Many readers may first feel more exasperation than anything when the subject of pronouncing the scientific names of plants is brought up. I believe one of the primary reasons for this is that rarely, if ever, are gardeners, or even botanists, presented with a workable set of rules by which to operate. Hints and suggestions are often heard from various quarters, but they do not amount to a very satisfactory overall approach. Several years ago, I read an article which I am still trying to track down which addressed this problem, primarily from the perspective of communication between botanists around the world, who must overcome various language barriers. Beginners in the fields of horticulture and botany often feel the need for help in this area as well, and some of the salient points of this article are given below. It is always well to understand that there are no absolutes in the realm of pronouncing plant names, and that the main goal is for both or all parties concerned to understand what is being communicated.
The scientific names of plants are based primarily in Latin, and a distinct, technical language known as botanical Latin has arisen over a period of many centuries. All scientific plant names have technically been "Latinized", even though a good many are based in terminology derived from the Greek and less often from other languages. One of the beautiful features of Latin, and of the languages derived from Latin (Spanish, Italian, etc.), is that the rules of pronunciation for vowels are constant and essentially unvarying. This pronunciation scheme is as follows: "a" is pronounced as the "a" in "father"; "e" is pronounced as the "e" in "end"; "i" is pronounced as the "ee" in "feet"; "o" is pronounced as the "o" in "only"; and "u" is pronounced as the "ue" in "clue". For various reasons, such rules cannot be at once applied rigidly to the scientific names of plants. Try to practice a few of the names you are familiar with using the above "new rules" and you will likely come up with some rather awkward or strange-sounding epithets. And this first step in standardizing the pronouncing of the names of plants does not even address the subject of accent placement or dipthongs, consonants, etc. Taken as a constructive suggested course of change, however, the mastering of vowel pronunciation is a crucial first step in learning any language with confidence and comfort.
As a relatively easy excercise in applying this concept, let us take one of the many specific epithets of plant names which honor a person, usually someone who had something to do with the discovery of the plant. Gerbera jamesonii, the common gerbera or Transvaal Daisy, is often heard as "Ger-ber-a jay-mess-own-ee-eye". According to rules for pronouncing vowels in Latin-based languages, the genus name would sound more or less the same and the specific epithet would be pronounced "jay-mess-own-ee-ee". This will certainly sound strange at first, but it may help to think that there has never been any logical reason or historical precendent for the "ee-eye" sound we usually give to names ending in "ii". Rather, it is an artifact of the English language inhereted from traditions prevalent in the British Isles. One may opt to pronounce each "i" separately or as one long "eeee" and achieve the same basic result.
Since there is much to digest from only the above bare outline of steps toward standardizing pronunciation of scientific plant names, I will leave the reader to her or his own devices in applying some or all of them to plants they may be familiar with already. As a note of caution to any person trying to apply such new concepts in practice, that is, in talking with other plantspeople, one may expect to feel like a stranger in a strange land (speaking a strange language!), but do not despair. Already more botanists and horticulturists in California and around the country are adopting these changes, most of them grateful that there has at last been an attempt to gently impose a sensible order onto an all-too-often nebulous subject.
It would be of interest to hear the thoughts of you, the Arboretum member, on this subject. The whole idea of making sensible rules of pronunciation revolves around helping the beginning plant enthusiast, or perhaps someone more knowledgeable who is nonetheless intimidated by plant names, to come to grips with a difficult subject and more fully enjoy gardening and botany. Feel free to write in and ask questions or express viewpoints, and based on the number and nature of such responses a "part two" article could possibly be developed.