In article ,
Basia Kulesz wrote:
I am having an awfully heated argument with my friend about this plant. All
about its English common name - one of these is of course Schisandra,
another is Magnola vine, but I have googled and lots of sites refer to this
plant as "Wu-wei-zi"'. This name is of course of Chinese origin (it means
"having five tastes" or something), but the question is, whether it has been
*accepted* into English language? Or is my friend right and it is solely and
purely Chinese?

Well, it might have been accepted into English by Chinese speakers,
I suppose. Other than that, no, it hasn't been. And Magnola vine
is new to me, too - for such specialised plants, most gardeners will
use the Latin names. It may be a more common plant in some parts of
the English-speaking world, but isn't widespread in the UK. Which
doesn't mean that NOBODY calls it a Magnola vine - just that it isn't
a particularly common name for it.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.