Actually, I prefer the term "vernacular names" rather than "common names" or English, German, Maori, etc., names.
The birders have an official list of acceptable "common" names, and no deviations are permitted. One Latin name = one common name. If we had that for plants, there would be no problems; but we emphatically do not have that! The situation now is chaos, and the Maori situation is truly an anomaly. The very purpose of Latin names for plants and animals is to prevent the ambiguities that vernacular names engender. For most of the bulbs I work with, I have to invent "common" names if someone blanks out on a botanical name. Then there are the South African bulbs with three or four or more "common" names: one or more in each of Afrikaans, English, Xhosa, Zulu, etc. It's tough to know what to do, and I don't give talks to garden clubs anymore. I also try hard to avoid vernacular names like the plague they are. Jim Shields ************************************************* Jim Shields USDA Zone 5 P.O. Box 92 WWW: http://www.shieldsgardens.com/ Westfield, Indiana 46074, USA Tel. ++1-317-867-3344 _______________________________________________ Alpine-l mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/alpine-l
