| My orchid’s name – What does it really mean?? |
| Email me ....Macara@xtra.co.nz |
| Well, thanks to some excellent thinking on the part of some of the early Botanists, the system that was devised for naming these little beauties means that the orchid family has the most systematical & complete forms of naming out of any of the known plant families. This naming system is referred to as “Nomenclature”- nomen, being Roman & meaning family, & clature derived from the Latin word calo, meaning call or called. This method of naming orchids is universal, well, worldwide anyway, & means that whether the grower is from New Zealand, Timbuktu, or wherever they will have a complete understanding of the orchid's name. Here’s how it works The first name indicates the Genus of the plant, (genus meaning a group with common structural characteristics & usually containing several species), such as Cymbidium, Cattleya, Masdevallia etc. This name is always written with a capital letter at the beginning of the word. The second name is the species or the hybrid name & refers to a particular species or hybrid within the previously mentioned genus. If the second name is referring to a species, (a species is a group of plants sharing one or more characteristics which set them apart from any other group within that genus), it will always be written in small letters & in italics, such as Dendrobium speciosum. If, on the other hand, the second name is referring to a hybrid (a plant resulting from the crossing of two different species, or hybrids or any combination of these), the name will always start with a capital & never be in italics, such as Cymbidium Wildfire. Within any particular hybrid or species group there are likely to be many different clones (a plant that is raised from seed & all of its vegetative propagations thereafter). These may be given a clonal or cultivar name, this distinguishes between two or more forms of a particular species or hybrid. This would appear as the third name, & will always be between single quotation marks, such as Cymbidium Wildfire ‘No Smoke’ & Cymbidium Wildfire ‘Some Smoke’. At times you will see a plant name that has the second name crossed with another i.e. Cymbidium Wildfire X Cymbidium Lotsa Water, this signifies that this particular cross breeding has not yet been registered. If the cross is the result of two unregistered plants the names may appear in brackets i.e. Cymbidium (Wildfire X Lotsa Water) X (Lotsa Smoke X No Fire). You may also see on some plant labels an arrangement of capital letters at the very end of the name, these generally indicate that the plant, or its vegetative progeny has been granted some form of Merit Award, but that’s another story. |
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