Korean Names of the Vascular Plants Living in the Arctic Svalbard Archipelago

Abstract

This study provides Korean names for the arctic vascular plants living in Svalbard archipelago, the High Arctic. We applied the following naming rules to determine suitable Korean names for the Arctic plants. (1) Original Korean names were used for 42 species because they were already registered at Korean Plant Names Index (KPNI, http://www.nature.go.kr). (2) Korean names that were previously published in a paper (Lee et al., 2012) or in the book 'Beautiful Arctic Tundra Plants' were used for 56 species. (3) For a plant species without a Korean name, the scientific name of the species including subspecies or variation was translated into Korean; this was performed for 39 species. (4) When it was difficult to translate the scientific name, the English common name was translated into the Korean name; this occurred in 51 species. (5) When the scientific or common name referred to Arctic, the Korean word for Arctic, 'Buk-geuk,' was assigned. Even in cases where the scientific or common name did not refer to Arctic but the plant was distributed in the Arctic and subarctic, 'Buk-geuk' was used for the Korean name. Nine species were assigned 'Buk-geuk' in their Korean name. (6) When there is no Korean name for the genus, the scientific name of the genus was translated into the Korean genus name, or the Korean name of the type species for the genus was used for the Korean genus name. (7) If it was difficult to apply these rules to a certain species, the Korean word 'Nado,' which means 'me too' was added to the Korean name of a phylogenetically similar species. In this study, we listed 198 Korean names for vascular plants reported on the Svalbard archipelago, including two Lycopodiophytes, seven Pteridophytes, and 189 Magnoliophytes.