Rick, The early trend was to capitalize specific epithets that were named after people. However, that practice has been dropped and all specific epithets now begin with a lower case letter. Names of people can often be identified (even when you don't know the name of scientist) by the single i ending (if the person's name ends in a vowel) or the double ii ending (when the person's name ends in a consonent) of the epithet. Of course, adjective forms of peoples names end differently (e.g., Gernanium robertianum, Potentialla robbinsiana). There are many exceptions to this rule, including gender, names that are already latin, etc. and I won't bore you with this. Arthur Haines Plant Biologist/Field Taxonomist Woodlot Alternatives, Inc.