RHS Horticultural Database

Botanical names: nomenclature and taxonomy

For each of the datasets provided online, we have sought to ensure the highest standard of botanical accuracy in naming, and consistency of treatment. The RHS Plant Finder forms the core of our work on nomenclature, and we are assisted by an advisory panel of experts.

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Common names

Common ("vernacular") names cited in the database are largely based upon the work of Charles Brooker, compiled in the 1970s and presented to the Society. They are primarily in English, and most comprehensively cover usage in the United Kingdom. This has been an invaluable reference over the years for the Society's Botanists, and is supplemented with names found in standard references, or encountered in our Advisory work.

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The RHS Plant Finder

Updated annually in book form (in spring), the RHS Plant Finder has become a standard reference to correct naming of cultivated plants. This publication is a subset of the RHS Horticultural Database; linking the information in this way enables us to synchronise the wider research on names undertaken at Wisley with the book. The Online version of the RHS Plant Finder will present a slightly more up-to-date perspective on naming than the book as the year progresses.

Search the RHS Plant Finder

The Award of Garden Merit

The Award relates to the full range of plants cultivated in the United Kingdom, and is currently the richest source of information on vegetables in the RHS Horticultural Database. The Award Plants Database can be searched separately by category for those wishing to identify a range of superior plants for their garden.

Search for AGM Plants

Living accessions of plants in RHS gardens

The RHS Horticultural Database has been used to catalogue the collections at Wisley since 1993, and provides a reasonably comprehensive list of plants there. Cataloguing at Rosemoor has started much more recently, and only parts of the collection have been covered. The collections at Hyde Hall and Harlow Carr will gradually be incorporated from 2002.

Acknowledgements: we are grateful to the staff of the Plant Records Offices at Wisley and Rosemoor, who have been responsible for collating and entering this information since 1993, when the first plant records were transferred from card index to computer at Wisley.

Standard Specimens in the RHS Herbarium

Starting in earnest in 1999, the collection of Standard Specimens has been entirely catalogued in the RHS Horticultural Database.

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International registers of cultivar names

The nine International Registers maintained by the Society are not held in the RHS Horticultural Database, though a significant amount of information from those Registers is reflected in the Database. Refer to the individual Register pages on the RHS website for further information. Daffodils and orchids may be searched with separate databases on this website.

Find out more about plant registration