On 21/2/07 08:24, in article
, "Dave Poole"
wrote:

Sacha wrote:

I can find no
other nursery than Burncoose that has even heard of R. Jackman's Prostrate,
other than one which no longer lists it.

I think it is fair to assume that any plant sporting the Jackmans
name, must be an old or fairly old English variety due to the
association with Jackmans of Woking. That said, it is virtually
unknown apart from the plants offered by Burncoose and therefore its
true identity must be highly suspect. There's a lot of difference
between a plant originally acquired from Jackmans (that they may have
acquired from another nursery/customer/friend etc.) and a variety
raised by Jackmans and given their name. The chances are it is
probably a recognised variety (in S. Europe) and that the correct name
has been forgotten or lost along the way. As a result it may have
spent a short time as 'prostrate rosemary from Jackmans' and it
doesn't take a great leap for it to become Rosemarinus 'Jackman's
Prostrate'. It happens quite a lot in the trade resulting in one
plant having several names. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Olivier
declares it to be 'Barcelona'.


A much more concise summary of what I was trying to get at. ;-) Someone
gives someone else a piece of a plant called X and someone else gets hold of
it and forgets the name when they give it yet another someone and so the
plant becomes Y, or even months and years later, Z. Interesting that
Olivier loses Barcelona (or almost loses it) to frost 'down there'. We
thought his nursery and trial garden would be protected by the sea but of
course, there's the lagoon before that, so perhaps that makes the
difference. Certainly, I got one of the biggest mosquito bites of my life
in that garden, so that's one abiding memory of it! It's a very
interesting place to visit - as you know, having sent us there - and he's
rigorous in his trial garden and his refusal to water anything to test it to
its very limits in the garden.
When we next go to Scilly, we'll head to Burncoose and get R. Jackman's
Prostrate, raise some cuttings and send some on to Olivier to trial against
R. Barcelona, too.
--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
http://www.discoverdartmoor.co.uk/
(remove weeds from address)