What Do Flower Names Mean
Do you know your cauli-flower from your semper-flowering (begonia)? Do you know whether, when you see “long” in a flower name, it actually means long? English flower names, by and large, come from Latin words that might be used to describe flowers. This page explains how to analyze the Latin part of flower names, while the following page provides a list of flowers, so you can practice your new-found understanding of practical Latin. Binomial System of Flower Names Perhaps the first thing to note is that plants have at least two names, a genus name, which is broad and capitalized, and a lower case species name that is, well, more specific. There may also be a variety name, but that’s for a botany site to deal with. The name to the left is the genus and the one after it is the species. Sometimes these look very much the same. Latin Origin of Flower The ending of most of these words and the beginning of a few others derive from the Latin verb to flower, floreo. Technically or for those wh
