Do you use botanical names when discussing plants?

A more likely reason seed companies do not always include the latin name is to hinder the seed savers. I think anyone selling a product has an obligation to accurately describe what it is they are selling. Alternatively, the buyer can opt not to purchase from a company which is less than forthcoming. Caveat emptor...

When seed savers label seed in any manor from hybred seed grown stock one in four seeds will be labeled wrong the first year. The second year one of two seeds will not be the reproduced seed from which it came. That explains the plants problems. Then we have the table top mix ups and other human created confusion.

To illustrate the possible difficulty one might incounter here is a real life situation I ran into recently. There is an indivdual well known regional and national writer who is chairing a seed saving co-op for a single plant. The person is generally considered the authority in this arena. One can get seed simply by asking and agreeing to return some to maintain the source. This is to keep the recovery of the named plant alive and well. Of the ten seed I germinated not a single seed produced the plant I was trying to grow. When I discussed this with the person the reply was..."we are all amateurs you will sometimes experince this". I checked out of the program with no more questions. I only lost a month trying to help. They were destroyed as soon as we were sure the real plant did not show up.

In the persons self created position of authority there is no doubt that professional is a word that is common to the seat of this authority. To represent something of this nature as a very important program is steaching the truth about as thin as is possible.

Could this be reason enough that seed companies sometimes do not label as they reach further and further from home to get their seed.

from above: "It would be nice to have a name which stuck with a plant, regardless of language, country, or classification"

And this is precisely why the Linnean form of plant classification using latin and greek was originated. During the years of exploration in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, the botanists sending plant samples home were often working for commercial interests or governments, and it was important to establish the origin and classification of a plant when it was catalogued and grown out later from cuttings or seeds. Today we have genomic seed and tissue banks that accomplish much the same function, and we think nothing of classifying those materials by strings of numbers and letters.

In the 17th century, any reasonably educated and literate person could be assumed to know some latin, and possibly greek. Today we assume that reasonably educated and literate people can access information on a computer database.

Indeed it would be nice but whom can we trust? God knows the majority of what we have availble to purchase is just flat out no good.
That makes it very difficult to grow for the elders like myself who would prefer to purchase good healthy food items. Yes we are in difficult times and it is not by any means only a seed labeling problem.

I for one think we home and small patch gardeners should revert to open polinated food plants selecting for the best taste first and basic healthy qualities as a real close second. To achieve this goal we would be soil builders eliminating the use of anything that harms the biology of the soil. At the close of each season we would know our little half acre or whatever is a little better than it was when we started that year. At the close of the season we would know who was resposible for the seed saving selection. This can be done on a small scale but so many have not even made the effort. If we are among the unemployed without a garden effort are we really worthy of long term support?

Using botanical names is not coming easy with me. I try since I know how important it can be.
I used to tell people that asked the botanical name, "I don't cuss". LOL!

You know what? I'm 74 and do not recall of anyone ever asking me for the Latin until I landed here. I love you all dearly but I still have no personal desire to deal with the Latin. I have enough trouble with the pretty red flower in English.

I usually think about plants using botanical names because the naming schema naturally groups plants that are similar, requiring similar conditions, sharing similar problems, and so on. But I try to use common names to communicate, even at the garden center.

It's a method that sometimes leaves me speechless at the garden center when I remember the botanical latin name but not the common name. Lupine, artemisia, coreopsis, are examples of plants whose latin names are more familiar to me than the common names. But plants of my childhood days I think of in common language. I naturally think of "marigold" before "tagetes" and "sunflower" before "helianthus." I couldn't tell you the latin botanical name for snapdragon without looking it up.

(smile) docgipe.

I use common names exclusively when passing knowledge down to my granddaugher. And then get a kick out of her twist to some -- bloody hearts being my favorite.

greenjay-
The problem I have with the "Linnean form of plant classification" is that it is, in fact, a classification. When something is reclassified in this system, it is renamed, and that (from the perspective of someone who spends their life worrying about things like data integrity) is ridiculous. To think that we could give an ultimate specification of a plant, and have that stand for the plant itself goes beyond naivete into hubris. It was appropriate centuries ago when we were beginning to grasp the larger outlines of botany. It is not today, when we know that we don't have the ability to fully understand the subtleties of these organisms; reclassifications are a certainty.
My vain wish is for a nomenclature that transcends language, country, AND classification. As I conceded previously, there is a plant material identification problem which we to have to live with at this point. But that doesn't change the fact that the classification should be part of the description, not the name itself.

Practically, then, I am in favor of the PlantFiles model: Common name, botanical name, varieties and cultivars, alternate botanical names and common names. I would add to this database a regional common name index, and a sorely needed replacement for the search system.

There are laws on the books in the US which require complete and full identification of plant materials, and these are starting to catch up with the plant industry. My state department informed me recently that federal guidelines were going to start being enforced, and would soon require that I change commercial plant labeling to indicate precise plant sizes (no more "trade" gallons which aren't really a full gallon) and full plant naming, including botanical names. We'll see if anything comes of this, regarding the issues many of us have had with incomplete seed identification.

Ooh, bloody hearts! That's good (Dicentras being some of my favorite plants). I'll have to remember that one.

please do not hold me personally responsible for the research and hypotheses of 300 years of botanists. I did not say that I thought it was a fine system, merely that the latin and greek names for that variety of classification originated with Linneas (deceased) and it was continued because it fit the model used by scientists over the next few centuries.

The concept of species and the generic classifications used to define species based on morphology are also questioned by evolutionary biologists who look only at genomic differences between organisms. By the criteria of genomes, the concept of species is very flimsy at best. Rational though we may be, I don't think most people are ready to give up even the flawed Linnean system for alphnumeric designations (like H1N1) that have meaning to genticists and almost no one else.

Actually H1N1 probably has more meaning to the general population these days
than saying Orthomyxoviridae Influenzavirus A Influenza A ... lol!

greenjay-
Hah! I certainly didn't mean to implicate you in any of these problems! I'm sorry if it appeared that I was arguing against you, as opposed to for the need for a new system of nomenclature.

H1N1 is not my favorite naming scheme either, though. I like the suggestion of hurricane names from dparsons01 above. If I thought I had a complete workable solution that would satisfy everyone's requirements, I'd probably already be promoting it...

One more thing for our children to figure out, I suppose. In the meantime, I'm always itching to expand the scope of the plant databases. It seems they either have great information like PlantFiles, or thorough naming and historical data, like the university sponsored systems.

Betcha Dave didn't expect his simple question to prompt such a controversy!

Controversy.....NO. Spirited chat....Yea Team @ DG.

Picky, picky....Ok, doc...spirited chat. Still betcha Dave didn't expect things to get so "spirited." :-)
It is a fascinating discussion, tho, that I'm enjoying following.

Latin pronunciation problems are really no more challenging than 'foreign accent' problems, are they? Yeah go spirit

Hello All,
I suppose I have a tendancy to use the Latin more than the common. It's concise if nothing else, and I'm one of those people that takes pleasure in correct elegance, oral and written. I know that makes me sound like I need a 'low clearance' sign for ceilings, but I grew up a bookworm and when I hear how the English language is mangled nowadays I just cringe. My husband's girls asked me why I talk 'like that', because I often use words that have either fallen into disuse or just ain't used in the city (sorry, had to). They've gotten used to it, actually asking what words mean, and I've noticed a few changes in their vocabulary (smile). Neither read as a hobby, so I was pleased when Jess said she finished a non-school related book. Flattered, too, since it was an obvious imitation of my nose-in-a-book habit. There is hope!
When Mom and I stroll around her yard, I'll name her Hosta by cultivar and she'll ask why I don't just say 'hosta'. I call her plants by their Latin names, too, and she tells me it's all Greek to her. She's a medical transcriptionist and can rattle off pill names that boast 27 letters without turning a hair, so I got her back by pointing that feat out and saying 'same difference'! We had a good laugh at it.
However, most times at the local garden center, one must use common names because the kids hired for the summer can't tell the difference twixt a Betula and a Bellflower, and don't have the curiosity to read the tags.