Nomenclature

Carl Linnaeus, father of modern botany, was a Swedish naturalist who laid the foundation of modern classification and nomenclature in 1758. He devised a binomial system of nomenclature (naming system) in which an organism is given two names:

• A generic name (name of genus) which it shares with other closely related organisms which has features similar enough to place them in the same group.

• A specific name ( name of species) which distinguishes the organism from all other species. No other organism can have the same combination of genus and species.

The scientific name derived by using the system of nomenclature is followed all over the world as they are guided by a set of rules stated in the International Code of Nomenclature.