While his output covered a wide range of topics, he is best known for his contributions to botanical history, taxonomy, botanical bibliography, and botanical illustration. Botanical Latin (four editions 1966–1992),[99] is his best known work,[15][21] having become a standard reference and described as both the bible of plant taxonomists and a philological masterwork.[5] It was begun during the war years and the first edition was basically a guide to Latin for botanists with no or limited knowledge of the language, which he described as a "do-it-yourself Latin kit" for taxonomists.[21] Later, the work evolved into an etymological dictionary,[100] but then Stearn learned that such a work had already been published in the Netherlands before the war.