Verbs are rarely found in botanical Latin descriptions and diagnoses. For example, to convey the fact that the leaves of a plant are opposite one another, a description will say “leaves opposite” (instead of “leaves are opposite”). This practice of omitting the verb saves the student of botanical Latin a lot of the work required by those studying classical Latin. As William Stearn said in his book Botanical Latin, “[b]otanists manage verbs best by avoiding them altogether.” However, some knowledge of verbs is necessary in order to understand the related participles.

There is one more thing to learn about verbs before going on to participles. In English, all the various forms of a verb (tenses, voices, and moods) are derived from three basic forms of that verb. These basic forms are referred to as the verb’s principal parts. Perhaps you can recall reciting during English class “go, went, gone”, “do, did, done”, etc. You were listing the principal parts. Specifically, in English, they are (1) the present infinitive (said usually without the word “to”; i.e., you say “go” instead of “to go” or “do” instead of “to do”), (2) the simple past (e.g., went or did), and (3) the past participle (e.g., gone or done). In Latin, there are four principal parts for most verbs. Using the Latin verb for carry as an example, you would say, “porto, portare, portavi, portatum”. These four principal parts are: (1) 1st person singular present active indicative (porto = I carry), (2) present active infinitive (portare = to carry), (3) 1st person singular present perfect active indicative (portavi = I have carried), and (4) the present perfect passive participle (portatum = [has/have been] carried). Because, as was said above, the various tenses, voices, and moods are formed from the principal parts, all four should be memorized when learning vocabulary.

A participle is an adjective that is derived from a verb. As an adjective, a participle modifies a noun or pronoun just as adjectives do, but unlike many adjectives that describe a physical trait (e.g., tall, yellow, heavy) a participle’s description of the noun or pronoun is based on some action that that noun or pronoun can/does perform. For an example, consider the noun “stream”, the verb “flow”, and the phrase “the flowing stream”. The word “flowing” describes the stream and thus functions as an adjective, but its description of the stream is based on something that the stream does, namely flow, so it has somewhat the function of a verb. A word like “flowing”, being part adjective and part verb, is called a participle.

We will now look first at the verb aspect of a participle and then the adjective part. In English, all the various tenses, voices, and moods of a verb are formed from three basic forms of that verb. These basic forms are referred to as the verb’s principal parts. Perhaps you can recall reciting during English class “go, went, gone”, “do, did, done”, etc. You were listing the principal parts. Specifically, in English, they are (1) the present infinitive (said usually without the word “to”; i.e., you say “go” instead of “to go”, or “do” instead of “to do”), (2) the simple past (e.g., went or did), and (3) the past participle (e.g., gone or done). In Latin, there are four principal parts. Using the Latin verb for “carry” as an example, you would say, “porto, portare, portavi, portatum”. These four principal parts are: (1) 1st person singular present active indicative (porto = I carry), (2) present active infinitive (portare = to carry), (3) 1st person singular present perfect active indicative (portavi = I have carried), and (4) the present perfect passive participle, usuallly referred to as the perfect passive participle, (portatum = [has/have been] carried). Because, as was said above, the various tenses, voices, and moods are formed from the principal parts, all four should be memorized when learning vocabulary.

In Latin, there are four participles—present active, present perfect passive (usually referred to simply as the perfect passive), future active, and future passive—but you will encounter only the first two in botanical Latin descriptions. The following table describes how each of these participles is formed.

The following table gives the English translation of the participles for the two participles used in botanical Latin for the first conjugation verb “to carry”, whose four principle parts are porto, portare, portavi, portatum.

The (present) perfect passive participle has first and second declension endings, and the present active participle has third declension I-stem endings. Because a participle is, in part, an adjective, it must agree with the noun or pronoun it modifies in case, and usually in number and gender.

Recall from above that the second principal part of a verb is the present active infinitive. The ending of this infinitive is diagnostic for each of the four conjugations; i.e., every verb in a given conjugation has the same present active infinitive ending as every other verb in that conjugation, but that ending is different from the endings of the other conjugations. These diagnostic endings are given in table 8.3 below.