I thought I would share a little about plant names for those interested in such things.

The common names we use for plants are useful becausethey are easy to pronounce and say
(for example Ribwort). To get technical, specific common names of individual species should begin with capital letters, as they are proper nouns, like Kathy, and Melbourne.

But common names can vary significantly according to where you are. The classic example is Paterson’s Curse which is known as Salvation Jane in some areas. So Botanical (Latin/Scientific) names are used to prevent misunderstanding. The science of naming flora and fauna is referred to as taxonomy and is an internationally agreed convention.
 

Latin plant names have 2 parts (they are bi-nomial) which make up the name of the species. There is a genus and a “specific epithet”. Eg Medicago sativa = Lucerne.
Medicago is the genus and sativa is the specific epithet.

Like most genera, the genus Medicago has many species (eg Button Medic, Barrel Medic, Woolly Burr Medic), but they all have different specific epithets and are therefore distinct.

To get technical again, botanical names should be in initalics if typed (although Facebook doesn't seem to let me do italics 🤣) or underlined if handwritten. The genus starts with a capital letter, while the
specific epithet is all lower case.

Don’t get confused if there are some letters in brackets after the binomial name. These credit the botanist who first named the plant. For example, Medicago sativa L. shows that this species was given its botanical name by the father of taxonomy, Carl Linneaeus. However Carex divulsa Stokes was first named by the English botanist Johnathon Stokes in the early 1800's. Most situations do not require this element to be used and I don't have a need to use it .
 

Genera that are similar are grouped into Families. Eg Lucerne (Medicago sativa) and White Clover (Trifolium repens) are both in the Leguminosae family, along with vetches (genus Vicia), broom bushes (genus Cytisus), peas (genus Pisum) and beans (genus Phaseolus). Leguminosae plants all have asymmetrical pea-shapedflowers, and seeds in pods.

White Clover has pea-shaped flowers in a large globularcluster. The pea-flower exhibits a classic large upright "standard" petal, 2x "wings" and a lower keel petal.
 

Lucerne also has clusters of pea-shaped flowers, and tri-foliate leaves like the clover genus Trifolium.

So while I struggle to pronounce and remember botanical names, I have definitely seen the value of an internationally recognised naming convention. I find that I do gradually get to recognise botanical names of plants that I deal with regularly, but if I cant remember, there are plenty of resources to check if I'm not sure.

Over time plants can change botanical names as moreinformation comes to light, or more consistent naming conventions are established. For example, when I was at Uni, the naming convention of the family name of Fabaceae was gradually being replaced with that of Leguminosae.