The Difference Between the Scientific Name and the Commercial Name of Oud

When you read about oud, names of two different kinds meet you: a strict Latin name such as Aquilaria malaccensis, and a colloquial market name such as "Kalimantani Super." And much of the ambiguity in the world of oud stems from the confusion between these two kinds, as though they said the same thing in two languages. And the truth is that they — as we will show at Oud Treasure — belong to two completely different worlds: the first is a fixed botanical scientific name, and the second is a variable commercial name that the market coins. Neither of them is right and the other wrong; each has its function, and the problem begins when we load the commercial name with a scientific significance that it does not carry, or think that the scientific name tells us of a quality that it does not tell of. In this article — from the axes of the botanical guide to the species of oud trees — we take apart this difference without exaggeration, and we show why the two registers do not match, and what that means for you when you buy.

1. Two names from two different worlds

Imagine that you ask about a piece of oud, and two answers come to you: "this is of the species Aquilaria malaccensis" and "this is Kalimantani Double Super." The two answers seem on their surface to be of a single kind — both are a "name" — but in reality they answer two different questions. The first answers a botanical question: to which species of oud trees does this tree belong? And the second answers a market question: how does the market classify this piece in terms of the origin, the grade, and the style?

The scientific name belongs to the world of botanical classification (the scientific nomenclature); its language is Latin, its rules are international, and its aim is to point to a particular botanical species with a pointing in which there is no ambiguity among the scientists of the whole world. As for the commercial name, it belongs to the world of the market; its language is colloquial, its rules are customary, and its aim is to describe for the buyer what concerns him practically: where the oud came from, what its grade is, and what style it is. So the first is the language of science, and the second is the language of buying and selling.

And when we realize that they are from two worlds, much of the misunderstanding vanishes. So we do not expect from the commercial name a botanical precision that it does not claim in the first place, nor do we expect from the scientific name to tell us of the quality of the piece or its scent. Each name is truthful in its domain, and it becomes misleading when we take it out of its domain and load it with what is not in it. And this is the essence of what we build in the rest of the article.

2. The scientific name: a fixed Latin binomial

The scientific name of the plant is built according to a system known as the binomial nomenclature: a name of two terms, the first the name of the genus and the second the specific epithet, and they are written in Latin and in italics. So when we say Aquilaria malaccensis, then Aquilaria is the name of the genus to which the tree belongs, and malaccensis is the epithet that determines the species within that genus. And this same system is used for all living beings, not for oud alone.

And the most important characteristics of this name are that it is universal and relatively fixed. Universal because it is one in all the languages of the world; for the researcher in Indonesia, Japan, and Europe all point to the same species by the same Latin name, without it being confused with multiple local translations. And fixed because it does not change with the change of the market or the fashion or the country; it does not alter except when a documented taxonomic study revises it and rearranges the species based on evidence. For it is designed to be a stable reference, not a marketing description.

And among the most famous of what is given as an example of the scientific name in the world of oud is the species Aquilaria malaccensis, to which we devoted an independent article as the most mentioned species of the genus Aquilaria in the sources and the market. But notice what this name tells you and what it does not tell you: it tells you the botanical species to which the tree belongs, and it does not tell you the quality of a particular piece nor its scent nor its precise origin. The scientific name answers the question "what is the tree?" not the question "is this piece good?"

And we add an honest reservation: knowing the scientific name of a piece in your hands is not as easy as may be supposed. For determining the botanical species precisely needs tools of examination that go beyond the look and the smell, and the oud reaches the market often cut far from its tree. Therefore the mention of a scientific name on a product does not necessarily mean that it underwent a laboratory verification; it may be merely an attribution inherited by custom. The scientific name is fixed in itself, but the attribution of a particular piece to it is another matter that needs proof.

3. The commercial name: the changing language of the market

In contrast to the Latin fixedness, the commercial name lives in a flexible, moving world. And it is not a single kind of names but rather a family of them. The first of them is the names of origins: Kalimantani (in relation to Kalimantan), Sumatran, Papuan, and others — and they describe where the oud came from geographically, not to which botanical species it belongs. And we detailed these colloquial names in the Arab market in the names of Indonesian oud in the Arab market, where it becomes clear that most of them are names of regions, not species of trees.

And the second of them is the terms of the grades: "Super," "Double Super," and the like of titles that indicate — in what circulates — a rank in the quality or the density or the sinking in water. And these terms are among the most fluid of the commercial names; for there is not a single standard body that governs their meaning, so "Super" may mean for a certain trader what it does not mean for another, and its ceiling and its floor differ from one market to another. It is a language of relative comparison more than an absolute measure.

And the third of them is the descriptors of the style and the impression: epithets that describe the character of the scent or its color or the story of the piece as the seller sees it. And all of these commercial names — with their variety — share a single characteristic: that they are not standardized nor governed by a standard, they arise from custom and circulation, and they change with the time, the place, and the fashion. And they in themselves are not a deception; for they are useful practically when they describe an origin or a grade truthfully. But they become misleading when they are presented as though they were a fixed botanical fact, or when a grand title is stuck onto a piece that neither a documented origin nor an examined grade supports.

4. The comparison table

To fix the difference in the mind, the following table summarizes the most prominent aspects of the difference between the two registers. And we caution that it is an educational simplification that highlights the general lines, not a decisive enumeration of every case; for the reality has in it exceptions and overlaps:

And the conclusion that the table draws is that the two names answer two different questions, and issue from two different sources, and vary in fixedness. And therefore translating one of them to the other a direct translation — that we say that this commercial name "means" that scientific species — is a leap that is not guaranteed, and it is the subject of the following section.

5. Why they do not match

The reader may suppose that the aim of the matter is that we find a "conversion table" that ties each commercial name to its corresponding scientific name, so the ambiguity ends. And the truth is that this clean correspondence is not achieved, and for two opposing reasons. The first: that the single commercial name may not point to a single botanical species. For a name like "Kalimantani" describes an oud from the region of Kalimantan, and that region may have more than one botanical species growing in it; so the commercial name here is the name of a region that contains species, not the name of a single species.

And the second — and it is the opposite — that the single botanical species may extend across many commercial names. For a single botanical species may grow in several regions, so the oud of each region is sold under a different commercial name according to its origin, even if the botanical species is one. So neither does the commercial name confine a species, nor does the species confine itself to a commercial name. This intertwined relationship — between the name of the region and the name of the species specifically — we laid out in the difference between the name of the region and the name of the botanical species, and it is the clearest practical application of this matter.

Added to that is a third reason: that many of the commercial names are not geographical in the first place but rather grades or styles ("Super," "Double Super"), and these have no relation to the botanical species from the foundation; for they describe the rank of the piece, not its tree. So for you to ask "which botanical species does (Double Super) mean?" is a question out of place, like asking about the nationality of a school grade. The commercial name and the botanical species measure different things, so it is no wonder that one of them does not apply to the other.

And for all of this we are reserved when we see a product that pairs a commercial name with a scientific name a decisive pairing, as though between them were a guaranteed correspondence. The linking may be an acceptable approximation in a certain context, but it is not a constant rule. And for more of this distinction between the name of the region and the species, the name of the region and the name of the species remains a complementary reference to this section. As for us, we suffice with the rule: the two registers do not match automatically, and whoever sells you the correspondence sells you a certainty that the nature of the names themselves does not support.

6. What does this mean for the buyer

After this taking-apart, what do you come out with practically? First: do not confuse the marketing name with the botanical fact. When you see a shiny title — whether scientific or commercial — ask yourself: what does this name actually tell me? And what does it not tell me? The scientific name tells you the species, not the quality, and the commercial name tells you the origin or the grade as the seller sees it, not a documented botanical fact. Neither of them alone is enough.

Second: no name — scientific nor commercial — guarantees the quality. For neither does the attribution of a piece to a famous scientific species make it good necessarily, nor does the title "Double Super" guarantee what it promises unless a real origin and grade support it. The quality is tested in the piece itself: its origin, its grade, the density of its resin, and its scent. And because the scent alone does not determine the botanical species as we detailed in can the species be determined from the scent, the names — of both kinds — remain a background knowledge, not a substitute for the testing.

Third — and it is a practical conclusion: verify the four, not the name: the origin, the grade, the scent, and the sample. Ask for an origin that a clear supply chain discloses, a declared grade, smell the oud yourself, and start with a sample before you commit to a quantity. And these practical criteria we detailed in how to choose an authentic Indonesian oud, and we provide for its direct experience the samples service. So when you test the piece yourself, the name — whatever its kind — becomes an illuminating detail, not a promise that you pay in exchange for.

And there remains a chapter connected to this article: that the ambiguity between the names does not stop at the difference between the two registers, but rather an error may occur in the naming itself for several reasons — from the similarity of the species to the habits of the market — to which we devote an independent axis: why do errors occur in the naming of oud species?. As for today, it suffices you to come out with a firm rule: the scientific name is a fixed botanical register, and the commercial name is a variable market register, and they do not match, and neither of them guarantees quality. Make your judgment on the oud itself, not on its name. And for the more comprehensive picture about the species of oud trees, return to the botanical guide to the species of oud trees.