Shapes in Botanical Names: A Polyconfrontative Approach

In the following article the author concentrates on the problem of the usage of shapes in botanical binomial names from the polyconfrontative perspective. International Latin binomial names have been confronted with their English, Dutch, Polish and Czech equivalents to show the naming tendencies in the particular languages, while taking into consideration their compliance with the Latin botanical names. The presented results of this polyconfrontative study show the extent to which botanical names draw on shapes in the process of creating parts of species names, particularly the so-called specific epithet. The shapes have been divided into: basic geometrical shapes (also accompanied by a plant part), shapes showing resemblance (to another plant, an animal or a body part), containing a numeral and a plant part, describing structure and other shapes. The author also describes the items of the plant morphology the shapes in botanical names refer to (such as leaves, stem, fruit, flower/inflorescence etc.).