In article ,
Janet Tweedy writes:
| In article , Kay
| writes
|
| No reason why it shouldn't be. Botanical Latin makes some attempt to
| follow latin grammar. All nouns in Latin are one of three genders, male,
| female or neuter, and the adjective has to match the ending. So a neuter
| Acer is griseum where as a masculine Ceonothus is griseus and a feminine
| Avena sativa variety is grisea.
|
| Yes, I read somewhere in my search Kay, that most plant names are
| feminine and just a few are masculine or neuter.
|
| Makes you wonder how we get the words at all !

It's more than a few. A couple of points that haven't been made,
as far as I can see.

Latin was the official language of the Roman Empire for something
like 500 years, and changed significantly over that time. It was
then the lingua franca of European intelligensia for another
millennium, and the official language of various groups (e.g. the
Roman Catholic church and botanists) for another 500 or so.
While it was less volatile than English, remember that Chaucer was
writing modern English just 600 years ago.

Most biological terminology uses Latin nomemclature, but the official
language of botany is Latin. A plant isn't officially named until
it has been described in grammatically correct Latin.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.