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“Rose Cottage
Berkshire Downs,
Berkshire, England”
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“Dear Clare,
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“I think we had better have the battle about
Latin names sooner rather than later, and it
won’t take me long to have you on the ropes.
“I know you like hellebores and talk of
growing some yourself. Are you going to write to
a nursery and order ‘six hellebores please?’ I
don’t know what you would get. I have in my
garden Helleborus atrorubens with blood-red
cup-shaped flowers which come out at
Christmas, H. Orientalis in many colours, with
speckles inside the petals and which flowers for
weeks from early spring, H. Corsicus, a larger
plant with flowers like pale green waterlilies, and
H. Cyclophyllus, a rarer plant which was given
to me by a great botanist.
The hellebores are not a large genus, but when
1 tell you that the are thousands of species of
euphorbia, you will see that identification must
be exact. ‘Honeysuckle’ will not do to describe a
plant except in literature or casual
conversation...”
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Landscapinc
Excerpt from the book,
“Gardening Letters to My Daughter”
By Anne Scott James
with some replies by Clare Hastings
The author Anne Scott James, a renowned
writer on gardening in England, and her
daughter, Clare Hastings, live next door to each
other in a small village on the Berkshire Downs.
When Clare decided to seriously turn her hand
to the soil, she began to receive letters of
encouragement and helpful advice from her
mother, undertoned with positive steps to
become a knowledgeable gardener; such as, it
will be easier in the long run to learn the proper
botanical names when you first start gardening.
My daughter Lee gave me this book, and 1
treasure what she inscribed inside the cover,
“Mom, thank you for giving so much to me,
especially the love of flowers.”
What she should have said was, “Mom, along
with giving me the love of flowers, why didn’t
you teach me the correct botanical names.”
Lee is a gardener like I am, she loves all kinds
of flowers, but now we have to learn how to be
more specific than to ask the nursery people,
“Do you have one of those cute little blue
flowers that grow close to the ground that kind
of look like a morning glory?”
My daughter Leslie also is an avid gardener.
Her role and mine are reversed from those of
James and her daughter. Leslie knows many
more botanical names of flowers than I may ever
know. Many plants that 1 have in my garden
labeled with the proper names and lists of hints
on how to care for them are her presents to me.
Little did 1 realize that in my senior years I’d
be trying to write a garden column and with
Leslie’s encouragement “to get on with this
garden stuff.” I should learn the proper Latin
names for flowers even if 1 can’t pronounce
them.
When I struggled trying to pronounce
“Sisyrinchium” in a conversation with Beth
Holland about a small Iris-like plant I was trying
to identify, she quoted a helpful hint she had
heard at a garden lecture: “Just tuck your chin
down and slur your words; possibly your
audience wouldn’t know the difference.” Beth
never slurs her words; she is very knowledgeable
(but I may have to practice slurring).
Let’s begin our lesson:
“When scholars began to classify plants, they
chose the universal language Latin. Plants are
referred to scientifically by two names, generally
written in italics. The first name, which always
has its initial letter capitalized is that of the
genus, the second is the species name, or specific
epithet: for example, Rosa canina. In nature,
species often show minor variations in character;
these are given a third name, prefixed by
“subsp” (subspecies), “var” (varientas), or “f”
(forma): thus, Rhododendron rex subsp.
fictolacteum. A cultivar (cultivated variety) is
,
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ROWER BOXES. RANTERS
I
Box 502, N. Hemlock St.
Cannon Beach, Oregon 97110
HWGNG BASKETS
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503-436-2681
TSp <
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Friendship is a com m on belief in the same
fallacies, m o u n te b a n k s an d hobgoblins.
II. L. M encken
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P.O. Box 737
Manzanita, Oregon 97130
503 • 368 • 5316
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one that has been selected either from the wild
or from gardens and grown in cultivation, and
whose characteristics are preserved by some
means of controlled propagation. The name of
such a plant is written in Roman type with an
initial capital letter and in single quotation
marks: thus Choisya ternata ‘Sundance.’ ”
The American Horticultural Society
Encyclopedia of Gardening
A helpful verbal book to study to become
more familiar with the correct botanical names
is “Sunset’s New Western Garden Book”. Its
alphabetical index steers the reader to the
botanical name such as: under H is Holly in
parenthesus (see Hex), which is the proper name
for Holly.
A pictorial book that has 2,048 illustrations
in full color is “The Color Dictionary of Flowers
and Plants for Home and Garden”, by Roy Hay
and Patrick M. Synge.
I have used both of these books to cross
section and usually find the names of the plants
( o fteat/ierS
Cannon Beach OR
"Top-drawer eats"
The Oregonian
A bsolutely delicious homemade soups and sandwiches
Freshly baked desserts and Torrefazione Italia Coffee.
I’m in doubt of, either the correct botanical
name or other information I might need.
All garden books and some catalogs use the
Latin names for their text. A catalog that gives
extensive information is “White Flower Farm”.
Along with color pictures of flowers, the text
gives the botanical name, the pronunciation, the
common name and information about the
plant.
There are many more catalogs that are
helpful in choosing new plants for your garden,
but be sure that what you are sending for is the
right species for our climate. When I first
started ordering plants from catalogs, I was
intrigued by the colorful pictures and fanciful
names like Twinkle Toes, Fairy Bells, Rainbow
Giants, etc. I tried them all and because of not
knowing which zones they would grow best in I
made many costly mistakes. Also, read the fine
print as to the age of the plant you are ordering.
One catalog I was reading showed arbors covered
with roses and wisteria and advertised to send
for these plants and soon you will have arbors
full of flowers. The prices seemed unbelievably
inexpensive, but reading the small print (one
year old plant), one would have to wait 20 years
or more to have an arbor covered with flowers
like the ones in the catalog.
I hope by the end of this year I’ll be able to
read through a garden book without having to
look up every other Latin word that is used in
the text.
I would really like to hear from others who
enjoy gardening. Please write to June’s Garden,
P. O. Box 74, Cannon Beach, OR 97110.
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