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RE: Strongylodon

On Tue, 30 Dec 1997, Hugo Latymer wrote:

> > Ok, now here's one for you: Strongylodon (spelling?) Jade vine. I do not
> > know how to pronounce this but I am anxiously looking for seeds for this
> > and also how to pronounce it.  Thanks, Judy Showers
> > 				http://www.epix.net/~jshowers
> Judy
> If you do not live in Barbados or similar,  have no really hot house, or
> real patience,  my advice would be "Don't!"
> latymer@ctv.es

This botanist would say "stron-GUILE-o-don", accented syllable with 
a long i sound.  You're going to need guile and cunning or a good
greenhouse to get much out of it in Pennsylvania (my guess as to your
location from your net address).  I did raise it when I lived in Davis,
where it adored the summer temps, but nearly lost it in the winter
trying to coddle it in the house.  The friends who took it on when I
move did lose it the second winter.

Botanical Latin is an artificial language meant for easing communication
about plants.  The exact pronounciations are unimportant as long as
the listeners understand what you're talking about, and (we hope)
it doesn't land on the ear with *too dull* of a thud.  ;-)

Go ahead... sound the names out phonetically, just like you were learning
to read.  You won't be far wrong if you get all the consonants and 
vowels in there in the right order, and you'll be understood.  It's
a whole lot easier to figure out what someone's talking about if they
say you-forb-ee-ah or oy-for-bee-ah or ee-youp-horb-ee-ay than it
is to figure out what "milk plant" is.

I've a "cheat sheet" on pronounciation of plant names -- drop me a
note if you'd like to have it.  It's based on William Stearn's wonderful
_Botanical Latin_, now out in its 3rd or 4th edition.

As I used to tell my students, "and if someone gives you static
about the way you pronounce a name, you can always draw yourself
up to full height, put on your best haughty expression, and say,
'Oh.  That's how *you* say it'".  ;-)  Of course, they used to
say that back to me when I'd correct them...  ;-)

Kay Lancaster  kay@fern.com
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