Taxonomy question

Hallo

Just a quick question about taxonomy.
Has the plant family to be written in italic or regular?

Thanks
GV

 

Hello again

That's a good question.

My English books have the names in italics, but a French one has them in normal type

 

Yes, exactly!!!
There is a bit of confusion in the literature.
Looking web-sites as well as gardening books, I can find plant family names written both in regular and italic...

 

I think it's down to the evolution of language. In the past Latin names of plants were nearly always written in italics. Latin is rarely used now universally as a language with the exceptions of plant names etc., I suppose as a natural course italics will disappear as well.

 

It could evolve further

 

When I went to school , we had to write all our work in italics, I really appreciate it now.

 

I personally think that it doesn't matter. When I went to school italics was just an style with no actual meaning other than that some people liked the look of it. I'm not personally a fan of italics. I think text written in italics is less clear than regular text.

It just looks wonky to me, which is why I would never, ever use it.

 

Perhaps it`s sentimental of me, I don`t use it in the normal course of letter writing, but on a Birthday card for example, it looks lovely and I hope the recipient realises, I took time and trouble.

 

I have just had a look at an RHS site, which says that to make plant names stand out in text they should be in italics or underlined if handwritten. Family and Genus names should start with a capital letter and species names with a small letter. Cultivars names should be enclosed in single quotes and should not be in italics.

 

Thanks for that Peter,
Jenny