Viridula

Viridula is a Latin adjective meaning greenish or green-tinted. In biological nomenclature, viridula functions as a descriptive specific epithet used in binomial names to describe a characteristic of the species. It is not a standalone taxon, nor a genus, but rather a word that accompanies a genus name to form a species designation.

Etymology and meaning are straightforward: viridula derives from the Latin viridis (green) with a diminutive ending, suggesting a modest or particular shade of green. In practice, the epithet is applied to a wide range of organisms to reflect greenish coloration, habitat, or other traits deemed relevant by the describer at the time of naming. Because it is a descriptive term rather than a typified rank, many unrelated species across diverse groups may bear the epithet viridula.

Taxonomic usage is widespread but non-hierarchical. The appearance of viridula in a species name does not imply any close evolutionary relationship among the organisms that bear it; each occurrence belongs to a different genus and possibly a different family or higher level. In formal writing, the genus name is capitalized and the species epithet is lowercase (for example, Genus viridula), and the whole binomial is typically set in italics in scientific publications. When cited in plain text, the convention is to keep the name simple and unformatted.

See also discussions of Latin epithets in taxonomy and related color-based descriptors such as viridis (green) or flavus (yellow).