You will probably find that pronouncing these binomials gives you 

 some difficulty. The best advice that I can give on pronouncing 

 names is to listen to an "expert" and use his pronunciation; your 

 "expert" may mispronounce the words, but at least he tries, 

 and this is the first thing to do. That is, pronounce the names 

 out loud - to yourself if need be — and say them in a comfort- 

 able euphonious way. Chances are that you will therefore pro- 

 nounce the words correctly; if not, at least you will be under- 

 stood, and if you are off-base, then your Hstener may correct 

 you (if he is more experienced than you). The pronunciations 

 of many generic names of plants are given in Webster's 

 Unabridged Dictionary, or other books such as E. C. Jaeger's 

 Source Book of Biological Names and Terms. It is easy to be 

 intimidated by generic and specific names, but remember that 

 only a very small proportion of the 290,000 species of flowering 

 plants on this earth have conmion names. Therefore, for com- 

 munication purposes, or for identification purposes, the only 

 name that exists for most plants is a binomial. Also, remember 

 that most people can pronounce Rhododendron, Eucalyptus, 

 and Chrysanthemum correctly, and these generic names are 

 probably more complex than are the majority of the generic 

 names in the CaUfornia flora; at least they are no more difficult. 

 The nomenclature used in this book mostly follows that of P. A. 

 Munz in his A California Flora (1959) and Supplement (1968) 

 which are now available combined in a single volume. Munz 

 also provides accent marks to aid in the pronunciation of 

 family, generic, and specific names. 



The Meaning of Plant Names 



What do the binomials mean? How are they derived? There 

 are several answers to these questions. Specific names of plants 

 may be taken from several sources. Often, but by no means 

 always, they tell you something about the plant. Following are 

 some examples of specific names for some native plants of 

 California: 



Aesculus califomica (California Buckeye). "Californica" 

 means "Californian." One might suspect that since other buckeye 



