I'm doing a little editing for a friend, and I'm curious about capitalization and pluralization of plant names. e.g. "Put three lamium an equal distance apart" Or is that Lamium? Or Lamiums
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My friend Shell (BA in English) says this:prettyhNovember 18 2007, 12:30:43 UTC
shayne_kraft couldn't comment here herself for some tech reason, but she wanted me to pass this along:
I tried to go to your friend's entry, but it wouldn't let me, so I'll just post what I know here and you can send her here, or cut and paste this over in her journal.
My trusty copy of The Copyeditor's Handbook says the following with regards to scientific names: "By convention, the scientific (Latin) names of plants and animals are always italicized, and the genus is capitalized, while the species and subspecies are lowercased: Esherichia coli; Ursus americanus; Heteromeles arbutifolia macrocarpa. On second reference, the genus name is usually abbreviated, and only its first letter is given: E. coli; U. americanus; H. arbutifolia."
It also says that "proper nouns and proper adjectives are always capitalized, but there are two conventions for treating words that are not indisputably proper. Down style favors the sparse use of capital letters; in up style many more nouns and adjectives are upper cased...". If your friend is writing for a publication the editor might have a preference for which style is used. If not, you can just pick one or the other, as long as you stick with it through the whole article.
I don't think Variegatum needs to be capitalized; I'm not positive, but I think that would be considered the subspecies name. All it means is that the plant has leaves of two colors or more.
I believe "by" is correct.
And if you go here you'll find some rules to help with pluralization of plant names.
I tried to go to your friend's entry, but it wouldn't let me, so I'll just post what I know here and you can send her here, or cut and paste this over in her journal.
My trusty copy of The Copyeditor's Handbook says the following with regards to scientific names: "By convention, the scientific (Latin) names of plants and animals are always italicized, and the genus is capitalized, while the species and subspecies are lowercased: Esherichia coli; Ursus americanus; Heteromeles arbutifolia macrocarpa. On second reference, the genus name is usually abbreviated, and only its first letter is given: E. coli; U. americanus; H. arbutifolia."
It also says that "proper nouns and proper adjectives are always capitalized, but there are two conventions for treating words that are not indisputably proper. Down style favors the sparse use of capital letters; in up style many more nouns and adjectives are upper cased...". If your friend is writing for a publication the editor might have a preference for which style is used. If not, you can just pick one or the other, as long as you stick with it through the whole article.
I don't think Variegatum needs to be capitalized; I'm not positive, but I think that would be considered the subspecies name. All it means is that the plant has leaves of two colors or more.
I believe "by" is correct.
And if you go here you'll find some rules to help with pluralization of plant names.
Hope that helps!
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