WHAT’S IN A NAME? 
E VER since the beginnings of man’s interest in plants 
there must have been a related interest in what 
they were called. Some people seem to think, un¬ 
fortunately, that identifying plant names is an annoy¬ 
ance to be disregarded at the convenience and whim 
of the individual. But as a matter of fact proper names for 
plants are a real necessity of gardening if gardeners are to be 
able to convey to each other a definite idea as to the identity of 
objects that they are discussing. This proper naming of plants 
is indeed a serious matter alike for the student, collector, dealer, 
and customer; and in fact the entire business in plant material 
turns upon knowing what the other fellow is talking about. 
Gardeners, or horticulturists, have to a very large degree 
taken their names from botanists, but there is some confusion 
as to how far gardening and botany are related. The 
scientific name of a plant is indeed the business of the botanist, 
and for convenience such terms have been accepted by the 
gardener, but just the same gardening is not botany any more 
than pharmacy is chemistry. Indeed these parallels suggest 
the true relationships. The botanists seem to enjoy the sport 
of naming and re-naming plants according to codified though 
arbitrary laws of nomenclature for their own guidance; but such 
laws concern the actual cultivation of plants not at all. 
The keen enjoyment of rediscovering old names and giving 
them authority under the “ law of priority” is all very well from 
the botanist’s viewpoint but is mighty confusing for the man 
who is growing plants for their intrinsic qualities and not for 
their identity’s sake. 
Q UITE a number of well-intentioned people from time to 
time become somewhat infuriated at the thought of any 
" plant being known by a scientific name, feeling that 
inasmuch as the plant is accepted for its utilitarian and esthetic 
value in our everyday existence it should be labelled in a 
commonplace everyday manner. 
As a matter of fact the old-time garden and wild plants have 
been long accepted under “ popular” or “English” names, and it 
would be a delightful thing if it were practically possible to 
have such labels for all our favorites, but the fact is new plants 
appear too quickly and the old-time popular name has become 
attached through association of one sort or another and may 
have no actual significance. Again, many such names are 
purely local and vary in each country with differences in 
language, whereas the scientific name has the great advantage 
of being universally the same when adopted into any living 
language. 
Gardeners have long felt they have a right to the label by 
which a plant becomes popularly or commonly distributed in the 
craft; and there is a good deal to be said from the practical stand¬ 
point for any name that actually identifies. Let the botanists 
proceed with their rectification by all means, but let the facts 
simmer down slowly for common use among gardeners. 
S UCH confusion has existed among plant names that it be¬ 
came a matter for serious consideration by a number of asso¬ 
ciated societies which appointed the American Joint Committee 
on Horticultural Nomenclature with Mr. |. Horace McFarland 
as Chairman and Mr. Harlan P. Kelsey as Secretary. I his 
committee, representing six national organizations and in 
cooperation with several special flower societies, and such like, 
has produced a volume, “Standardized Plant Names,” which is 
a catalogue of approved scientific and common names of plants in 
American commerce and is a conscientious effort to give the 
plant cultivator a definite standard that will endure for a given 
term of years. It is suggested that the names here given 
should be accepted for at least five years. In practice it will 
probably be found that ten will be better. Five years is a very 
short period in which to turn around on such an undertaking. 
The book is designed to simplify matters so that everybody 
will know what anybody else is talking about. It is indeed to 
be hoped that the trade, generally, will adopt the code of this 
book even though it may not follow it typographically in all 
cases. There may be some individual objection to some of the 
steps which are more or less radical as, for instance, the decision 
to do away with the capital letter in the spelling of personal 
species names, as in “ Berberis thunbergi” and also in those 
troublesome instances where a whole genus has been moved into 
another giving “nouns in apposition.” Other forms advised 
will be familiar to those who have followed the general style of 
The Garden Magazine in recent years. 
Briefly the other important innovations are: Doing away 
with double words for common names of plants so as to make 
the name a unit as, for instance, Daylily or Day-lily (as pre¬ 
ferred)—an obvious improvement on Day Lily because the plant 
so described is not only not a Lily but doesn’t even belong to the 
Lily family; the dropping of the possessive apostrophe in com¬ 
mon or popular plant names as has long been the practice of the 
pomologist; and reducing to a single letter the terminal in such 
words as Drummondi. Hereafter we are to speak of Wier Maple 
and Harrison Yellow Rose, if we are to be quite consistent. 
Why not? The possessive is clumsy. 
The amateur gardener will find the book specially valuable 
as an index of the popular names and as an authoritative cata¬ 
logue for the spelling of the names of garden varieties in such 
multitudinous groups as Peonies, Dahlias, Irises, etc., all of such 
lists having been compiled with the cooperation and authority 
of the several special societies. 
Insomuch as it is an honest effort to bring a practical basis 
of understanding to what has been a chaotic muddle, “Stan¬ 
dardized Plant Names” deserves the serious attention of all who 
are interested in the identities of the plants they buy and grow. 
The book comprises 546 pages and is published without profit 
at $5.00 by the committee at Salem, Mass. 
A prize of $50 is offered by Mrs. Chas. H. Stout for the best short 
lyric on the Dahlia. Details will be found on page 291, Jan., 1924, G. 
M., or may be had upon application to the Editors. 
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