Greek & Latin in Botanical Terminology

Singular-plural pairs

Many technical terms used in paleobotany and structural botany do not form plurals in the standard English way (by adding "-s" or "-es"). Rather, they transform in other ways. For example, a single sporangium (spore-producing structure) becomes plural sporangia, not sporangiums. Why is this? It is because many terms follow Latin, and less commonly Greek, rules for forming plurals.

Latin has five declensions (categories) and three genders (feminine, masculine, and neuter) of nouns. Each declension follows different rules for forming plurals, which is done by changing word endings. In declensions where word gender varies, word endings are additionally determined by gender. Word endings also vary by the role of the word in a sentence (for example, subject, object, possessive, etc.). All of this may seem a bit confusing to an English speaker. However, you do not have to be a Latin scholar to use Latin nouns in English. Many Latin words used in English (whether truly taken from classical Latin, created later, or Latinized) follow the structure of first and second declension Latin nouns in the nominative case. The nominative case is the form a noun takes when used as the subject of a sentence.

• 1st declension, feminine, nominative: words ending in -a in the singular end in -ae in the plural.
• 2nd declension, masculine, nominative: words ending in -us in the singular end in -i in the plural.
• 2nd declension, neuter, nominative: words ending in -um in the singular end in -a in the plural.

The word genus (the taxonomic rank above the species) does not follow the rules above, even though one might assume that it should take an "-i" in its plural form. Instead, it becomes genera in the plural. This is because the word "genus" is a 3rd declension neuter Latin noun. Its plural is made by adding an "-a" to the root for the word genus ("gener-").

You can consult an English dictionary for a summary of the Latin and Greek singular and plural noun forms frequently encountered in English. You can also look up individual words in order to find their plural forms. Note that the Latin/Greek or English plural form can be used for some terms (for example, cactus can become cacti or cactuses in the plural). In scientific writing, Latin and Greek endings are often the ones favored, although exceptions exist. For example, the word stigma (the pollen-receiving part of a flower's carpel or pistil) commonly takes the plural form stigmas rather than stigmata in botany.

The building blocks of vocabulary

Scientific terminology can seem like a bunch of intimidating jargon. Many scientific terms, however, are made up of building blocks that have Greek, or sometimes Latin, roots. If you can recognize these building blocks and understand their meanings, it becomes easier to understand and learn scientific terms.

The table below lists some prefixes, suffixes, and combining forms that commonly show up in structural botany and paleobotany, along with examples of terms in which they appear. You can use this table to help you remember (or even figure out) the meanings of terms. As an example, let's look at the term "megasporophyll." It consists of three building blocks; we can find the meanings of these building blocks by consulting the table below:

• mega- = large
• sporo- = spore
• -phyll = leaf

Thus, mega + sporo + phyll = large-spore leaf. In fact, a megasporophyll is a leaf that bears structures that produce large spores (megaspores) in heterosporous plants. What is a heterosporous plant?

• hetero- = different
• -sporous = spore

Thus, a hetero + sporous plant is a different-spore plant. Specifically, it is a plant that produces two types of spores: microspores and megaspores. Using the table below, can you figure out what a microspore is? How does it differ from a megaspore?

Some notes on the table: Definitions, word origins, etc., have been simplified. For prefixes ending in "a" or "o", the "a" or "o" may be dropped before a vowel; the modified prefix shown in parentheses.