Re: Plant Taxonomy

[Dwight <boukmn at mindspring_com>]

Brett Johnson:

>Personally I will never understand the knee-jerk reaction some people have
>that they have to apply an anglicized common name to a plant or animal. If
>the plant doesn't already have a common name, why can't we call it by its
>scientific name and be done with it? Why change a Geum into an Avens, or an
>Alternanthera into a Hygro, just cause the name is easier to say? Makes no
>sense to me.

Brett I see your point.  However, most of us don't have a circle of friends
that speak scientific names very fluently.  The problem that tends to
create is we don't actually HEAR how the scientific names of our plants are
supposed to sound so we don't know the phonetic "concensus".   How many of
us out there actually hear a scientific name of an aquatic plant spoken
even once a week?  A month?  

I hear them everyday from customers trying to order, and they struggle.  As
you can expect, everyone says "Alternanthera" for example, differently.
That's one reason many plant sites that sell use number codes as well as
names.  

Aquarium Plants & Driftwood
http://www.floridadriftwood.com