Vulgaris

Vulgaris is a Latin adjective meaning common or ordinary. In biological nomenclature, vulgaris is used as a species epithet or subspecies epithet in numerous genera across plants, animals, and fungi. It does not describe a single taxon; instead, it signals that the taxon was, at the time of naming, considered the common, typical, or widespread form within its group. Because many unrelated organisms have names containing vulgaris, the epithet by itself provides limited information about biology and must be interpreted in the context of its genus and the full species description.

Taxonomists choose epithets like vulgaris for historical reasons as well as descriptive ones. The same epithet can appear in many genera because each taxon is named independently, and the epithet is not unique across the tree of life. In binomial nomenclature, the epithet is Latin and, when used, should agree in gender with the genus, following standard Latin grammar rules.

Outside formal taxonomy, vulgaris also appears in historical or descriptive texts to indicate “common” variants or populations. The term thus exemplifies how Latin adjectives embedded in species names carry conventional meanings rather than direct diagnostic characters.