Species, variety and what a name means

Names in this craft carry different weights, and conflating them is how a label becomes a claim it cannot support.

Three kinds of name

A species name, which is defined by chemistry and crystal structure and is subject to a formal approval process.

A variety name, which describes a recognizable form of a species and has no formal standing.

A trade name, which was invented to sell something.

All three appear on labels and only the first is a statement about what the material is.

Species

New species are described, reviewed and approved formally, and existing ones are periodically redefined, split, merged or discredited.

Which means a species name has a history and a current status. Material labeled with a name that has since been discredited is not mislabeled by the person who wrote it; it is a record of what the species was called then.

Write the accepted current name, and keep the old label.

Variety

Amethyst is quartz. Ruby is corundum. Both are varieties, both are universally used, and neither is a species.

Variety names are legitimate and useful on a label, alongside the species rather than instead of it: "quartz, var. amethyst" says exactly what you have.

The trouble starts when a variety name implies a locality or a quality it does not carry.

Trade names

Invented, unregulated and frequently misleading by design. Names that graft a valuable species onto a cheaper one are the classic case, and they are common in the tumbled and decorative trade.

A trade name on your label is a liability: it tells a knowledgeable buyer either that you do not know or that you are hoping they do not.

If material came to you under one, record it as the seller's term and put the actual species beside it.

References