Technical Nomenclature

The study of the origin and meaning of the common names of orchids can open up rich vistas in the history of the interrelationship between this group of plants and man. Likewise , and perhaps even more so , the technical Latinized names of the genera of orchids give us clues to peculiarities of structure , to a possible therapeutic or magical importance of the plant in former times , or to the identity of its discoverer or to some scientist for one reason or another connected with the genus.

The present volume concerns the etymology and significance of the technical or scientific names of the orchid genera . Our decision to carry out throughly this study of orchid generic nomenclature was promted , first by out natural interest in this phase of botanical endeavor and , second, by the constant enquiries from laymen and scientists requesting information on the epithets by which the genera of orchidsare known.

We discovered that it was not always an easy task to trace the story of the names in question . Many of the earlier taxonomic botanists who described orchid genera were such excellent classicists that it seemed to them wholly superfluous to break down the names which they created into component parts and explain the reasons behind their creation .Such luminaries of orchidology as Robert Brown ,John Lindley ,Carl Ludwig Blume ,and Gustav Reichenbach sometimes offered an explanation of new generic words ,but as often as not they failed to devote any attention to this facet of their work . Then ,too , the etymological origin of a new generic name might be eruditely detailed without any definite explanation of the morphological or other feature to which it referred . In case of this kind ,we often find that a careful study of the orchid itself uncoverse several plausible reasons for the name , yet occasionally we are left completely thwarted in our search for a suitable characteristic of the plant to justify the botanist's choice of term .

Many attempts to explain the origin and meaning or orchid names have been made by persons who,either through lack of library or herbarium facilities , through a poor understanding of the complexities of orchid morphology or through an inadequate knowledge of Latin and Greek ,have failed to find any palusible explanation , and have , unfortunately ,resorted to unwarranted imagination .For this reason ,our botanical and horticultural literature abounds in errors or false etymological explanations .This is especially true in the ORCHIDAECEAE.

Worse than this , we find not infrequently that many names which were throughly and meticulously analyzed in the original descriptions suffer from false etymological explanations simply because later writers failed to consult the original sources . A large proportion of these errors have been made by writers of floras or manuals which are freely quoted ,so that many false etymologies have now become anchored and unquestioned in our literature .

Perhaps we are over-optimistic in hoping that our researches , carried out from 1953 through 1960 and published in this volume , may help to correct some of the entrenched mistakes .A few examples will show the extent which these erroneous explanations may assume . Coeloglossum comes from the Greek for " hollow -tongue " and refers to the lip ,yet Btitton and Brown's (7) " An illustrated Flora of the Northern United States Canada and the British Possessions ," without stating to what structure the term alludes ,derived the name from what is supposed to be the Latin for " heaven -tongue ." The name of the Brazilian orchid Cyanaeorchis is often explained as meaning " blue orchid," notwithstanding the yellow -green color of the flowers ; yet , when he described the genus ,Barbosa -Rodrigues derived the epithet from Cyane (a Greek water-nymph ), in allusion to the aquativ habitat chosen by this plant .Lyperanthus ,according to some ,might trace back to a Greek word for " painful ",so named because it is an unsatisfactory intermediate genus with no clear-cut distinguishing characters to separate it from its nearest allies . Paxton (24) , in his usually reliable dictionary , arributes it to a Greek for "shining flower" ,descriptive of the glossy ,red blossoms . In " Flora Brasilica ," F.C. Hoehne (16) suggested that Ponthieva was named in commemoration of the Count of Ponthieu , one of the titles of King Charles X of France ,but Robert Brown tells in his description of the new genus (see Ponthieva in listing ) that it honors a noted French merchant of the West Indies who sent plant collections to Sir Joseph Banks .

Some of the names of orchid genera could have been derived from several different sources with almost equal etymological soundness . In these instances , only a study of the plant can hope to settle the problem . The name of the large American genus Pleurothallis , for example ,might come from the Greek words for " rib " and " branch " ,alluding to the many leaf-bearing stems arising caespitosely in most of the species ; it could as well - perhaps more appropriately -come from "rib" and " to bloom ," in reference to the one-sided disposition of the flowers along the axis of the inflorescence in some of the conspicuous species .

With a few genera ,one is left mainly to judicious guesswork ,especially when a careful study of the floral and vegetative parts of the plant fails to disclose any characteristic clearly indicated by the etymology . An example is Herminium , which seems to be derived from the Greek word for " bedpost " . This could describe the stunted staminodia which stand on each side of the anther ; it might allue to the fanciful resemblance of the inflorescence to a carved bedpost ; or it might perhaps refer to the shape of the tubers which could be considered suggetive of the knobs on the posts of antique beds.

Of the approximately 1250 generic names of orchids which we consider in this work , few -perhaps only half a dozen -have defied all attempts at analysis and explanation .Some , such as many of Rafinesque's epithets ,are incorrectly formed ,and we have had no choice but ot present the etymology that the author thought (and stated ) that he was using . Many names we have explained with qualification or reservation ,usually as an indication that an author of a name offered no analysis or explanation , and that these have been supplied by us on the basis of philological and botanical probability .