Jim SHields wrote: >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.
(a) I tell the garden clubs, "If you can learn the word 'carburetor', you can learn the word 'calochortus'." (b) What really annoys me in this regard is the insistence of flower guide publishers and Native Plant groups on having an English name for everything, resulting in names that have never actually been used for the plant by any speaker of any language, such as "Martindale's desert parsley" (Lomatium martindalei). I've complained repeatedly to the editor of the Nature Conservancy's magazine about their frequent omission of botanical names when they're talking about plants; they usually include the taxonomic names of other kinds of biota. (c) The standardized English bird names are handy, and they can also result in some pretty funny names, such as "Carbonated Flower-pecker." Jane McGary Portland, OR _______________________________________________ Alpine-l mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/alpine-l
