The botany of the sacred bible

Part One

Abstract

For the botanical and contemporary analysis of the Holy Bible it is very important to remember two great figures of art and science: Johannes Gensfleisch, better known as Gutenberg (1397-1468); and Carolus Linnaeus (Charles Linnaeus, 1707-1778). The first, with the invention of the printing press, made it possible for the Bible to become more widely known in the 15th century; and only in the middle of the 18th century did Linnaeus bring order to the existing chaos in the naming of plants by establishing a system called binomial or binary nomenclature, which consists of giving a name, Latin or Latinized, to each plant species composed of two words: the first alludes to the genus, the second to the species. And this system is the one that persists today as an obligatory rule in the botany of the world. The scientific names of plants could not be required to appear in the texts and notes of the Bible; this may be done in future editions. In this writing we give first the common or vulgar name of the plant and then its equivalent or equivalent scientific names, also indicating, with the abbreviation Fam., the botanical family to which it belongs.