"Common names should be written in lower case unless part of the name is proper and then the first letter of only the proper term is capitalized. For example, sugar maple would be written with lower case letters while Japanese maple would be written with the capital J. This is the accepted method for writing common names in scientific circles and should be familiar to the student. In this text, and many others, common names are written with capital first letters. This was done to set the name off from the rest of the sentence and make it more evident to the reader. Actually in modern horticultural writings the capitalized common name predominates." — Michael Dirr, Manual of Woody Landscape Plants