List of descriptive plant epithets (I–Z)

Since the first printing of Carl Linnaeus's Species Plantarum in 1753, plant species have been assigned one epithet (name) for the species and one for their genus (a grouping of related species).[1] These scientific names have been catalogued in a variety of works, including Stearn's Dictionary of Plant Names for Gardeners. William Stearn (1911–2001) was one of the pre-eminent British botanists of the 20th century: a Librarian of the Royal Horticultural Society, a president of the Linnean Society and the original drafter of the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants.[2][3]

Vitis vinifera ("wine-bearing")

The first column below lists species epithets from Stearn's Dictionary, excluding proper nouns and proper adjectives (derived from the names of things, such as people, places, and genus epithets). Also excluded are some repetitive suffixes for plant parts and colours, and epithets used only in species names that, for a variety of reasons, are no longer widely accepted.

The third column frequently cites Charlton T. Lewis's An Elementary Latin Dictionary.[4] The last three columns indicate citations to Latin for Gardeners[5] by Lorraine Harrison, Botanical Latin[6] by Stearn (not to be confused with Stearn's Dictionary), and The A to Z of Plant Names by Allen Coombes. Almost all the epithets in the first column also appear in David Gledhill's The Names of Plants, and for those not covered verbatim, he covers similar words with different prefixes or suffixes.[lower-alpha 1]