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Stewart Robert Hinsley · 04-07-2010, 11:00 AM posted to uk.rec.gardening

In message ,
writes
In article ,
Jake wrote:
On Sat, 3 Jul 2010 20:07:26 +0100 (BST), wrote:
In article ,
Stewart Robert Hinsley wrote:

I've come across a file listing name changes in the 3rd edition of
Stace's New Flora of the British Isles, compared with some early list of
the British flora.

Highlights are

Oh, God! The mad taxonomists strike again :-(

Several of the changes look like simple reversals of earlier changes
by the same mad taxonomists.

Look on the bright side, at least leylandii will now be a bit shorter
;-))

Yeah :-( Which would cause chaos if anyone used the generic name!

The one that really stands out is Poterium sanguisorba - not merely
is that a reversal of an early taxonomic lunacy, they seem to be
having the gall to claim that the usual English name is now changed
from salad burnet to lesser burnet - assuming that "barnet" was a
typo :-) Well, they can get stuffed.

The English names were added by me, for my readers' benefit. Barnet was
a typo. Little burnet is my usage.

The original and claimed main purpose of the binomial system was to
reduce confusion in communication, and a very secondary one was to
reflect relationships. Nowadays, the tail is wagging the dog so
vigorously that the dog is in danger of being beaten to death :-(

If they weren't just trying to inflate their own importance, name
changes would be made only when they were reasonably certain that
they would not be changed again. And they wouldn't arse around with
the English names.

Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

--
Stewart Robert Hinsley