Plant names?

Question

does any one know the scentific name for maple seeds, punmkin seeds and corn??

Answer 1

The scientific names of the seeds is the same as for the plant.

Pumpkin or pumpkin seeds  is Cucurbita maxima.

Corn is Zea mays.

Maple is a little harder because there are so many different kinds. The scientific name is Acer then the species name. For example the Sugar Maple is Acer saccharum. The Red Maple is

Acer rubrum.  Maple seeds are called Samaras, but that is not the scientific name.

Answer 2

Corn - Zea mays

Flour corn — Zea mays var. amylacea

Popcorn — Zea mays var. everta

Dent corn — Zea mays var. indentata

Flint corn — Zea mays var. indurata

Sweetcorn — Zea mays var. saccharata and Zea mays var. rugosa

Waxy corn — Zea mays var. ceratina

Amylomaize — Zea mays

Pod corn — Zea mays var. tunicata Larrañaga ex A. St. Hil.

Striped maize - Zea mays var. japonica

A pumpkin is a squash fruit that grows as a gourd from a trailing vine of certain species in the genus Cucurbita. Although native to the Western hemisphere, pumpkins are cultivated in North America, continental Europe, Australia, New Zealand, India and some other countries. Cucurbita species referred to as pumpkins include Curcurbita pepo, Cucurbita maxima, Cucurbita mixta, and Cucurbita moschata.

Pumpkins have historically been pollinated by the native squash bee Peponapis pruinosa, but this bee has declined, probably due to pesticide sensitivity, and today most commercial plantings are pollinated by honeybees. One hive per acre (4,000 m² per hive) is recommended by the United States of America (US) Department of Agriculture. Gardeners with a shortage of bees, however, often have to hand pollinate. Inadequately pollinated pumpkins usually start growing but abort before full development. An opportunistic fungus is also sometimes blamed for abortions.



Pumpkin FieldPumpkins have male and female flowers, the latter distinguished by the small ovary at the base of the petals. The bright, colorful flowers are short-lived and may open for as little as one day.

The current system of using Latin to name biological organisms was developed by Carl von Linne, more commonly known by his pen name Linnaeus, about 250 years ago.  (His Species Plantarum was published in 1753.)  This system is known as the Linnaean binomial system of nomenclature.  In this system, biological organisms, such as plants, are given two latinized names, the Latin binomial or so-called "scientific name".  The first name represents the

genus

and the second name is termed the

specific epithet.

The generic name in combination with the specific epithet constitutes the species name.  Thus each species has a two part name or binomial.  The custom of using latinized names and spelling originated from medieval scholarship and the use of Latin in most botanical publications until the middle of the nineteenth century.

      In the binomial system, the tree species that is commonly known in North America as red maple has been given the Latin binomial of Acer rubrum.

Red Maple   =   Acer rubrum

The Red maple is in the "maple" genus, which is called Acer, and its specific epithet is rubrum, which is Latin for red.  Therefore, the binomial name for this species is Acer rubrum.

      You might argue that we should just use the so-called "common names" of plants, since it would be much simpler, especially since few people speak Latin.  Thus we could all agree that the name for red maple is Red Maple, this would be an English binomial system.  However, there are problems with using common names, such as:

"Common names" are often common only to a localized region.  The Red Maple is commonly called the Scarlet or Swamp Maple in some areas.  The tree Nyssa sylvatica, which is native to the eastern US, has at least four common names (i.e., Sour Gum, Black Gum, Black Tupelo, Pepperidge).  In England the white waterlily has 15 common names, and if you include the common German, French, and Dutch names it has over 240 names!

Sometimes the same common name is used in different regions to identify completely different plants.  A plant in Georgia called ironweed is of the genus Sidai, whereas in the Midwest ironweed refers to a plant in the genus Vernonia.

Common names usually do not provide information on generic or family relationships, they tend to be independent of other names.  In fact common names may suggest erroneous relationships between plants.  For example, only one of the following plants is a "true cedar", i.e., of the genus Cedrus:  Japanese Cedar (Cryptomeria japonica), Port Orford Cedar (Chamaecyparis lawsoniana), Western Red Cedar (Thuja plicata), Eastern Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana), and Deodar Cedar (Cedrus deodara).

Some plants, especially those that are rare, do not have common names.

Since we now frequently interact with people all over the globe, using a myriad of languages, a single, agreed upon name for an organism is a great advantage. Thus the success of the Linnaean binomial system.

      A Latin binomial name (the "scientific name") is italicized or underlined, the genus is capitalized and the specific epithet is usually not capitalized.  However, the specific epithet may be capitalized if it is,

derived from a person's name (e.g., Spiraea douglasii - after David Douglas), or

from a vernacular name (e.g., Picea Omorika - the Balkan name for spruce), or

from a generic name (e.g., Picea Abies - where Abies is the genus name of Fir).

The tree commonly known as Sugar Maple, has the scientific name Acer saccharum, but is should be written as:

Acer saccharum    or   Acer saccharum,

However, sometime you might see it written as:

Acer saccharum Marsh.   or   Acer saccharum Marsh.

The abbreviated name following the plant name (i.e., Marsh.) is the name of the "authority" or "author", the individual who first named the plant "scientifically", in this case Humphrey Marshall.  Similarly, the scientific name of the white oak is written as

Quercus alba L.

here the the letter "L" is used to identify Linnaeus as the authority.  In most nursery and landscaping literature the authority name does not accompany the scientific name.