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Each botanical epithet is listed with it's masculine, feminine and neuter or singular and plural spellings where appropriate. |
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The definition is the contemporary usage of the epithet. This is usually related to the words that it is derived from but may differ. Differences are often due to the fact that a Latin word has been translated into the language of an author but the word now has a connotation that was not in the original Latin or Greek word. |
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Words in Latin and Greek, as in many languages, can be constructed by assembling other words and providing connective sylables where appropriate. This column lists the word or words that an epithet is derived from. |
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When assembling a constructed epithet, the gender suffix (e.g. -us, -a, -um) is dropped except for the final word. The remaining portion, the stem, is chosen from the genitive singular form of the word. Usually the stem of the nominative singular (in which epithets are usually used) is the same as the genitive but this is not always the case. Therefore, a word such as abies ('a' fir) has its stem derived from abietis ('of a' fir). |
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