Re: Hortus Third

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On Fri, 21 Jul 2000 17:32:47 -0400 "Marge Talt" <mtalt@clark.net> writes:
> You are correct that a published revision doesn't mean instant
> change
> and that change can and does take years and sometimes gets reversed
> in that process.  However, when you go searching for plant
> information, if you don't know what the latest accepted name is,
> you
> often can't find what you're looking for.  The recent Tovara thread
> is a good case in point.  'Tovara' got a mere handful of hits while
> 'Polygonum' and even 'Persicaria' came up with numerous ones......
>

 

Marge, part of the problem with Tovara is that it's not a commonly cultivated plant and so doesn't appear in most references which tend to focus on cultivated plants, not "weeds." I randomly pulled five native plant/wildflower books off the shelf and "Tovara" appears in four of them.   Also, Tovara IS listed in Hortus Second, usually available in most used book stores.

 

Between Hortus Third and the RHS Index I find 80-90% of the plants I'm looking for.  Hortus Third doesn't list as many cultivar names, but the RHS Index reflects the typical European disdain for American wildflowers.  I haven't really had any better luck with the on-line databases, including the ones you listed, except perhaps to find a name without any data or cultural information.  That's OK if I simply want to confirm that a nursery has put a valid name on a label but rather lacking if I want to confirm that the name on the label actually belongs to the labelled plant.

 

Then there's the issue of those growers who've gotten into the habit of assigning a name to every seedling they produce...

 

One thought: rather than (obsess?) on taxonomic trends and fads, gardening writers and nursery folk could provide a better service to the general public by focusing more on using correct common names, pointing out the difference between regional and (concocted?) names and actual recorded common names.   For instance, getting people to quite referring to bishop's weed as "snow on the mountain."  ;-)

 

>

>Flora of China is
>also useful, as are other online floras for various countries and
>even parts of countries, if you're trying to figure out where a plant
>is endemic. 

>

 

OR if you already have an idea where a plant is from but want some more information.  Books focusing on a particular area or group of plants (natives, shade, alpines, specific genera or families, etc.) are usually more comprehensive -- and useful to hobbyists of any degree -- than the attempted all-encompassing encyclopedias, whether in print or on-line, which always fall short.  Unless, of course, there's some industrial extraterrestrial botanist out there but his/her/its work isn't readily available.  ;-)

 

Dean Sliger

Warren, Michigan, USA

Zone 6B