Taxonomy

"She lingered in that charming little garden to say hello to the gnomes, such a glorious infestation! How few wizards realise just how much we can learn from the wise little gnomes — or, to give them their correct name, the Gernumbli gardensi."

- Xenophilius Lovegood at Bill and Fleur's wedding

Taxonomy is the science of defining and naming groups of biological organisms on the basis of shared characteristics. Organisms are grouped together into taxa and these groups are given a taxonomic rank, creating a hierarchy: the principal ranks in modern use are (in descending order) kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species.

Wizarding species
Wizarding creatures and plants are also subject to taxonomic classification:


 * Trolls are grouped together in the Troglodytarum genus. Individual species include the Mountain Troll (Troglodytarum alpinum) and the Forest Troll (Troglodytarum sylvaticum).


 * The proper taxonomic name of gnomes is, according to Xenophilius Lovegood, Gernumbli gardensi. It is unknown if there are other species of gnome in the Gernumbli genus, or if it's monospecific.


 * Mimbulus is a genus of wizarding plants; Mimbulus mimbletonia is a very rare small grey cactus covered in boils endemic to Assyria.


 * The scientific name for wormwood, Artemisia absinthium, is derived from the name of Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt and the Moon.

Behind the scenes

 * Falco aesalon is the name given by English ornithologist Marmaduke Tunstall in 1771 to the Eurasian merlins, which he considered a different species from the North American kind, Falco columbarius (it is still not completely resolved if the two are different species or not). In the Harry Potter universe, Falco Aesalon was the name of an Ancient Greek wizard who, appropriately enough, could into a falcon at will, being the first Animagus on record.