On 2009-05-11 14:29:57 +0100, Stewart Robert Hinsley
said:

In message , Sacha
writes
On 2009-05-11 12:30:47 +0100, Stewart Robert Hinsley
said:

In message , Sacha
writes
On 2009-05-11 10:03:49 +0100, gogo said:

Sacha wrote:
On 2009-05-10 11:20:08 +0100, "BOFH" said:

"Alan" wrote in message
...
It make s a refreshing change from assuming that everyone still
communicates in Latin.
Sorry, I disagree with that point. The latin bits fine by me
It's essential if you want to be sure you're getting the plant think
you want. After that you can call it 'Fred' if you want to.
Also, if English is not your mother tongue, it makes it easier to make
the connection between the English and French (in my case) common
names.
That's exactly it. We had some French customers who came in a few
years ago asking for 'sauges'. Nobody on the staff speaks French so I
was asked to help. It took me seconds to go from sauges to sages to
Salvias and they were very relieved! But if they'd said Salvias, the
member of the Nursery staff serving them would have got it straight
away. This is a very minor example, obviously but it does show that if
you ask for Mimosa in some parts of USA you'll either get a mixture of
champagne and orange juice or an Albizia julibrissin. What you won't
get is 'English' mimosa, which is Acacia and usually A. dealbata. The
other incident of that sort was again with some English customers
who'd been on holiday in France and were asking our staff for what
they'd been told were 'ortensia'. I don't know how it was they hadn't
recognised Hydrangeas in France but until my 'French memory' kicked in,
nobody had associated hortensia with Hydrangea

Except that Hortensia is an English name for some Hydrangeas, applying
to mophead varieties of Hydrangea macrophylla. (If I recall correctly,
mopheads are varieties in which the inflorescence is composed solely of
sterile flowers.)

Very true but I can honestly say that I've never known any other
customer ask for a hortensia and nor had anyone else.
A clicheed example of a "problem" with vernacular names is that an
American ordering Rose-of-Sharon from Britain is liable to be
disappointed. (But, with American phytosanitary laws Americans aren't
likely to be ordering plants from Britain.)

What would they expect to get as Rose of Sharon?

Hibiscus syriacus.

Hah! What a surprise that would be!

We've ordered plants from America and the phytosanitary laws apply in
this direction, too. Expensive business.

My understanding is that the American phytosanitary laws are more
draconian that the European ones (but not as draconian as the
Australian ones).

I know they were very strict about people taking things into or out of
Hawaii. And in NZ they had sniffer dogs at the sirport before we
cleared baggage retrieval. They weren't looking for drugs but for
fruit. When Ray's Nemesia Bluebird was being marketed his agent
decided not to even try Australasia because of their laws. With
hindsight, that was probably a mistake but at the time it was thought
the whole process would take way too long to make it worthwhile.

--
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
Exotic plants, shrubs & perennials
South Devon