Re: Correct plant names

**Duane Campbell d*@juno.com**

On Tue, 1 Jul 2003 06:07:10 -0400 "Suzanne Pierot" <suzanne@hvi.net>
writes:
> Is there a "Plant Finder: book for U.S. sources similar to the one 
> published
> by the RHS?

If the RHS book actually were the last word on plant names, why would you
need an American version? But in actuality, they are not the last word.
They just think they are, and they have managed to convince some people
that they are.

Europeans like to have some kind of central authority to decide what is
right and what is wrong, and if the RHS book is "right" for them, that's
fine. But that concept has always been anethema for Americans. A plant
was not given a certain "right" name at creation. All plants were given
different names by different people, differrent names under different
circumstances, even different Linean binomials by different professional
taxonomists.

The important thing for a garden writer is not the search for what is the
"right" name but an understanding of what is an appropriate name for the
piece we are writing and the audience it is intended for. And for an
American writer, the RHS book is of little value. I have a godawful
number of British garden books, and whenever I use one for research on an
article, I always cross-reference names with an appropriate American
source before submitting.

D

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