Plant Scientific Names

Scientific Plant Identification
For a gardener, the main thing to know is family, genus, and species.  There are specific methods of classifying the plants. We will start from the top in descending order.

Class – The First Distinguishing Feature
It almost sounds like people. Right?  Seriously, the first factor is that the plant produces flowers.  Those that do are called Angiospermae and those that don’t are called Gymnospermae.

Seed Leaves – Monocots and Dicots
Two seed leaves are dicots and one seed leaves are monocots.  The full name is monocotyledons and dicotyledons. 
For example, an peas are a monocot since all the seeds are contained in one leaf.  A carnation is a dicot because the flowers of dicotyledons have petals.  Also dicot flower parts are arranged in fours and fives. Carnations have five petals.

Superorder
Superorder plants names end in …idea. All Dicots descended from the following orders: Magnoliidae, Hamamelidae, Caryophyllidae, Dilleniidae, Rosidae, Asteridae.  All Monocots descended from these orders: Alismatidae, Commelinidae, Arecidae, Liliidae.  Is your name John Smithidea?

Orders
Each Superorder is subdivided into several Orders.  We won’t go into all these here, but you might like to know that orders end in ….ales. For example, John Smithales.

Family
Finally, we are to a point that matters.  There are about 500 different plant families to choose from. Characteristics at this point are rather blunt. Families end in …aceae.  For example, John Smithaceae. 

Subfamilies
I don’t know how many, but they end in …oideae.  For example, John Smithoideae.

Tribe
They end in …eae.  For example, John Smitheae.

SubTribe
Here you won’t see much of a difference in plants.  Words end in …inae.  For example, John Smithinae.

Variety
Variety is a slight variation among species.  It begins the word with var.  For example, varJohn Smithinae.

Form
It puts an f in front of the word. Form mostly refers to specific colors and minor shape differences of leaves. For example, FvarJohn Smithinae.

Cultivar
Cultivars have cv in front of the name.  Cultivar means than can be reproduced.  For example, cvfvarJohn Smithinae. 

For more information, please visit http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/FLORA/newgate/cronang.htm and click on the Cronquist method because it is the most popular method of taxonomic classification.