In article ,
"Cereus-validus" wrote:

You really shouldn't make excuses for the sorry state of horticultural
knowledge unless you are willing to accept the blame for it being so bad.

Horticulture has long been only the idiot stepchild of botany when it should
be applied botany.

Most of the new gardening books are only lame rehashing of the older
obsolete books with more pictures with little or no effort made to bring the
information up-to-date.

The commercial trade is in most cases even worse. They are just hustling
plants with little or no regard for the plants being correctly named. Only
the specialty nurseries make an effort to have plants with proper names.
Even many of them are still using obsolete or fictitious names.

There is the attitude in the trade that there is no money to be made in
striving for accuracy nor does the public demand it. Actually correctly
named and documented "heirloom" plants are much more valuable than mass
produced garbage plants of dubious origin.

While I pretty much agree with all parts of that rant, "on the other hand"
to expect to find a great deal of astronomy expertise at a UFO convention
is unrealistic, or to demand a thoroughly expert assessment of the history
of Canada from a picture book published for tourists. One doesn't expect
up-to-date hard science from pop books & how-to books.

Gardening books tend to be about gardening not taxonomy, & sometimes not
even about gardening but about the photographs. Yet when better authors do
get into the taxonomical arguments for certain species, it is often about
the muddle of disagreements & contradicitions & who recognizes which
synonyms as definitive & how many other taxomic namnes it has had all the
way back to Clusius & whether or not certain subspecies are still
recognized or if they're only variants or only cultivated forms or
naturally occurring hybrids with something else the taxonomic standing of
which is still debated -- it's not necessarily all that apropos of
gardening, though it certainly interests me. I was this week trying to
sort out the names of Tulipa sylvestris, & quite enjoyed that minor bit of
research, but can't imagine that the majority of gardeners would find that
whole story useful.

One reason something like Cimicifuga doesn't get its name changed to
Actaea in garden shops even after four years is because about a bazillion
color-picture name tags were printed up & they have to have to be used up
before new ones will be printed, plus Cimicifuga has even worked its way
into the "common name" department in lieu of Snakeroot, so to change it
suddenly would confuse customers not aware of a name-change & who are not
shopping for plants in order to get a taxonomy lesson. In some cases the
"correction" of a name is only reported in some specialized botanical
magazine with a print-run of 500 copies subscribed only to the largest
university libraries so no wonder it takes a while to filter down; &
sometimes a mistake is so longstanding that even primary collections on
which the science is based have not been corrected so how could some mere
nursery retailer know about it.

So while your rant is correct in substance it's also understandable &
forgiveable.

-paghat the ratgirl


"Pam - gardengal" wrote in message
news:OEZ0d.178460$mD.2500@attbi_s02...

"Cereus-validus" wrote in message
m...
Despite the fact that the average gardener has absolutely no idea why
any
plant is so named the way it is, I will tell you why.

Bottom line:

Type species for genus Sedum L. is Sedum acre L. and is a dwarf
evergreen
perennial with connate kyphocarpic carpels.

Genus Hylotelephium H.Ohba (formerly Sedum section Telephium) are
deciduous
perennials, usually with a tuberous rootstock, and with separate
stipitate
(slender stalked) carpels.

It should be obvious that the growth form of Hylotelephium is very
different
from that of typical Sedum.

Dissect the flowers and you will the differences between the two genera.

While this is all well and good in the interest of taxonomic accuracy, you
will not find these plants in the commercial trade listed under this name,
nor will you find Chamaecyparis nootkatensis listed as Xanocyparis, or
Platycladus listed as Biota or seldom Cimicifuga listed as Actaea or even
very often Clematis paniculata correctly labeled as C. terniflora. Old
habits die hard.



--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
Visit the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com