'What' - the names on your labels

You'll have heard about Linnaeus and his binomial naming system. Today there are internationally agreed rules and regulations about how this system is used (the ICN for plants, and the ICZN for animals). Thankfully you really don't have to worry about all those. But you do want to make sure that you write your specimen names in an accepted style.

Here are some bluebells:

Image by Pluralzed (CC)

They're Hyacinthoides non-scripta. The first word (the genus or generic name) gets a capital letter. The second word (the specific name or epithet) always starts in lower case.

If you're typing your labels, you use italics, or you can underline the name. If you're writing the labels by hand, it's easiest to underline.

Names can change over time as taxonomists refine their understanding of how different species are related. So you should really check you've got the currently accepted name, especially if the book you're using to identify them is a bit old. 
 You can do this very easily on the Natural History Museum's UK Species Inventory.

Back in the dark ages I learnt that bluebells were Endymion non-scriptus. If you search for this on the Inventory, it will show you this is passe and no longer recommended, and helpfully gives you the new title too. (Annoyingly, I can't seem to unlearn the old one).

After the Latin name you'll see the authority - the person or people who named the species. There are complicated rules about how this works (you can look them up in the links at the top of the page), which is why our bluebell's authority looks so complicated. But many species will just have an L. or Linnaeus (depending if they're flora or fauna... so many rules). Whilst it is not absolutely essential, you are sure to impress your markers if you include the authority.

 So you would label your hypothetical bluebell thus:
Hyacinthoides non-scripta  (L.) Chouard ex Rothm.

If you're dealing with animals not plants, there is an extra element to include: the date when the name was published.

CC image by Trevor Harris

This lovely stag beetle is called 

 Lucanus cervus (Linnaeus, 1758).

Again, the NHM's UK Species Inventory  will give you the correct details; just copy them as you see them (including any brackets).

Yet another thing that the Species Inventory will help you do, is to arrange your specimens: you will of course want to do this taxonomically, it being a taxonomic collection. If you look in the top right corner of the species' page, you will see how it fits into the overall hierarchy. If you are collecting beetles, they will all be in the same Order (Coleoptera), so you will probably want to arrange them by Family. In this case you might want to note their family on your label. If you're collecting flowers from the Asteraceae, they're already in the same family, so you might want to note their subfamilies and organise them that way.

  Finally, you don't have to, but you may want to add an English common name to your label. With some species, we all agree on what they signify by common usage (who doesn't recognise a bluebell? though in Scotland a bluebell can refer to what is known elsewhere in Britain as a harebell). It's best to use the common names given in a book... a member of the public might call any yellow dandelion-ish plant a dandelion, but you'll know better.

Of course, lots of species - particularly the cruelly overlooked ones like mosses, lichens, beetles and earthworms, to name just a few - don't have common names (other than Moss, Lichen, Beetle and Worm). Sometimes lists of official common names have been tortuously invented. In short, if there are common names, feel free to include them. But if they don't exist or you don't like them, don't worry, leave them out.

This is your taxonomic collection, and common names don't always reflect accurately the underlying biological relationships between species. In fact sometimes they can be downright misleading (consider the starfish). They are 'folk taxonomies' and a very interesting subject in their own right (there's an interesting anthropological article here). Common names often reflect a species' cultural significance as well as its habitat, form or colour - but that's a different course entirely and I digress...

Read on for information about the 'where' for your labels.