Botanists Vote to Change Racist Plant Names

In some countries, including South Africa, "kaffir" is a racial slur against Black people that's as offensive as the n-word is in the US. The word, with various spellings, appeared in the scientific names of hundreds of African plants, until scientists voted in favor of a simple change before the International Botanical Congress last month.

• By removing the "c" and, when necessary, the second "f" from words like "cafer," "caffra," and "caffrum" in scientific names, they became words like "afra" and "afrum," terms already in use in scientific names that "refer to the material described as having the continent of Africa as geographical origin," according to a proposal from 2021.
• Variations of the word appeared in the names of 218 plants, 13 algae, and 70 fungi, NPR reports.

• Botanists in southern Africa had long objected to the names, the New York Times reports. Nokwanda Makunga, a plant molecular biologist at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, tells NPR that the word "carries a very violent, brutal, socially unjust history." She says that as a Black person, she found it upsetting to have to say the name of the African coral tree, Erythrina caffra, in presentations. Now, she says, "Africa is being elevated through this name change."
• The change was approved by the Nomenclature Section of the International Botanical Congress, which meets every six years. In what Nature describes as a "tense secret ballot," it narrowly cleared the 60% threshold, with 351 scientists—63%—in favor and 205 opposed. The Times notes scientists are "typically averse" to name changes and "usually change a name only when genetic evidence proves a species has been misnamed."

• Trinity College Dublin botanist Peter Moonlight was one of those who voted in favor. "We have sent a very strong message as a botanical community," he says, per NPR. "We recognize that there are names which cause harm on a daily basis ... and we have stated very clearly that we are doing what we can to ensure that their effect is minimized."

(More botany stories.)