Naming Conventions
We
all love stories in a language we can understand, so I am not surprised
that folks on my hikes detest scientific names. After all, most of the
scientific names are in Latin, a language which probably died out for a
good reason. Nevertheless, scientific names are essential to a solid
understanding of ecology since one species of plant could have a dozen
common names and some of the same common names can be used for multiple
species.
I have dealt
with this problem in a couple of ways. I chose a reference book
(listed in the bibliography)
for each type of organism and stuck to the common names listed there
during discussions in the main text of this book. For the sake of
clarity, I also present the scientific name of each species in most
picture captions along with a bit of information about where plants and
animals live, when they are most visible, and other facts for the
more serious naturalist.
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