Gardiner’s Latin

Gardener’s Latin by Bill Neal is a fun, informative book that is full of Latin, and rich with the origin, lore and meanings of botanical names. I discovered the book when I was just getting interested in gardening, but well before I started taking classes at Merritt College. I studied French in high school and got hooked on language and the meaning of words, so the book appealed to me on several levels.

The book format is a glossary of Latin terms in alphabetical order, with fascinating bits of lore in the side bars. Examples of Latin words used in botanical names:

Words about color:	Albus – white Azureus – azure, sky blue Purpureas – purple Rufus – red, reddish
Words about shape:	Bilobus – having two lobes Crepidatus – slipper-shaped, shoe-like Lanceus – spear shaped Orbicularis – round, shaped like a wheel
Words about places:	Africanus – of or from African Caribaeus – of or from the Caribbean Oreganus – of or from Oregon, United States Ruthenicus – from Ruthenia, now known as western Russia
Words about direction or time:	Meridionalis – southern, pertaining to or flowering at noon Orientalis – eastern, of the dawn Pomeridianus – of the afternoon, flowering after noon Submersus - submerged
Words that are descriptive:	Bambusoides – with leaves or growth like bamboo Floridus – flowering, full of flowers Osmanthus – fragrant-flowered Zebrinus – zebra-striped
Words that describe uses:	Medicus – useful as a medicine, curative, of Media (Iran) Olifera – producing oil Religiosus – used for religious purposes, sacred Venenatus – poisonous (don’t use!)
Words about people:	Imperatricis – of the Empress Josephine Linnaeanus – in honor of Linnaeus Narcissiflorus – with flowers like Narcissus (mythical) Regina – of the queen, specifically, Queen Marie of Belgium

HTML Tables

This is a great companion book when you are figuring out the meaning of  Latin plant names.

Latin No More

An Eden by the Bay reader sent a link to this New York Times article: Flora, Now in English, by James S. Miller. Starting in 2012, the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature no longer requires plant diagnostics (the physical description) to be written in Latin; it can now be written in English (the genus and species still needs to be in Latin). Another change is that publication in an online journal has the same validity as publication in a print journal. These changes were formalized at the International Botanical Congress held in Australia in July 2011.

International Botanical Conress 2011 (IBC 2011):
see Congress Resolutions (Resolultion 5) 

These changes are important for speeding up the process of naming and describing plants today. According to the article, there may be as many as 100,000 plant species that are not known to science and waiting to be cataloged. Many of those plants are considered rare or endangered, as civilization continues to encroach on nature. Some plants are endemic to a single, limited place on the planet, and may become extinct before even recognized.

I knew about Latin names of course, but hadn’t realized that Latin was required for the diagnostics as well. I researched that requirement a bit more, and learned that they chose Latin because, as a “dead language,” it would not be as subject to change as a living language. A living language adds words and changes meaning over time. Though English changes continually, it is currently the business language used worldwide so is accessible to many more people than Latin. The move to recognize electronic publication was inevitable, in my opinion. It will be interesting to see how these changes impact the race to catalog the world’s plant life.

Eden by the Bay – First Anniversary

Yesterday the Eden by the Bay blog celebrated its first anniversary! That means 154 posts covering everything from Mediterranean climates, desert plants, arborists, pruning, and vegetable gardening to Sunset climate zones, roof top gardening, great gardening books, holidays, movies with plant movie stars, and gardening history. For the most part, I’ve stuck with the original charter of gardening in the San Francisco Bay Area. But, I soon found that there is a connection between the larger botanical and gardening world, and the specific world of gardening in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Welcome to Eden: The first post!

I’ve learned a lot about blogging in the last year, and had fun trying out the Google Blogspot tools. I’ve especially enjoyed interactions with the Eden by the Bay community. We have readers from all over the world, including Russia, British Isles, Canada, India, Pacific Rim, Europe, Eastern Europe, Australia, Africa, and the Middle East, to name a few, in addition to the Americas. I love having gardening friends all over the world! I also love getting links to interesting articles from readers, and try to share them. Keep them coming!

It has been a great year. I plan to keep going and hope you’ll continue joining me on the wonderful journey of gardening, whether in the San Francisco Bay Area, or in the wide world of gardening!

Botanical Names

Each plant species is assigned a single binomial name, comprised of two parts – the genus and the species. The scientific name is in Latin or a Latinized version of a word (such as a Latinized Greek word). Application of the binomial nomenclature for plants is governed by the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants. This system of assigning binomial nomenclature is attributed to Carl Linnaeus. A plant species may have many common names, but only one scientific name. If a conflict arises, such as discovering that a single plant has been identified twice, the oldest name stands.

Initially the Latin names seem confusing. With familiarity, they become a clue to the plant, filled with description, history, place names, habit, habitat, seasons, and size. I find the lore and history fascinating, and often find the Latin name sticks with me once I understand its meaning.

The Latin name for Cedrus atlantica 'Glauca' gives us some information about the tree:

• Cedrus - ancient name for cedar; indicates that the tree was initially thought to be a cedar, but was reclassified in the Pinaceae (pine) family.
• Atlantica - name for the Atlas mountains of Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco in North Africa, the tree's native habitat. I can understand its requirements once I consider what I know about mountains and the hot, dry climate of North Africa.
• Glauca - a whitish or bluish waxy coating, which describes the waxy blue appearance of its needles.



Family: Pinaceae
Botanical name: Cedrus atlantica 'Glauca'
Common name: Blue Atlas Cedar



 The Latin name for Prunus cerasifera likewise gives us information about the tree:

• Prunus - plum; prunus seeds are wrapped in a fleshy drupe that resembles a plum.
• Cerasi - cherry, indicating the fruit's small size and resemblance to a cherry.
• Fera - wild (like feral), referring to the tree's tendency to move from cultivation to naturalizing. This helps explain why so many of these trees crop up along the freeways in the Bay Area.

 

Family: Rosaceae
Botanical name: Prunus cerasifera
Common name: Cherry Plum

Plant Classification

Understanding plant classification, or taxonomy, is important for identifying plants. The scientific classification system with which I am most familiar has its roots in the work Systema Naturae by Carl Linnaeus (1700s), which categorizes plants based on physical characteristics. The classification system follows a set of rules to place plants into groups or categories in a hierarchical structure to show some relationship. Using a rose as an example, notice that the hierarchy moves from the top level (the plant family) through various categories to a specific rose, Rosa banksiae:

• Kingdom: Plantae (the plant family)
• Division: Magnoliophyta (or Angiosperms – a seed bearing plant, where the seed is not “naked,” but enclosed in ripened ovaries, or fruits)
• Class: Magnoliopsida (or Dicotyledonae – flowering plants that are not grassy or lily-like)
• Order: Rosales (one of the Dicots in the Magnoliopsida class)
• Family: Rosaceae (one of the families in the Rosales order)
• Genera: Rosa (one Genus in the Rosaceae family)
• Species: Rosa banksiae (a specific rose in the Rosa Genus; common name: Lady Bank's Rose)

Rosa banksiae (Lady Bank's Rose) photographed by J.A. Palmer.
New York Public Library, digital library (ID G92F023_026ZF).
This media file is in the public domain in the United States. This applies
to U.S. works where the copyright has expired, often because its
first publication occurred prior to January 1, 1923.

The scientific classification system has been modified many times over its two-hundred-plus year history, and is still undergoing change. Other systems have been proposed and tried. Many classification changes have been implemented as we learn more about genetics, and see relationships that were not as obvious when relying only on physical plant characteristics. While a new classification system evolves, the Family, Genera, and Species are the most useful categories for gardeners to understand and identify plants.

Hanging Gardens of Babylon

In The History of Gardens, Christopher Thacker explores the idea of the ‘paradise garden’ as being a main element in garden history. The word ‘paradise’ comes from a Persian word pairidaeza, which describes an enclosure, and is applied to a hunting park owned by a king. Similarly, the Hebrew Bible uses pardes to indicate a garden or park enclosure (and to describe the Garden of Eden and a heavenly kingdom), and Greek uses paradeisos to mean a sumptuous, extravagant park meant for a king. The idea of a heavenly kingdom or celestial paradise is picked up later in medieval gardens.

One paradise garden is the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, which was reportedly built by King Nebuchadnezzar (605-562 BC) for one of his young wives who missed the lush mountains of her childhood home. The Hanging Gardens are listed as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The garden is described as being a terraced structure crowned with a park, with substantial underground support system, planted with trees and vegetation, and with a mechanism to bring in water. In the arid climate of what is now Iraq, this would have been a paradise on earth, and an extravagance available only to a king. However, the description we have of this garden is written by Greek and Roman historians, including Diodorus Siculus writing around 50 BC, centuries after the gardens were supposed to have been built (http://www.plinia.net/wonders/gardens/hg4diodorus.html). Archeologists have not found physical evidence of the gardens or the source texts that the later historians may have used, and are skeptical about the technological claims.

Myth or not, this is a great example of a garden being paradise on earth. This is also an interesting garden mystery – why would one of the Seven Wonders be a myth, when the other six exist? Humans have built earth mounds and ziggurats throughout ancient history; ancient seeds have been found on the terraces of excavated ziggurats; water wheels and cork screws were in use as early as 600 BC. Until the mystery is solved, here is some speculative fun.

Part 1: http://youtu.be/mUobrO0EeRI:

Part 2: http://youtu.be/-x5n6nXFGPA

Egyptian Gardens

According to Christopher Thacker in The History of Gardens, the oldest pictures we have of gardens are from gardens in acient Egypt. Two interesting depictions include The Garden of Nebamun on his tomb near Luxor, Egypt from around 1500 B.C.; and Sennefer’s Garden (or Garden of the High Official of Amenhotep) from a fresco on the West Wall of “The Tomb of Vines,” also near Luxor from around 1400 B.C.

In these representations, gardens are no longer natural places, but have design. The gardens are utilitarian, growing food and crops, but they are also places of beauty. Home and garden are now integrated into a unified design, with a collection of buildings and planted areas. The landscape may be aligned on an axis according to the path of the sun, and trees and plants are planted in rows. The garden may be walled, similar to the pleasure gardens that are created later in garden history.

The garden depicted in the Tomb of Nebamun shows a rectangular pond used for fish and waterfowl, and also planted with lotus flowers. Surrounding the pond are many trees, including date palms and fruit trees. The original paintings were cut from tomb walls and later sold to the British Museum.

Nebamun’s Garden: This file is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

The Garden of the High Official of Amenhotep is an elaborate garden showing several ponds, vines, buildings, and many trees, hedges and flowering plants. The layout is very orderly. It is thought to be an idyllic representation of paradise and the afterlife. Gardens are frequently a symbol for paradise.



Sennefer's Garden: This image was painted from
the tomb by Rosselini in the 19th century. The original
tomb is being restored.

Sacred Groves

As described in Garden History - Early Gardens, both Christopher Thacker and Elizabeth Barlow Rogers state that the first gardens were simply natural settings. Some of these settings—such as sacred groves—held special meaning. In The History of Gardens, Thacker defines the sacred grove as “a place apart, consecrated to a spirit or divinity, or to the memory of a hero; with trees, rocks and water, surrounding a shrine or an altar, in a temple or within a grotto or a cave.” The place takes on a religious significance.

He cites sacred groves in ancient history – groves dedicated to Baal in the Middle East, groves used by druids in Britain, groves in pre-Christian Europe (some cathedrals are build on sites of ancient sacred groves), and the site of an ancient sacred grove in Cypress (on which the mosque Umm Haram is built, where the prophet Mohammed’s aunt is entombed). Veneration of trees is also evident in ancient India, Japan, and Russia. Sacred groves continue into the present day. Interestingly, some of the sacred groves in India have preserved endemic species: http://ecoheritage.cpreec.org/index.php.

A sacred Hindu grove near Chandod on the banks of the Narmada River,
drawn by James Forbes, 1782. This image is from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_groves_of_India;
and is in the public domain in the United States because its copyright has expired.

To relate sacred groves to garden history, Thacker observes that when man distinguishes between one place and another, he recognizes that a place may have a “genius loci” of its own. This idea of “genius of the place” or “spirit of the place” shows up much later in garden history, as landscape designers purposely attempt to capture the feeling of a place in the design. Another key point is that humans are naturally drawn to trees and groves of trees, making them an important element in landscape design.

The Garden of Eden

For today’s garden history, I’m taking a look at the Garden of Eden – not as a theologian, but as a gardener. The book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible describes the third day (or period) of creation—after the appearance of water, but before the division of light into night and day. In the account (Gen. 1:9b) vegetation, seed-bearing plants, and trees that live on land and bear fruit with seeds are spoken into existence. Streams come up from the earth and water the earth.

Later we learn (Gen 2:7 – 9) that God forms man, plants a garden in the East in Eden, and places man in the garden. The garden is planted with all kinds of trees – those pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden are two trees – the Tree of Life, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Water flows from the garden (remember the underground streams), and splits into four head streams (Pishon, Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates).

Detail from a Tree of Life tapestry.

Further into the account, God gives man the tasks of caring for the garden and naming the animals. To name something requires study and understanding, so the task is as much discovery as work. God also gives man a helpmate, and a warning not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Inevitably, Adam and Eve do just that. In Gen 3:8, we find God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. He calls out to Adam to give an accounting. Instead of an honest dialog, Adam defaults to fear and blame, and man is banished from the garden with the curse of toil.

Within this narrative are several key themes which appear in garden history:

• The garden is a representation of paradise on earth.
• Water is important in the garden (we will see the four rivers again).
• Tending a garden is a responsibility and pleasure, and a source of learning and discovery.
• The garden is a place for intimacy and fellowship (as depicted in the imagery of God walking the garden in the cool of the day and seeking Adam and Eve for fellowship).
• Trees are used as symbols, and often a focal point for the garden.

Garden History - Early Gardens

I have been delving a little deeper into garden history, focusing on early gardens. I’m using Christopher Thacker’s The History of Gardens as my guide, and reading sections from Elizabeth Barlow Rogers’ Landscape Design - A Cultural and Architectural History. Both agree that the first gardens were discovered and not made. A natural spot, such as a clearing in the forest or a lush valley in a barren mountainside, might attract the attention of humans. The garden spot is not tended, but grows naturally. Thacker reports that the oldest texts describe these spots as gardens of the gods, or those favored by the gods, where no toil is needed.

According to Rogers, almost all prehistoric cultures held that some places in nature are especially sacred. These sacred places, or natural gardens, provided a ritualistic setting for humans to attempt to understand their origins and control the natural environment. A marker, an altar, a temple, a cosmological structure, a complex were added to the natural garden over time, making myth, religion, philosophy, and science closely integrated with garden and landscape development.

Ablaze in late afternoon fall light, the hoodoos in Bryce National Park
have an almost mythical quality.

I, too, have encountered those natural gardens, although I’m too modern to call them sacred. Yet certain places do have a certain draw, or mystery, or beauty that causes me to take notice. Places like the rainforest behind my childhood home in Alaska; a grotto in Atlin, British Columbia; the sweeping tundra north of the Arctic Circle; a jungle waterfall on the Yucatan peninsula; the quaking aspens around Dawson City, Yukon Territory; the beaches off the Oregon Coast. They are more than just beautiful places, they are places that capture my imagination, inspire me, and cause me to contemplate God and the cosmos.