Naming Cactus and Succulents ... 2/5

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The Linnaeus binominal botanical naming system

Early naturalists noticed that certain plants or animals may be related to others that looked similar or had similar characteristics.


Linnaeus was professor of natural history at the University of Uppsala in Sweden when in the mid 1700s he devised the system we still use to this day to classify all living things.
Linnaeus called all the same organisms a species, similar species were grouped into a genus, and similar genera into a family, and then similar families were placed in an order, similar orders in a class and similar classes in a phylum. Lastly phyla are placed into either the plant or animal kingdom.
When naming an organism we use the species and genus name, which is called binomial nomenclature and when the plant is named everyone knows what exact species is being talked about.

The first part of a plant name is the genus (plural: genera) and is like us (European) human's surname or family name.
Each species (species is singular and plural) name is like us (European) human's "first name" although it is written second.

The names are of Greek or Latin origin, were to be mainly descriptive (later they could also reflect a person involved in the plant's discovery, or the area of habitat, or anything the author/discover wishes - within reason), naming is to follow strict rules of validity e.g. publication in Latin in a reputable journal, depositing of a specimen in a herbatorium, the name itself to follow rules etc.. If the plant is in a new genus, the author may choose the new generic name, the new species name is given by author. The species name must not have been used before for a plant in that genus.

When the first cacti came to Europe from the 'New World' as it was "discovered" by the European explorers, Linnaeus knew they were members of a new genus not seen in the 'Old World' before, and he coined the genus Cactus, derived from Kaktos, the Greek term for thistle.

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