A common or vernacular plant name does not have to be in common or
frequent use to be considered a common name.

The plant common name webpage I cited and other plant taxonomy experts
have said that there are no rules for plant common names. Basically,
anything goes with plant common names. The webpage mentions "the chaos
of so-called 'common names'." The great plant taxonomist Liberty Hyde
Bailey said, "Each [common] name is a law unto itself." (Bailey, L.H.
1963. How Plants Get Their Names. New York: Dover). Woody plant expert
Michael Dirr said, "Common names are a constant source of confusion
and embarassment." (Dirr, M. A. 1983. Manual of Woody Landscape
Plants. Champaign, Illinois: Stipes Publishing).

Your cat example is irrelevant because the topic is plant common
names. However, if you apply the situation to plants, there is nothing
illegal about it. For example, maybe you decide to call an individual
plant of Cymbalaria muralis the buried-fruit plant. Later, your
children notice other specimens and refer to all plants of that
species as buried-fruit plant. There is nothing illegal about them
using buried-fruit plant as a common name. It would not be a
scientific approach but it would not be illegal as discussed in the
previous paragraph. It would be an example of how proliferation of
common names has created confusion.

The webpage you cited on Linaria cymbalaria or Cymbalaria muralis is
an excellent example of the multiplicity of common names for a single
species: http://www.nature1.org/t/toaivy20.html It listed 14 English
common names plus an English translation of the Italian common name.
Hortus Third lists another two, Kenilworth ivy and coliseum ivy. Other
websites list additional common names, such as ruine-de-Rome,
cymbalaire des murs (French), zymbelkraut or zimbelkraut,
murtorskemunn (German), ruinas, hierba de campanario and palomilla de
muro (Spanish), picardia (Catala), muurleeuwebek (Dutch), kilkkaruoho,
rauniokilkka (Finnish), murreva, murgrönssporreblomma (Swedish),
vedbend-torskemund (Danish), ciombolino comune, cimbalaria (Italian),
lnica murowa (Polish), linaria and monkey-mouths. (I'm not absolutely
sure of the languages for all the names).

What proof do you have that iapacho is a typo? Bailey noted that a
"Common name ... may be a degenerate form of another word, as markery
is of mercury." Thus, iapacho could be considered a common name even
if it is a typo of lapacho.

I agree that what you were doing by making vague criticisms of Alex
Wilson's webpage article on Naturally Rot-Resistant Woods was in your
word "gossip" and inappropriate in a scientific newsgroup like
sci.bio.botany.


David R. Hershey





"P van Rijckevorsel" wrote in message ...
David Hershey schreef

It was not a sense of humor but a fact that anyone can coin a commom
name for a plant, even by accident.

+ + +
Coining a name is one thing (often fueled by a sense of humor), but that
does not make it a common name
+ + +

There are millions of plant common
names and often dozens or hundreds for a single species. If a common
name is used, even on websites or in conversation, then it becomes a
common name by default.

+ + +
Not by a long way. If you have a cat and you call him "whiskers" and your
daughters take to referring to other cats as "wiskers", this does not make
"whiskers" a 'common name' for cats.
+ + +

I said that even if iapacho originated as a typo, it would still be a
valid common name because it is in use. Do you know for a fact that
iapacho arose due to a typo, or does it represent an alternate
spelling or a native term?

+ + +
It is definitely a typo
+ + +

http://www.ou.edu/cas/botany-micro/ben/ben109.html

+ + +
Nice site, supporting what I say. It warns against attempting to
artificially introduce common names
+ + +

What science has to do with your vague criticisms of a webpage is that
scientists are supposed to be specific. [snip]
David R. Hershey

+ + +
Depends on circumstance. There is a technical name for "being specific" at
length on topics you have no power to change just for the sake of filling up
space: it is called "gossip". It is not supposed to be a scientific
endeavour.
PvR