This is a public-interest archive. Personal data is pseudonymized and retained under GDPR Article 89.

[SANS] Sansevieria sp. 'Horwood'

Commenting on John Gamesby's letter (11-11-97):

A plant, even if it is known as being field collected, can be described
with a cultivar name, so Sansevieria sp. 'Horwood' (Sansevieria should be
written in italics) is a valid name according to the rules of the
International Code of Botanical Nomenclature.

Though, to my thinking, Grigsby used poor judgment in changing the already
existing cultivar name of S. sp. 'FKH424'  to a new name to honor Horwood,
he was anticipating the future Latin epithet of "horwoodii", a name he
never used in his article and which most unfortunately everybody is using
now for
no reason whatsoever other than by the confusion created by Grigsby by the
fact that he changed the original cultivar name.
The name "horwoodii" is even appearing in catalogs!

I think the change of name was unnecessary because:
a) Frank Horwood was already honored with FKH
b) He introduced the problem that John Gamesby mentioned, namely everybody
calling the plant S. horwoodii.
In fact when I named S. francisii for the cultivar then known as S. sp.
'FKH 434', I discussed the naming at length with John Trager, Curator of
the Desert Garden at Huntington. I would have preferred to have used S.
horwoodii for 'FKH434", which I did not in order to leave room for "FKH424'
and to avoid creating further confusion..

The irony of the whole thing is that if S. sp. 'Horwood' turns out to be a
plant that has already been described or a variety of it (certainly not S.
abyssinica) there will never be a S. horwoodii !

Francis (Frank) K. Horwood collected the plant but he did not remember
whereabouts in Kenya. Frank was then working for Abbey Garden in
Carpinteria, Ca. and they felt that the plant should be named S. sp.
'AKH424', the 'A' for Abbey Garden.

Juan

chahinian@naplesnet.com
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index