Jim SHields noted, At 06:42 AM 12/11/2008, you wrote: >I always enjoy these discussion of Botanical Latin. Has anyone noticed >that some botanists transliterate the (English) "V" sound from Russian as >"w" in names? Other times as "v" of course. The spelling of botanical names derived from Russian depends on whether the names were transmitted via German speakers. Some of the most active botanists attached to early Russian exploration were in fact German in origin, and applied their own often unwieldy phonemic spelling to Russian names. Jane McGary (B.A., Classics; M.A. Comparative Lit.)