Latin plant names could be racist, warns University of Michigan

Botanical gardens should be careful not to erase ‘other forms of knowing’, says inclusivity document

Using Latin names for plants may be racist, the University of Michigan has warned, in guidance to prevent the influence of colonial “power structures” on visitors.
A strategy document for the university’s botanical gardens and arboretum warns against using the traditional combination of an English name and Latin name on plaques next to its plants, amid concerns they could erase “other forms of knowing”.
The University of Michigan, which has been criticised for its expansive diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) policies, has spent more than $250 million on inclusivity initiatives since 2016.
As part of its plan to ensure “foundational change at every level”, the college has created a series of strategic plans for every aspect of its work, including the Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum.
A “strategic plan” issued last year, first reported on Wednesday by The New York Times, warned that horticultural bosses were “deeply enmeshed within interlocking systems of domination” and used “linguistic and representational practices that are, generally, complicit in the continued erasure of non-dominant relationships to ‘nature’”.
The document states: “When botanical gardens and arboreta display Latin taxa, English ‘common name’, and perhaps a brief scientific description, what other ways of knowing are not only missing but actively erased?”
It references an academic article that warns that botany is “deeply intertwined with the histories of colonialism, racism, and imperialism”.
Botanical gardens generally display plants with two names, their “common name” in English, and a Latin name using the binomial system popularised by Carl Linnaeus, an 18th-century Swedish biologist.
The college’s strategy document pledges that the arboretum will use its collections “to not simply respond to the complexities of our shifting socio-cultural landscape, but… to lead cultural institutions with living collections toward more self-critical, just, and equitable futures”.
However, photographs posted online by the university’s arboretum show that some plants are still displayed with their Latin names, despite the DEI guidance.
The institution’s website boasts that it is “more than a collection of plants” but a “force for social and ecological resilience”.