Nomenclature

IntroductionThe nomenclature of plants and plant families and higher orders and clades is difficult subject. The names reflect the taxonomy and with changing insights in the taxonomy the names have to change too. When a genus has been shown to be polyphyletic it has to be split and thus the first part of the name of the plants have to be changed into that of the new genus. The same is true of families and higher orders. When a family is shown to be be polyphyletic it has to split and several new families have to given new names. A good example is the family Scrophulariaceae. It was shown to be polyphyletic. In a way that was not a very big surprise as it had been used as a receptacle for all the plants in the Lamiales that did not fit into other families. Scrophulariaceae was split and several new families were created or extended: Plantaginaceae, Phrymaceae, Calceolariaceae, Orobanchaceae and Stilbaceae. Other families like Hippuridaceae, Callitrichaceae, Globulariaceae and Buddlejaceeae were liquidated as the members were shown to belong an extended Plantaginaceae.SpeciesThe names I have used for the plants are the ones given in the Plant List: www.theplantlist.org. The website is a creation and collaboration of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden and others. It is the same group of botanical institutions that form the Apg group and make the Apg classification. They combined their plant names list, multiple checklist of names and synonyms.
Mostly this procedure do not give problems for homeopathy as the names are the same. But sometimes homeopathic names are ambiguous, using only the genus name like in Gelsemium or Spigelia.
Sometimes the homeopathic name is that of the epithet. For Instance the official name for Belladonna is Atropa belladonna and for Anacardium it is Semecarpus anacardium.
In some cases the homeopathic name is completely different from the official name. Examples are:
Sabadilla: Schoenocaulon officinale.
Helonias: Chamaelirium luteum.
In cases were the official names would not be recognised I have added the old homeopathic after the official name.FamiliesThe names of the Families are the same as used by the Apg3 classification. They have an ending of “aceae”.
In the Plant theory some Subfamilies have been raised to the level of Family like the Subfamiles of Asteraceae, Apiaceae, Fabaceae and Orchidaceae. Some Orders might have to be set back to the level of Family like Arecaceae, Zingiberaceae, Commelinaceae.OrdersThe names of the Orders are the same as used by the Apg3 classification. They have an ending of “ales”.
In the Plant theory some Families have been raised to the level of Order like Asteraceae, Apiaceae and Orchidaceae. The Superorder of Commelinoidae is set back to the level of Order.SubclassesThe Apg classifications do not use names for clades higher in rank than Order. There is no use of the concept Class or Subclass. The clades have names such as Malvidae, Fabidae, Lamiidae and Campanulidae. They have an ending of “idae” or “ids”.
In older classifications Classes often had an ending of “opsida”, like Liliopsida and Magnoliopsida. The “International Code of Phylogenetic Nomenclature”, known as the PhyloCode for short, is developing a formal set of rules governing phylogenetic nomenclature. Its current version is specifically designed to regulate the naming of clades.
In the Plant theory the names of the Subclasses are the same as used by the Apg3 classification, although they were unranked there.ClassesIn the Plant theory the Classes were given new names that are ending in “anae”.
There are 5 Classes in the Phylum Angiospermae: Amborellanae, Magnolianae, Lilianae, Malvanae and Asteranae. Asteranae is the same clade as Asteridae in the Apg3 classification, a clade combining Ericales, Cornales, Lamiidae and Campanulidae. Malvanae is the extended Malvidae.
The Classes are diverging in some respects from the Apg3 classification. The names are not consistent with other classifications. Names for them are needed to reflect the classification of the plant theory.PhylaThe Apg classifications do not use ranks like Phyla. Phyla is a rank of taxonomy between Kingdom and Class. Division is another name for Phyla. The ending is mostly “phyta”.
In the Plant theory there are 5 phyla. They have no specific ending. Details about the Phyla can be found in the chapter “Kingdoms”.