A Grammatical Dictionary of Botanical Latin

Z: used generally in the Latin transcription of Greek names, to represent the Greek letter Z: "zeta," the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. Both the letters z and y were introduced in Rome for the spelling of words of Greek origin during the time when the Roman Republic was coming to its end.

At one time the Romans used the 's' to represent this letter when it began a word, as in sona, rather than zona. When the Greek letter occurred in the midst of a word, it might be transliterated 'ss' as in Atticisso and also graecisso (-izo), are, 1. to imitate the Greeks, live in the Greek manner, which shows a variation in Latin transliteration of the Greek zeta.

In late Latin, the 'z' may replace the 's,' as in zmaragdus for smaragdus, Zmyrna for Smyrna (after Lewis & Short); also possibly Salacca = Zalacca, a genus of Palmae [Salacca zalacca (J. Gaertn.) Voss ex Vilmorin].

The zeta, in Greek, is a double consonant (s and d).

The noun (zeta) is an indeclinable neuter noun.

NOTE: in the Greek alphabet, the zeta falls, not at the end (which is omega), but between epsilon and eta.

EPITHETS: -z:

-ziae (f.gen.sg.); -zii (m.gen.sg.); -zianus,-a,-um (adj.A);

- Cyperus Schweinitzii (Lewis David de Schweinitz); Potentilla Crantzii(H. J. N. Crantz); Peziza Agassizii (Louis Agassiz)

- Andreaea lorentziana C. Mueller;

- sometimes expressed with an 's': Gladiolus mosambicensis (Mozambique).

- German words in -tz- may be latinized to 's': Lonicera L. from Lonicerus, the surname of Adam Lonitzer, a German herbalist of the 16th century (Fernald, 1950; Stearn 1983 p. 290).