Monsters, werewolves and washing days…

’ve always loved the intriguing common names of plants, but in recent years I’ve become switched on to the far more useful and universal language of botany: Latin. It was partly the process of writing my book, the , and partly a desire to correctly label my growing herbarium of pressed plants, that initially inspired my etymological investigations. But once I’d started there was no going (tobacco) – were first consistently applied by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in his (1753), and they speak volumes about a plant’s features, useful properties, origin and discovery. First comes the collective genus name, followed by the more descriptive word known as a ‘specific epithet’, for example, (dog rose) – is thought to allude to this rose’s potential to cure the bite of a mad dog. Start exploring the roots of the scientific nomenclature (name) of your favourite plants, and you’ll be hooked before you can say .