botanical nomenclature

Botanical nomenclature is the formal naming of plants, from a scientific point of view. It has a long history, going back perhaps to Theophrastos, but anyway back to the period when Latin was the scientific language throughout Europe. The keystone event was Linnaeus adoption of binary names for plant species in his Species Plantarum (1753). This gave every plant species a name which remained the same no matter what other species were placed in the genus, and thus separated taxonomy from nomenclature. These species names of Linnaeus together with names for other ranks, notably the rank of family (not used by Linnaeus), can serve to express a great many taxonomic viewpoints.
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