oxford.
• Lincoln, R.J., et al . (1982). “A Dictionary of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics”, Cambridge U.P., Cambridge.
• Linnaeus, C. Species Plantarum (1^st edn 1753) and Genera Plantarum (5^th edn 1754)
• Lumley, Peter & Spencer (1991). “Plant Names: A Guide to Botanical Nomenclature”, 2^nd edn, Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne.
• McNeill, J. et al (2006). “International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (Vienna Code)”, Regn. Veg . vol. 146.
• A.R.G. Gantner Verlag KG, Germany.
• Macura, P. (1979). “Elsevier’s Dictionary of Botany”, vols. I & II, Elsevier Sci. Publ. Co., Amsterdam & New York.
• Mahoney, A. (2001). “Allen & Greenough’s New Latin Grammar” , Focus Publ. R. Pullins Co., Newburyport, Mass.
• Orchard, Anthony E. (ed.) (1999). “Flora of Australia vol. 1: Introduction”, 2^nd edn, ABRS/CSIRO, Canberra/Melbourne.
• Paterson, J. & Macnaughton, E.G. (1939). “The Approach to Latin”, 2^nd edn (1955 repr.), Oliver & Boyd, London.
• Posner, R. (1979). “Romance Languages”. In: Encycl. Brit . 15^th edn, vol.15 pp. 1025–1044, Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., Chicago, London, etc.
• Prior, R.E. & Wohlberg, J. (1995). “501 Latin Verbs” , Barron’s Educational Series, Inc., NY.
• Rickett, H.W. et al . (ed.) (1968). “An Annotated Glossary of Botanical Nomenclature”, Regn. Veg . vol. 56, Intern. Assn. Pl. Taxon., Utrecht, Netherlands.
• Simpson, D.P. (1964). “Cassell’s New Latin-English/English-Latin Dictionary”, 3^rd edn, Cassell & Co., London.
• Smith, William (1872). “A Smaller Grammar of the Latin Language” 2^nd edn, John Murray, London.
• Smith, William (1877). “A Latin-English Dictionary” 14^th edn, John Murray, London.
• Stearn, William T. (1992a). “Botanical Latin”, 4^th edn, David & Charles, London.
• Stearn, William T. (1992b). “Stearn’s Dictionary of Plant Names for Gardeners”, (1996 repr.), Cassell Publ. Ltd., London.
• Walker, Peter M.B. (ed.) (1988). “Chambers Science and Technology Dictionary”, W. & R.Chambers Ltd., Cambridge.
• Wheelock, Frederic M. (1995). “Wheelock’s Latin” 5^th edn, HarperCollins Publ. Inc., New York.
• Woodhouse, S.C. (1910). “English-Greek Dictionary: A Vocabulary of the Attic Language”, (repr. 1954), Routledge & Sons, London. (Internet facsimile by Univ. Chicago Library available: http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/efts/Woodhouse/).
• Woods, Robert S. (1966). “An English-Classical Dictionary for the Use of Taxonomists”, Pomona College, Claremont, California.
• Wormald, R.D. (1950). “Longmans’ Latin Course”, Longmans, Green & Co., London.

Symbols & Abbreviations

–	[= en-dash]: ( a ) if attached to a single letter or term, indicates a prefix or suffix, either the stem as given or as irregularly declined (often in nom./acc. case). (Note: Latin or Greek prefixes already occurring as part of Anglicised terms are not repeated separately in the ENGLISH field) ( b ) if inserted between terms, means “through to”, i.e. indicating range of values
(A)	adjectives with case-endings of 1st & 2nd declension nouns
(B)	adjectives with case-endings of 3rd declension nouns (exc. the abl. sg.: “-i” not “-e”)
(C)	adjectives with Greek suffix “–odes” or “–oides” (= “–resembling”)
( text — )	contains the phrase defining the precise English meaning of the term
(= text )	contains the definition or synonym of a term or phrase
( text )	contains letter(s) indicating an optional alternative spelling
( vowel(s) )-	indicates the usual connecting vowel (if required) of compounding stems
/	[= forward-slash]: “or”
[letter(s)-]	applied only to some prefixes forming compounds; specifies the letter(s) beginning the primary stem to which the particular prefix is attached
[numeral]	a device used merely to separate duplicated English terms; (the Microsoft Access® design setting of the ENGLISH field is: ‘Indexed/No Duplicates’). However, the numerical sequence is arranged to parallel, as far as practicable, the alphabetical sequence of the corresponding Latin/Greek terms
[text]	either: ( a ) contains supplementary information ( b ) in the case of a true suffix, defines the resultant shift in meaning of the stem by the modifying suffix ( c ) where the suffix is enclitic (non-modifying), specifies its intrinsic meaning
<	[before numerals]: “less than”
±=	“more or less equal to”
2D	current term applied to 2-dimensional parts or features
3D	current term applied to 3-dimensional parts or features
abbr.	abbreviation
abl.	ablative case
acc.	accusative case
a.v.	active voice
adj.	adjective; (Note: the gender sequence given of all adjectival declension is: masculine-feminine-neuter ; some rare cases, usually words of Greek origin, have two masculine declensions as well as feminine and neuter)
adv.	adverb
bot.	botanical, botany
cf.	Latin imperative a.v. “confer”, = “compare (together with)”
compd	compound
compt	component
conjug.	conjugation
conjun.	conjunction
cons.	consonant
dat.	dative case
depon.	deponent
diff.	different, differently
dimin.	diminutive
esp.	especially
exc.	except
foll.	following
fr.	fruit, fruiting
funct.	function
fut.	future tense
gen.	genitive case
geogr.	geographical, geography
Grk	Greek
HCC.	“Horticultural Colour Chart” (R.F.Wilson, The Brit. Colour Council, London, 1938–40)
I	1st declension noun
II	2nd declension noun
III	3rd declension noun
III.i–xi	subgroups of 3rd declension nouns based on the phonetic nature of their stem; (see W.T. Stearn, “Botanical Latin”, David & Charles, London, 1992, pp. 59–61, 72–87)
indecl.	indeclined
infl.	inflorescence
intens.	intensive
interrog.	interrogative
irreg.	irregular
IV	4th declension noun
i.v.	imperative voice
Linn.	Linnaeus
lit.	literally
LLtn	Late Latin
Ltn	Latin
Ltn/Grk	Root is the same or similar in Latin/Greek; the order given has no significance for origin.
MHC.	“Methuen Handbook of Colour” (Methuen & Co., London, 1963)
NLtn	Neo-Latin, i.e. post-Rennaisance Latin, incl. that used for scientific nomenclature
nom.	nominative case
no., nos.	number, numbers
noun c.	noun - common gender, i.e. masculine or feminine (but not neuter)
noun f.	noun - feminine gender
noun m.	noun - masculine gender
noun n.	noun - neuter gender
p.	participle
perf.	perfect tense
psn	person
pl.	plural
prep.	preposition
pres.	present tense
pron.	pronoun
p.v.	passive voice
Rom.	Roman
relat.	relative
sg.	singular
subj.	subjunctive mood
V	5th declension noun
vow.	vowel
w.r.t.	with reference to
x-ref.	cross-reference

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