List of descriptive plant species epithets (I–Z)

[1] These scientific names have been catalogued in a variety of works, including Stearn's Dictionary of Plant Names for Gardeners.

William Stearn (1911–2001) was one of the pre-eminent British botanists of the 20th century: a Librarian of the Royal Horticultural Society, a president of the Linnean Society and the original drafter of the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants.

[2][3] The first column below lists seed-bearing species epithets from Stearn's Dictionary, Latin for Gardeners[4] by Lorraine Harrison, The A to Z of Plant Names by Allen Coombes, The Gardener's Botanical[5] by Ross Bayton, and the glossary of Stearn's Botanical Latin.

[6] Epithets from proper nouns, proper adjectives, and two or more nouns are excluded, along with epithets used only in species names that are no longer widely accepted.

Classical and modern meanings are provided in the third column, along with citations to Charlton T. Lewis's An Elementary Latin Dictionary.