The new 2011 plant list is on the website! Click here to find it. I can’t guarantee we’ll have everything in, all of the time – it is my entire forecast list for 2011. So do email me or phone first to check if you want a specific plant.
I’m glad I’ve got this job out of the way, it takes ages cross-checking all the plant names against the latest correct list. Two major name changes to point out:
– Schizostylis becomes Hesperantha. This one’s OK, I quite like the new name and will get used to it
– Dicentra spectabilis becomes Lamprocapnos spectabilis. This one is horrible – a cludgy word, made more complicated by the fact that some plants stay in Dicentra, though not this best known one, the common Bleeding Heart.
Finishing the list leaves me a bit freer to get on with the book, although with the weather improving it feels as if I should be making serious progress outside – our first huge delivery of plants arrives in a month and we aren’t ready. And the talks season starts tomorrow.
4 Responses to “Our 2011 Plant list is out…”
Aghh! I hate these name changes, just as I think I am getting the hang of the Latin names they change. I agree, Hesprantha sounds lovely, but how I am going to remember that Bleeding Heart is now Lamprocapnos? Its OK when people put the Latin and common names in their catalogues, but when you only get the Latin… Ah well, I'm sure there was a good reason for it. Am off to lust over plants I have no room for in your plant list.
Hesperantha sounds exotic: like Esperanza. But is still not as good as Schitzostylis.
Lamprocapnos is like a deserted Greek peninsula known for its proximity to the sewage outfall pipes.
But cludgy….
Cludgy is a very good word.
My entire life has an air of cludginess about it at the moment.
I wonder how many people will lust over plants they've forgotten they have (or have lost in the mists of time because other plants crowded them out)simply because the name has changed?
I found out about the Dicentra change last year, but it's no good, Dicentra is fixed firmly in my brain because Lamprocapnos is far too cludgy to elbow it out of the way!
I took a call a couple of years ago from a woman looking for Polygonum bistortum SUPERbum. Took me a moment to register the change to Persicaria bistorta 'Superba'. She wasn't having it. 'So, it's not a SUPERbum any more then?' I tried to explain about endings agreeing, but gave up.
Actaea/Cimicifuga confusion still crops up regularly, as does Smilacena/Maianthemum.
Oh well, it keeps a few botanists employed. I don't mind if the new words are pleasing. We should get to vote on new names before they get passed.