synonym ( ) n. A word having the same or nearly the same meaning as another word or other words in a language.
Many times you will see, for example, "Amorphophallus abyssinicus (Rich.) N.E. Br.[syn.: A. schweinfurthii (Engl.)
Amorphophallus abyssinicus is the "new" name for the species and Amorphophallus schweinfurthii was the old name.
The citation N.E.Br. (As seen above) is the internationally standardized abbreviation of the name of the botanist (Nicholas Edward Brown) who described Amorphophallus mossambicensis, it's not the place that the species occurs.
Then Why do Botanical Names Get Changed?
If it turns out that a botanical name was mistakenly given to a plant that already had a botanical name, or if the same name was given to more than one plant, then a correction must be made. You can't have the same name for two different plants and you can't have two different names for one plant. The first name published is the accepted one (the Rule of Priority), and any other names that may have been used incorrectly are now called synonyms. But these synonyms are not interchangeable as are synonyms in regular English. These synonyms are "unavailable" names that cannot be used. We often list botanical synonyms because not everyone always knows when a plant's name has been corrected. sited: http://www.floridata.com/tracks/misc/plant_names.cfm
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