Meaning of Indian Flowering Plant Names. 1985. 409 p. gr8vo. Cloth.

From the preface: To students of botany, nurserymen and laymen, scientific plant names appear as insurmountable obstacles to the understanding of beautiful flowers, useful herbs and graceful trees.It is easy to understand plant names if the process of naming plants isexplained in simple language with examples. It is easy to learn latinised plant names if the derivative words used in naming plants areunderstood. India has a rich heritage of plant lore derived fromclassical literature, puranas and materia medica. A brief account ofthe plants mentioned in our ancient scriptures and literature (before500 A.D.) is mentioned in the first chapter. Besides this, well knownplants used by ancient Greeks, Romans, Chinese and Incas in their ancient civilizations are enumerated. The second chapter deals with themethodologies adopted for the naming of generic names as per theInternational Code of Botanical Nomenclature. A brief account of thegeneric names with its broad classification, viz. Mythological names,Commemorative names, Classical names, Descriptive names, etc. is alsogiven. The third chapter deals with the generic names of floweringplants in India arranged in alphabetical sequence. The derivation of thegeneric name is explained with one or two examples, their common names,folk-lore if any and uses wherever available.