Cryptomeria japonica ‘Araucaroides’ is looking nice now, but what does the name mean. Let’s start with first of the trinomial (three) parts of the name, Cryptomeria. It seems obvious that this probably should be a word used to describe people who purchased lots of Bitcoin before the recent rise. In reality, the word means “hidden parts”, as it relates to its reproductive organs. The word of the trinomial, known as the specific epithet, ‘Japonica’ should be easy for anyone with a basic understanding of Latin. It means, “from Japan”. Using this method, it’s usually easy to determine where a plant was first discovered, a characteristic of the plant, or the person for whom is was named to honor. Occasionally, however, when using original location names, there have been mixups, perhaps due to shipping snafus. If you think reliable shipping is problematic now, you should have seen how long you had to wait for a delivery in the 1700s, when many plants were named. One of the most famous mixups is why we have a name of Scilla peruviana for a plant that’s a Mediterranean native…oops.
The third part of the trinomial name is the cultivar name. In this case, ‘Araucaroides’ is a Latin word that means, looks like an Araucaria. So, what’s an araucaria, you ask? Monkey puzzle trees are the most famous member of the genus Araucaria. So, the person who named this noticed the resemblance of this cultivar to monkey puzzle trees. These Latinized cultivar names were officially banned in 1959, so since that time, people who name plant cultivars are supposed to use nouns, which are a word or words in a Modern Language. That’s why so many names that people use as cultivar named aren’t valid. Also, names can only be used once in the genus. We see so many plants listed using ‘Variegata’ or ‘Marginata’. These name are wrong on three accounts. Not only have these names been outlawed for over sixty years because of being Latinized, but in most cases they have been used ad nauseum in a single genus, making them worthless to identify a cultivar. Thirdly, they are adjectives, not nouns.
