What's in a name? In gardening, too much

I'm not so good with names, frankly.

Though I've tried all the mnemonic devices, I still get the deer-in-the-headlights look when greeting someone for the umpteenth time while his name wantonly, flippantly skitters to the nether regions of my brain.

Imagine the trouble with botanical names. Ranunculus californicus for a simple buttercup? Erigeron compositus for a daisy? Please. Who came up with this stuff?

Of course, we know it was Linnaeus, the 18th-century Swedish botanist known as the "father of modern taxonomy."

Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) devised the binomial system of naming plants and other living things, which, with some refinement, survives today. The Sterling Morton library at The Morton Arboretum in Lisle has an exhibit on Linnaeus and his seminal works through Jan. 26.

For anyone with an interest in plants, (or trouble with names), it's well worth the visit.

Michael Stieber, the arboretum's library administrator, explained that, prior to Linnaeus, the horticultural world was a toppling tower of Babel.

This was an Age of Discovery, with expeditions bringing plants and other specimens from colonial outposts around the world. Where to put them? How to grow them? What to call them? And, had anyone seen anything like this before?

"Linnaeus brought order to chaos," Stieber says, referencing a timeline featuring the venerable Easter lily.

This Lilium candidum, one of the world's oldest cultivated flowers, had accumulated many polysyllabic or confusing different Latin names throughout botanical history, such as Lilium junonis rosa, Martagon album bizantinum, or even Sultan Zambach fa fiori grandi bianchi.

Still, flaunting the wisdom of centuries of botanical thought, it seemed to me that the Linneaus system was flawed. How can strawberries and roses be in the same (Rosaceae) family? How could forsythia and lilacs be members of the olive (Oleaceae) family? I failed to see the family resemblance.

The arboretum exhibit shows how Linnaeus used plants' reproductive structures, such as the flower's pistils and anthers, as a means of classification.

This seemed odd to me. Were I the "mother of modern taxonomy," I might have used something a little more useful, or obvious -- like color, shape and ability to withstand a gardener's benign neglect.

Hence, all yellow plants less than 24 inches that survive drought and deer would be grouped together in my system. Daffodils and daisies would be members of Lilliputian yellowus non-mortem.

Stieber, who speaks both Latin and botany, diplomatically reserved comment on my scheme, but pointed out the benefits of the Linnaean approach.

"Linnaeus wanted to base the system on plant structures that were easily countable and stable within a species from generation to generation," he says, noting that pistils, stamens and the like are readily observable and arranged in predictable patterns.

The system is somewhat artificial, Stieber concedes, noting that even Linnaeus recognized its drawbacks.

"In the so-called Linnaean era, or the 18th century, scientists were just beginning to understand that plants reproduce sexually," Stieber says. "Even though they couldn't microscopically examine pollen in as much detail as they can today, they did manage to see that it was a fertilizing agent."

That Linnaeus was on the right track was proven decades later with Mendel's experiments that led to modern genetic theory. The classification scheme ultimately leads to the essence of "species," i.e. the ability of certain groups of living creatures to reproduce among themselves.

Thus, even without today's understanding of DNA, Linnaeus' approach anticipated the crux of the problem.

All of this is artfully displayed in old tomes, colored drawings and maps that comprise the Linnaeus exhibit. Stieber points out that The Sterling Morton Library also holds many books -- for beginners and scholars alike -- on the man, his predecessors and students, taxonomy references and botanical nomenclature in general.

Stieber also is giving a lecture on Linnaeus and the exhibit Jan. 22. More information on the exhibit and Stieber's lecture is on the arboretum Web site, www.mortonarb.org. If you go, mention that Cathius Jeanus Malonius sent you.