Capitalization
In general, capitals are avoided for common plant names. They are not used where proper nouns are combined with such words as grass, tree, bean, etc., for example, bermudagrass, indiangrass, johnsongrass, but are used when the name is that of a country, state, or other place and is a separate word as in Virginia wildrye, Texas bean, California burclover, and Missouri milkvetch. They are not used, however, when the name is derived from a man’s name; for example, lambert crazyweed, dillen tickclover, chewings fescue, and lehmann lovegrass. Capitals are, of course, used for proper names of strains or varieties, but such usage is beyond the scope of this list. The few exceptions to all of these “rules” are dictated by firmly established usage.
Authorities
To identify each species as definitely as possible, authorities are given for scientific names. Authorities for grass names are from Hitchcock’s 1951 manual.[4] The others were compiled from various sources by Dr. L. C. Hulbert, Department of Botany, Kansas State University, chiefly from these sources: Gray’s Manual, 8th ed.,[5] The New Illustrated Britton and Brown,[6] and Harrington’s Manual.[7] Occasionally other sources were used for a few or for single species.
Since authorities were taken directly from the various sources without change, some differences in abbreviation occur. For example, Hitchcock’s manual abbreviates Humboldt, Bonpland, and Kunth as H.B.K., while most other manuals consulted use HBK. Certain other names may be spelled fully in one manual and abbreviated in others.
Common Name Sources
Several workers helped with selecting plants to be included and common names for them. For the most part, the common names are those used in Kelsey and Dayton, Standardized Plant Names (SPN).[8] However, common names of some species are so different and are so firmly entrenched in common usage that the names given in SPN could not be used in this list. An example is “broomsedge” for Andropogon virginicus. In SPN it is “yellowsedge bluestem,” a name never heard in the area this list serves.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Appreciation is expressed to those who aided in selecting both plants and their common names:
The late F. W. Albertson, Biology Department, Fort Hays Kansas State College