Some plant names can be racist. Scientists are looking to rename them

Caption

Some researchers say the African coral tree has a racial slur embedded in its name. This month, scientists at an international meeting voted to have that epithet removed. / Flickr

For almost 300 years, researchers have classified life on Earth with scientific names — two-word monikers like Homo sapiens that become a kind of permanent label. But there are those who argue that some of these names are problematic, demeaning or even racist.

That’s why the community of plant, algae and fungi researchers took a series of steps to start tackling these issues — including voting to rename more than 200 plants to strike a racial slur from their official names.

The move, made just ahead of last week’s International Botanical Congress in Madrid, was intended to correct a name that many found derogatory.

“We have sent a very strong message as a botanical community,” says Peter Moonlight, a botanist at Trinity College Dublin who voted on the change.

“We recognize that there are names which cause harm on a daily basis … and we have stated very clearly that we are doing what we can to ensure that their effect is minimized.”

A beautiful tree with an ugly name

One of the plants that was facing a name change is the African coral tree that grows in eastern South Africa. A couple years ago, Nokwanda Makunga, a plant molecular biologist at Stellenbosch University, traveled to this part of the country, up the coast from where she was raised, and saw them abloom.

“It’s a big, tall tree,” she says. “You have these bare branches that have these beautiful coral-colored flowers — it’s like a peachy orange. It’s difficult not to notice them because they’re quite majestic in their appearance.”

The problem is the tree’s scientific name — Erythrina caffra. That second word likely originally referred to the area where the tree was found. It derives from the Arabic word for “infidel,” but it came to be used as a racial slur against Black people in South Africa and elsewhere.

“That word carries a very violent, brutal, socially unjust history,” says Makunga. “And so, when I see it, I get a bit of a sinking feeling in my body — a psychological and maybe even a physical reaction.”

Makunga has given presentations that reference the coral tree, during which she’s had to write out or even say its derogatory name. “It is difficult to be pronouncing that, as a Black person,” she says.

A simple solution

There are 218 plants, 13 algae and 70 fungi whose scientific names have some variation of this word, but it’s part of their official designation (for some, since the late 1700s).

Then, earlier this month, more than a hundred scientists gathered in Madrid just before the International Botanical Congress. This Nomenclature Section meets once every six years to discuss altering the code that’s used to name the more-than-quarter-million plant, fungus, and algae species on the planet.

“That’s when the rubber hits the road,” says Sandy Knapp, a botanist at the Natural History Museum in London who was president of the group and chaired the meeting. The scientists considered 433 proposals to change the code in various ways, including one that confronted the derogatory word head on with a straightforward solution — simply striking the first letter (the “c” or “k”) from the word.

Knapp recalls what one of her South African colleagues said during the discussion: “We could delete that ‘c’ or delete that ‘k,’ and then we could be proud to be Africans because all of these things would be named affrum or affrorum.”

Makunga agrees. “That means that Africa is being elevated through this name change,” she says.

But the proposal wasn’t a slam dunk. “Any change has [its] impacts,” says Anne Dubéarnès, the Herbarium Curator at Naturéum in Switzerland. “So all of these changes are always debated. Enacting changes to the code is something that people do very carefully. But this one was of course more emotional.”

Some spoke against the proposal. Others came out in favor. At last, the question of whether the names of these plants should be changed came to a vote. “I specifically made this into a completely secret ballot,” says Knapp.

The proposal passed with 63% in favor, just clearing the 60% threshold required.

“We would have been stupid not to do it,” says Knapp. “My community has taken a step. It’s a baby step towards thinking about how names affect people, but it’s an important first step.”

A diversity of opinions

Some disputed the decision on technical grounds. And there are those who agree with the change, but worry it could lead to a flurry of requests to alter the nomenclature of untold numbers of other species.

“The names that were in the past, they should remain the way they are,” says Alina Freire-Fierro, a botanist at the Technical University of Cotopaxi in Ecuador who didn’t attend the gathering in Madrid.

“You don't want to seem, like, bigoted or something like that, but at the same time, naming has to be a stable process,” she says. That’s because these names are used across a range of scientific disciplines and industry, spanning the fields of botany, horticulture and agriculture.

“If today [a species] has one name and tomorrow it changes to a different name, it could cause a lot of chaos.”

Last week, the Nomenclature Section also established a special committee to discuss the ethics of naming species going forward, including how best to handle species named after problematic individuals who some take issue with. (Moonlight says one example is begonias, which are named after Michel Bégon, who was a slaveowner.)

In addition, starting in 2026, any new species names that are considered derogatory to a group of people can be proposed for rejection.

Adeyemi Aremu, the president of the South African Association of Botanists, applauds these developments.

“Are we going to be rigid and be insensitive, or be sensitive and go with the change?” he asks. “Because we do know that change is actually part of life. We have to be adaptable. We have to change.”

Aremu was surprised the changes were approved. But he says they’re critical for attracting diverse scientists to the field of botany — and retaining them.

“If we’re not willing to start to learn, start to ask questions, start to be curious and have some really difficult, uncomfortable conversations, then we’re not gonna change anything,” argues Jaime Frye, the Associate Curator of Living Collections at Newfields.

“And I feel like botanists, public garden people — we’re just trying to make the world a better place through plants.”