| Kingdom | Plantae | Plants, but not fungi, lichens, or algae (from Stearn's Botanical Latin) |
| Subkingdom | Tracheobionta | Vascular plants—plants with a “circulatory system” for delivering water and nutrients |
| Division | Magnoliophyta | Flowering plants, also known as angiosperms |
| Class | Magnoliopsida | Dicotyledons—plants with two initial seed leaves |
| Subclass | Asteridae | A large class that encompasses asters |
| Order | Lamiales | Aromatic herbs and shrubs, including lavender, lilac, olive, jasmine, ash, teak, snapdragon, sesame, psyllium, garden sage, mint, basil, and rosemary |
| Family | Oleaceae | Temperate climate shrubs, trees and a few vines, include forsythia, ash, jasmine, privet, olive, lilac, and many others |
| Genus | Forsythia | For William Forsyth (1737–1804), Scottish botanist and horticulturalist, said to have introduced the shrub into Britain from China |
| Species | intermedia | Intermediate, indicating an observation that a species was probably considered as being halfway or partway between two others with regard to some particular characteristic, e.g. tall, short, and “intermediate” |