You’ll notice on my herb packs that there are two names. There’s the common name i.e. nettle and a latin name, i.e. Urtica dioica. So what’s that all about?
The late, great Sir Terry Pratchett once wrote in his famous Disc World series, that what made Granny Weatherwax a better witch than Magrat was that Granny knew it didn’t matter exactly which plant was used in a treatment but what made Magrat a better doctor than Granny was that she knew it did. I love this as it appeals to both my witchy side and my scientist side.
Different plants contain different chemicals or ‘constituents’. These have an impact on flavour and smell but they also can give herbs properties that affect how the body works so it’s really important to know exactly which species you are buying and the common name can’t guarantee that. The common name is exactly as it sounds; the name we commonly use. The latin name is called the Binomial name. This is the name given to the exact species of herb that I’m supplying. So why do I use both? The problem with common names is that they can refer to more than one type of plant and that’s not helpful when you are looking for a particular set of constituents for your flavour etc.
The binomial naming system goes back several centuries to 1622 when Gaspard Bauhin wrote the Pinax Theatri Botanici but became more common place after Carl Linnaeus wrote the Species Plantarum in 1753. This system is now used internationally and follows rules set out in the International Code of Nomenclature for Algae, Fungi and Plants (ICN). This system decides the latin name of the plant but it’s not actually that straight forward. When plants were first given their binomial names, this was based on similarities in appearance but as science has progressed, names are also based on constituents and even DNA. This means that sometimes binomial names can change too which can be very confusing. For example, Rosemary was, until fairly recently, known as Rosmarinus officinalis but it has been reclassified due to some similarities that have been found with sage so its new name is Salvia rosmarinus. This can get very confusing, especially when referring to older books so it’s always worth checking names against a good resource. The Plants of the World Online website, run by The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew is a great place to look to check out what the correct Binomial should be and what other binomials (synonyms) have been used in the past.
When you’re buying standard culinary herbs from the supermarket, you know that the herb you’re expecting will be the one in the pack but that might not be the case when buying less common herbs, especially online. Always use a supplier who can provide both the common AND the latin name because if they can’t tell the difference between their herbs, you certainly won’t be able to!
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