Like many students before me, I had to learn to
identify a large and diverse range of plants during my formal horticulture training.
As well as identifying the plants in tests, I had to write down
the genus, species, variety and family for formal assessment by our lecturers.
Marks were given for correct identification and likewise deducted for spelling and
other stylistic mistakes. Although I didn't appreciate it at the time, these exercises taught me to be aware of botanical variations as
well as learning the scientific language of botany. Now, many years later, I have learnt to enjoy repeating the many tongue-twisting names invented by scientists from the time of the late 18th century. Two personal
favourites are Parthenocissus
tricuspidata (Boston Ivy) and Ceratostigma
willmottianum (Chinese Plumbago).
 |
Many gardeners are bamboozled
by the scientific names of plants |
While botanists and many horticulturists are happy to use scientific
names this is not so with most home gardeners who find this elitist technical language
as incomprehensible as the artificially constructed 19th century European language Esperanto. So why do we persist in using scientific names?
The standard response given by horticultural educators is
that there is only one scientific descriptor given to a plant while there are many different common names given to the same specimen; this, according to the educators, often leads to confusion.
This is indeed the case with the east Asian climber Parthenocissus
tricuspidata, which as well as being known in English as Boston Ivy is also
called Japanese Creeper, Japanese Ivy and Grape Ivy. On a personal note, my parents once had this
plant growing on the front of their home for many years and erroneously called
it Virginia Creeper, an epithet given to another member of the genus.
While it is true there is only one official botanical name
given to a plant at one time it may have had many other scientifically sanctioned names in
the past. Many of these were published in floras and in nursery catalogues and therefore
persist to the present day. Many in the nursery world fall in love with a
particular name and refuse to change labels whatever the scientists pronounce as correct. One of
the few local botanists who have tried to unite the disciplines of botany and
horticulture is Roger Spencer of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne.
Spencer regularly writes articles for the trade press where he updates changes
in the botanical names given to plants.
One organisation that has tried to inform the public of historic changes in scientific names is the Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales (HHT). A free access website managed by HHT is the Colonial Plant Database. Keying in the name of a modern plant name supplies a list of variant plant names and the time of introduction to Australia (if the plant was first introduced in the 19th century).
http://collection.hht.net.au/firsthht/searchColonialPlants.jsp?linkN=1.3
While most horticultural educators prefer the naming of
plants by the binomial name method (genus and species name) there have been
some dissident opinions. The Irish-born garden writer William Robinson (1838-1933) had strong
views on the naming of plants. While recognising the need for botanists to use scientific
descriptors he found little reason to use them in the home garden. Robinson,
writing in The English Flower Garden
vented his views on the subject:
It is best to speak of
things growing about our doors in our own tongue, and the practice of using in
conversation long Latin names, a growth of our own century, has done infinite
harm to gardening in shutting out people who have a heart for a garden, but
none for the Latin of the gardener. There is no more need to speak of the
plants in our gardens by their Latin names than to speak of the dove or the
rabbit by Latin names, and where we introduce plants that have no good English
names we must make them as well as we
may.
While Robinson’s views are thought prevoking, his romantic
perspective is somewhat naive. Whether we like it or not the persistent use of
scientific naming in the horticultural world will continue well into the
future. While it is important for botanists to inform horticulturists and
gardeners of changes it is onus on the nursery trade to respond to these changes.
If they don’t we might as well follow Robinson’s view and rely on using common
names.
In a future post I will write about the good and bad ways to label plants in the garden.
