By Any Other Name

The famous line in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet reminds us roses would smell just as sweet if they had a different name, but the names we give to plants have a tendency to attract or deter us. Does sneezeweed really make you sneeze? What is so bad about a hackberry? Does fleabane really have anything to do with fleas? Learn more about taxonomy, the way we classify organisms, and compare the scientific names of plants to the common names European colonizers gave to them. Plus, learn a little bit about some of the ways they were used historically.

All Ages