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[00:00.41] Plant lovers often look at lists of plants or seeds for sale in the winter to plan their gardens for the coming year.

[00:09.16] Those lists usually have two names for each plant: a common name and a botanical, or scientific name.

[00:19.00] The botanical name is not in English, which makes a lot of people unsure about what it means or how to say it.

[00:28.03] The language is Latin.

[00:29.89] Its purpose is to help growers be sure that the plant they bring home is the one they wanted to buy.

[00:37.85] The problem with common names is that they are nicknames, or informal names, for plants.

[00:45.02] Many plants can share a common name. One plant can also have many common names.

[00:53.52] You can see how this can cause misunderstandings.

[00:57.78] For example, you may have heard the name “geranium.” The common name for the true Geranium is perennial cranesbill.

[01:07.87] The container plant people call the geranium is actually a Pelargonium.

[01:15.31] The Latin system of naming goes back to the 1700s and Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus.

[01:25.93] His books Systema Naturae and Fundamenta Botanica created rules for classifying and naming plants in botanical Latin.

[01:38.41] For this reason, gardeners should try to become familiar with it.

[01:44.26] Linnaeus spent his life giving every plant and animal that he knew a two-part, or binomial, name.

[01:53.29] The two parts are: genus and species.

[01:58.07] These names are often based on the appearance of parts of the plant or animal.

[02:04.18] Linnaeus' International Code of Botanical Nomenclature sets rules for how plants should be named.

[02:12.69] They include:

[02:14.81] A plant name must start with a capitalized genus,

[02:20.65] The second part of the name is the species, written in lower-case, usual letter.

[02:30.21] 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).

[02:48.54] The International Botanical Congress has gathered every six years to examine and decide on new naming questions.

[02:58.37] The questions come up because of new genetic research and scientific findings.

[03:05.01] After all, Linnaeus did not have modern microscopes or DNA testing laboratories to decide which plants are related.

[03:15.37] For example, bleeding hearts, once officially called Dicentra spectabilis, were moved into the newly created Lamprocapnos genus several years ago.

[03:28.12] Their name is now Lamprocapnos spectabilis.

[03:33.43] The snapdragon, a popular garden flower, was once in the Antirrhinum genus.

[03:40.34] The Congress moved it into the plantain family, Plantaginaceae.

[03:46.18] 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.

[04:05.84] Ask a garden center employee for a snowball bush, and you might walk out with a Hydrangea arborescens or a Viburnum plicatum.

[04:18.05] There is a big difference.

[04:20.71] The first one has large round flower heads that bloom in the summer.

[04:25.49] The second one has groups of smaller flowers and blooms in the spring.

[04:30.54] But both are beautiful.

[04:33.46] How can you learn the botanical name for a plant before you buy it?

[04:38.24] Search for the common name in the Royal Horticultural Society's free online Garden Plant Finder and get a list of the botanical names.

[04:49.66] You can also search for a botanical name and learn the common names.