Peter Ruh Correspondence #4

Good Moraning Peter and all:

Your letter or manuscript dated Feb. 25, 2001 arrived here yesterday.  I have 
read both sides of the eleven pages with the additional bits if information 
running up the sides,  It covers a wide area of hosta inforrmation.  I will 
respond the best of my ability.

As background information let my say that I am at the bottom rung of the 
ladder of horticultural schooling.  In real life I was a grain elevator 
manager for some 39 years.  My knowledge, if any, dates to about 1989 when I 
finallly realizzed that I could not raise tomatoes,  nums etc. in my shady 
area that I had to work with.  I am sure you would say 'What a hell of a 
place to have a garden".   We all must make do with what we have.  I am sure 
no one has told me to dumb down any information that I have access to.  I am 
mearly a copy cat.  I just record what has been wriiten.  If it is in error. 
so be it.  I do not try to edit any of the information.  My friend Mr Bob 
Axesmear took me to task for saying the I felt like a sanitary engineer and 
was handling garbage most of the time. Anyway, I enjoy this pursuit oif 
knowledge.  A constant sifting of the wheat from the chaff.

I can see your suggestions for improvement in the Lemke List.  You see it 
from a experts eye.  I developed it from a beginners point of view.  So i 
have stayed with the beginners.  All names, misspellings and all, remain just 
as I copied them from Sales catalogs, hosta articles, e-mail messages and 
other sources. This is the way the average hostaholics gets his information.  
All information is in my computer.  It won't accept names etc. unless they 
are spelled correctly or incorrectly just so they are spelled the same.  Back 
in elevator days we had a IBM bookkkepping system.   WE were constantly 
reminded that "Garbage in = garbage out'.  Most peope don't really care one 
way or another.

Now back to your letter: I rechecked 'Helonioides Albo PIcta'.   My spelling 
agrees with yours.  NOte the one marked ID 318-ES.    You say the registrar 
will not allow another plant type to be used for a hosta name., Best to 
delete it.  (6044)  Please give me another Id number because i can't find 
this one.  I have also changed "Kokuryo; to 'Kokuryu.'   The spelling came 
from Hostapix 10-27-2000 .   The picture by Nakayama
had it spelled correctly.   I shall add the ES to 3263-ES.

You suggest that by addings syn. my list would be more readable. You are so 
right.  However will you be the judge and take my list and change any HN to 
HS.   Send me the corrections and  i will redue the list  and return to you a 
new printing.  Everytime that Iooked into Horticultural names and synonyms i 
got lost in the shuffle.  Again we must ask is it really important to know 
one from the other to a novice hosta collector.  Yet we all talk about 
getting to the next level.  Please help me as much as possible.

With this letter I will be sending you a List of Lemke's Hostas.  As usual it 
is two lists.  The first one will be in alphabetical order. The second list 
will be in numerical order of the 826 hostas that I have in my collection.   
Any comments will be welcomed.

Lemkeiowa
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