Why scientific names are important

I attended a class on native Texas plants the other day and struck up a conversation with another participant about some species of the genus verbena. She was using colloquial names and I was conversing using scientific names. She started referring to a plant called "vervain" and I must have said "verbena"..., "Oh no," she explained the name was vervain. I then proceeded to explain that I probably knew the plant she was talking about was Verbena halei and she could not seemingly understand that the scientific name could be Verbena halei if she knew the plant as vervain and that I must be wrong. Only after consulting her own field guide where it had a color picture of the plant next to the scientific name did she grudgingly admit that perhaps the scientific name might be that. (I still believe she thought that it must have been a misprint).

We (meaning plant people) use scientific names to denote specific species of plants, and to be able to talk about a plant so that everyone involved knows which specific plant is being discussed. What I didn't want to even attempt to explain was that the plant she knew as vervain has as a scientific name :Verbena halei, and that what she knew as verbena the name was Glandularia bipinnatifida. Some things were best left unsaid.

Another time I was at a Native plant society of texas meeting and several people were discussing "cow itch vine"-- within a minute or, so we discovered that we were each thinking of a different plant. There are at least four different plants in Texas that are referred to colloquially as cow itch vine... I never did figure out which one we SHOULD have been talking about.

Botanical scientific names are in a weird version of latin that for the past 250 years scientists have come to codify and use only for referring to plants. There are differences in scientific latin between Flora and Fauna, so everything I say here will refer to the floral side of the ledger.

In another post I will describe the where all these names come from and how you can learn them easily and utilize them in enjoyable botanizing. Oh, and here are a few pictures of Verbena halei and Glandularia bipinnatifida.

Have a good hike,  Jeff.