A recent column in The New York Times caught my eye: Author Carol Kaesuk Yoon was lamenting the death of taxonomy. I don’t know what her credentials are, but I have heard some similar, if less dire, concerns expressed by personnel at NYBG’s William and Lynda Steere Herbarium. One reason for the rapid expansion of NYBG’s collection of preserved plant specimens in recent years has been the number of “orphaned” herbaria collections it has adopted. These are collections that were assembled by botanists at universities and other educational institutions and then abandoned when research priorities changed. Often, such collections are important for the perspective they provide on the flora of a particular region or on the history of a flora. If the NYBG botanists feel that the endangered collection is sufficiently important, the Garden has incorporated it into its own Herbarium. NYBG scholars have expressed to me their concerns about the way in which such de facto centralization has been narrowing the foundation that supports their disciplines.

And yet, I have seen over the course of my career in gardening a notable expansion in the use of scientific names for garden plants. This, I think, reflects in part the growing sophistication of American gardeners. As our landscapes have acquired more and more exotic treasures, the old system of common names became inadequate to keep them all sorted. Knowing a plant’s scientific name brings with it an understanding of where that species fits into the flora and what its relatives are, and that in turn provides clues to a plant’s care. Besides, the owners of rarities want you to know that their plants are not common. If you are cultivating a rare (and expensive) jack-in-the-pulpit from Nepal, such as Arisaema speciosum, you not unreasonably want everyone to know that it is not the same as the jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) they see popping up spontaneously in the neighboring woods.

In addition, though, I believe there is another motivation at work, one that arises from the depth of our consciousness. Human beings have always found a special power in names. Knowing the correct name for someone or something imparted a degree of power over them. In many ancient religions the true names of the gods were kept secret. The ancient Romans, for example, concealed the name of their capital city’s guardian deity so that enemies could not seduce his support with offerings and prayers. In Jewish scripture, the divinity is often identified only by a series of four letters, YHVH, the “unutterable name.” Traditional cultures ranging from North American Indian peoples to Australian aborigine tribes had a practice of keeping their true personal names secret because of their belief that it embodied some part of their soul or self.
Maybe that’s why, when I come across an unfamiliar wildflower in the woods or fields around my house, I have to know its true name. I have to know where it fits into the local community. This is an impulse that was formerly less common among home gardeners. My mother, a great gardener who remains in many ways my inspiration, never bothered with scientific names. It stunned me, having learned my gardening from her, to arrive as a student at The New York Botanical Garden. The immigrant gardeners who then made up the horticultural staff often spoke poor English. All, however, were fluent in botanical Latin.