The Plant Family History Group was formed in 1990.

Web site: usage since July 2000; last updated Mar 12th 2010.

Note on the meaning of Plant.The frequently repeated claim that Plant means a 'gardener' is flawed in that it relies on the names Plantebene and Planterose while ignoring others such as Plantefolie and Plantefene, which suggest another meaning. Contemporary scholastic and literary sources suggest the meaning 'soul implant' or 'offspring' for Plant. Such a meaning 'young offspring' was proposed in an early twentieth-century dictionary before the mid twentieth-century conception 'gardener'. However, the latter was then widely repeated without regard to the full evidence.

Geographical range of the meaning. The earliest known form of the name is de la Planta alias de Plant', which is found in 1202 for a landholder in the Angevin homeland of Geffrey Plante Genest. It is questionable whether there was any more than a cultural connection between these names in Anjou and the local spelling Plont of Plant in the subsequent main homeland of the Plants in the Angevin (Plantagenet) palatine of Chester. Nonetheless, it can be noted that de la Planta can mean 'from the shoot' or 'offshoot' (cf. 'offspring'); and, the Plant surname is found mostly near Wales, where the meaning is 'children' (cf. 'offspring'). This matches recent DNA and population findings which suggest that this surname belonged to a large single family with many polygynous children around the times of its origins.