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A
scientific name is composed of three parts: 1) the genus
or generic name, equal to our surname; 2) the species name,
equal to our given name; 3) and the name or abbreviation of the
name of the author of the combination. For example, in the
name "Quercus alba L." (White Oak), Quercus is the surname,
alba is the given name, and L. is the abbreviation
for Linnaeus, the person whom first used this combination.
The author's name is a part of the scientific name, although it is
common practice to omit it under most references. The genus
name is always capitalized and the species name is always in lower
case letters. |
