HISTORICAL SURVEY OF THE NAMING OF CULTIVATED PLANTS

Written records of vernacular names of cultivated plants exist since antiquity. From Cato (160 B.C.) to the various versions of the International Code for Botanical Nomenclature and the International Code of the Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants, practice, rules and recommendations of nomenclature are described. The role of various botanists in the establishment of the Codes is outlined.

Examples of cultivar names, and names of other groups (e.g. grex), are given in their historical context.

An International Symposium on the Taxonomy of Cultivated Plants must necessarily concern itself not only with their classification but also with their naming, since stable nomenclature is necessary for the communication and recording of information about them; moreover the formation and acceptance of their names is basic to the work of International Registration Authorities. From being a local matter offering few problems the naming of cultivated plants has become a complicated international one consequent on the growth of international trade and exchange and is now highly relevant to plant patent legislation and the rights of plant breeders. By "cultivated plants" is meant plants raised in cultivation which differ sufficiently from their wild ancestors or, if taken into cultivation from the wild, are worthy enough of distinction from wild populations for horticultural purposes to merit special names. My purpose in this opening address is to outline the background and the history of the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants. The last edition of this was published in 1980, but its basic provision, the use of names in common language (cultivar-names) quite distinct from scientific names, began long ago before the latter were conceived.

The naming of individual kinds(cultivars) of cultivated plants is of great antiquity. It obviously goes back to ancient times when several kinds of an economic group, e.g. apples, figs, grapes, olives and pears, were grown in the same area and needed to be distinguished. This took place among skilled and probably illiterate cultivators long before any written records. Apparently the first of these is the De Agri Cultura written about 160 B.C. by the Roman soldier, politician, magistrate and agriculturist Marcus Procius Cato (234–149 B.C.), which, according to a list published by Ernst Meyer in 1854, includes 120 cultivated plants. Cato was of farming stock and he had a direct practical interest in agriculture and horticulture. He mentioned six kinds of fig (Ficus), namely "Africana", "Herculanea", "Hiberca" (winter), "Marisca", "Sacontiana", "Telana atra"; two kinds of apple (Malum), namely "Quiriniana", "Scantiana"; nine named kinds of olive (Olea), and eight named kinds of grape (Vinum, Vitus). Obviously Cato could assume that his fellow Romans knew and could obtain them under the same name. These names of individual kinds