I feel pretty certain (I'm quite empathic!) that the plants couldn't care less what we call them. I'm not sure we should care much more.
Botanical names are pretty subjective. Someone writes a revision of a genus or a family and species names get shifted. If enough writers in the field accept the revision, most experts eventually adopt the revised names. But usually, not everyone does. In fact, you are still botanically correct using any name that was properly published, with Latin diagnosis, in a recognized publication. Some pretty questionable publications -- self-published; and refereed if at all by god knows whom -- are accepted as authoritative and legitimate. So you often have a choice of what name you call any species by. Anyone who stands up and scolds you for using a different but validly published botanical name is just off base. Feel free to tell them so. Example: Most authorities (people I agree with) use the name Hymenocallis occidentalis for a hardy species of this genus whose range extends north along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers to southern Illinois and southernmost Indiana. Furthermore, the genus is placed in the family Amaryllidaceae. Gerald Smith uses this name and family in Flora of North America. The USDA database of plants uses the obsolete name Hymenocallis caroliniana (demolished some years ago by the same Gerald Smith) and puts it in the family Liliaceae. Authorities disagree, it seems, about botanical names. So can you and I. Not being anything near a taxonomist, I am always glad to offer dogmatic opinions about what the rest of the world should think about taxonomy. Jim Shields At 10:40 AM 1/15/2011 -0800, you wrote: >Content-Type: multipart/alternative; > boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0013_01CBB4A0.AC1BA110" >Content-Language: en-ca > >In my salad days, I had a well going snail-mail correspondence with one >esteemed botanist. We discussed several issues of plant taxonomy and I >gained a lot from this relationship. Until the day, when my pen pal wrote >me, This villain is calling this plant Polygonum lapathifolium instead of >what is correct Bistorta lapathifolia. I sat down, and without thinking >about consequences, I wrote back, Dear Prof. ..., in my humble opinion, I >think that the plants don t care, how they are called. I never heard from >him again. > > > >Do you think that the plants care? > > > >Adolf Ceska, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Zone 8+1/2 >_______________________________________________ >Alpine-l mailing list >[email protected] >http://mailman.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/alpine-l ************************************************* 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
