• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Home Garden Joy
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Gardening
    • Seed Starting
    • Composting Basics
    • Vegetable Garden
    • Grow Fruit
    • Herb Garden
  • Recipes
    • Canning and Food Preservation
    • Vegetarian Meals
    • Salad Recipes
    • Soup Recipes
    • Dinner Recipes
    • Dessert Recipes
  • Classes
  • Books
    • Books for Christian Herbalists
  • About
    • Advertise with Us
    • Awards and Accolades
    • Privacy Policy

You Say Tomato, I Say Tohmahto: Common and Botanical Names of Plants

June 12, 2013 by Jeanne

Tweet
Share
Pin
Share
0 Shares
What would you call this? It’s a Kerria japonica – but goes by other names.

Plants have names, just like people. They have a proper name called a botanical name, and a nickname called a common name. When you shop for plants or ask someone for advice about them, it helps to know the botanic name. Why? Because common names can vary – sometimes a lot. Your family may call the plant by one name, my family may call it something else. Understanding the scientific classification of plants, or the botanical names, is a very important aspect of gardening, but one that confuses most beginners.

Kerria japonica, for instance, is the botanical name for a shrub from Japan and Asia in the rose family; my family called it the Bee Bush because we never knew the true name for the shrub that bloomed in the corner of the yard each year in my childhood home. My husband calls our Kerria plant “the Joan bush” because our friend Joan gave us the plant. Someone saw my  pictures on Facebook and said, “Oh, that’s a yellow rose.”  You see how confusing it can get?

Fortunately, we have botanical names. Thank you, Carl Linnaeus – he invented the scientific classification system.

If you’d like to learn more about how to understand the system of botanic names for plants, I’ve written an article on HubPages called Understanding the Scientific Classification of Plants that may be helpful.

Tweet
Share
Pin
Share
0 Shares

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Previous Post: « More Plant Bargains at the Big Box Stores
Next Post: Perennials to Attract Butterflies »

Primary Sidebar

Learn Gardening!

writer Jeanne Grunert

Hi, I'm Jeanne Grunert, master gardener, herbalist, and writer. If you're new to gardening, welcome! I make it simple and easy for you to grow a kitchen garden: delicious, organic vegetables, fruit, herbs, and yes, flowers, too.

My Books on Amazon

cover of plan and build a raised bed garden

Visit my author page on Amazon to find all of my fiction and gardening books.

Grow Vegetables

17 year cicada

Do the 17 Year Cicadas Hurt Gardens?

strawberries are great for vertical gardening

Vertical Gardening to Expand Your Space

rosemary growing in containers for space saving gardens

5 EASY Space Saving Vegetable Garden Ideas

red and green lettuce in the garden

The Winter Garden – Enjoying the Seasons

Easy Healthy Recipes

beet and cabbage soup

Easy, Simple Beet and Cabbage Soup Recipe

walnut applesauce bread with apples in the background

Walnut Applesauce Bread

butternut squash risotto on a plate

Butternut Squash Risotto with Sage and Caramelized Onions

How to Make No Salt Homemade Tomato Sauce: Easy Recipe!

Featured

logo of the american horticulture society

Home Garden Joy was featured by the American Horticultural Society on #plantchat.

Let’s Connect!

  • Bloglovin
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Medium
  • Pinterest
  • RSS

Footer

rosemary growing in containers for space saving gardens

5 EASY Space Saving Vegetable Garden Ideas

These 5 space-saving vegetable garden ideas offer  urban gardeners, apartment gardeners, and anyone with limited space the ability to grow lots of plants in small spaces. I’ve put together the following 5 ideas to help you grow your dream kitchen garden – vegetables, herbs, fruits, and edible flowers – even on a tiny city balcony.

red and green lettuce in the garden

The Winter Garden – Enjoying the Seasons

Happy Holidays! Here at Home Garden Joy, I’m celebrating the “winter garden” – what’s left of the fall vegetables, any herbs that haven’t been nipped by the frost, and the bounty of  canned goods I’ve set aside for just such a season. Here’s what Hubby and I have been up to at Seven Oaks Farm.

green and red lettuce

How to Grow Lettuce Like a Pro

Learn how to grow lettuce like professional growers. If you’re tired of store bought lettuce, growing it in your backyard is easy. Lettuce is surprisingly quick to grow, too, so there’s also the almost-instant gratification of harvesting soon after planting seeds. How to Grow Lettuce Lettuce plants should be grown from seeds sown directly into…

Read More

winter vegetables picture of parsnip

Harvesting Winter Vegetables this Week: Abundance!

I finally got some time this week to harvest the winter vegetables. The hard frosts we’ve experienced over the past several weeks killed some of the vegetation above ground, but the root vegetables were fine, and they tasted delicious.

Copyright © 2021 Home Garden Joy on the Foodie Pro Theme