Carl von Linné (1707 – 1778)
Many of us have wondered how animals and plants can all have similarly formatted , scientific names, always two – even humans are known as “Homo sapiens” (from Latin: The wise Man). It all goes back to a Swedish scientist from the 18th century who now is called “The Father of the Binominal Classification System”.
Carl von Linné developed an early interest in botany and physiology, studied medicine and other sciences and undoubtedly at times became very frustrated at the disorganized way, in which all naturally occurring things were named – in all different languages, different in each, all over the world. Eventually he became a professor of medicine and later, of botany. The Swedish government first aided his studies of the flora of Sweden. Later, after much botanical research and several important botanical publications, Linnaeus (the Latin version of his Swedish name) became well known among his peers and his most important contribution to science in general, the bi-nominal system of plant classification, became universally accepted and expanded to cover animals as well as plants.
Usually, he studied the plants as dried herbarium specimens and accurately observed and described all their special attributes. So today, we can easily sort out the different plant families. In our favourite plant family, the orchids, we can even sort out the different species and if we can manage to translate the Latin or Greek words, we can even understand why a certain plant is called “Cattleya forbesii”, meaning the large lipped orchid named in honour of Mr. Forbes. “Miltonia flavescens” is the yellow orchid named for the Viscount Milton. “Oncidium pulchellum” is the pretty little orchid with a wart on its lip. “Phalaenopsis violacea” is the violet moth orchid.
To just give you a short introduction to how orchid names are organized: First, the larger group – the GENUS, second - the SPECIES. Remember: after the generic name comes the species name. Sometimes, the third is the variety and fourth, the horticultural name, indicating a special single clone and then the award, if any, like the famous Cattleya skinneri variety oculata ‘Hillary Rodham Clinton’ CCM/AOS or Cattleya loddigesii variety harrisoniana ‘Streeter’s Choice’ FCC/AOS.
Ingrid Schmidt-Ostrander - Canadian Orchid Congress