Species epithets

I have obtained and researched myself information for almost all the words used in the second part of names. The definition of species epithet is loose here and I include sub-species designations etc.

Pages of information are split by initial letter of the alphabet, click on the links.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Data sources

I have based this on scan and OCR of my copy of "Botanical Names and Terms" by George Frederick Zimmer, F R Hort S, F Z S, A M Inst C E. This was published in 1912 and is still referred to in works on botanical Latin. I believe it to be clearly out of copyright. If any member of Mr Zimmer's family would like to contact me about this then I would be only too pleased to hear from them. I hope that making his work available in this way will perpetuate the reputation of the work and enhance its usability by making searching easier. For more detail on my editing see below.

Inevitably when working on and extending this basis I have come across other sources that need acknowledgment. The other sources I have quoted directly from are referenced against each entry in the main pages. Where there is no reference then the source is myself aided by a host of books, online searches and dictionaries.

Contact me

The sources cited are:

This link takes you to the website.

Link here. This site seems to have been the work of one enthusiast (chuckg) from 1996 to 2002. Very comprehensive but lacking in the geographical epithets.

"Plant Names Simplified" by A T Johnson and H A Smith, Pub Landsmans Bookshop Ltd.

This is another old book reprinted recently. My copy has Hamlyn Publishing copyright for 1972. It seems to have been last revised in 1942. It is crying out for converting to electronic form as the epithets are found under Genus names - many of which have changed since. A good source for information about Genus name derivations.

"Botanical Names and Terms" by George Frederick Zimmer, Routledge, London 1912. I inherited this from my second cousin once removed.

As I said above I have scanned this and converted to text format. Apart from checking as carefully as I can for OCR errors (thankfully few - ABBYY Finereader is very good) I have spent a lot of time updating the geographical information. It is amazing how geographical designations change in a century or so. (Particularly in some areas such as Eastern Europe and the Balkans; South America has changed far less.)