I hope the Wiki continues to strive as a model database of accurate horticultural information for bulbous plants. If common usage were its only standard, then the species would be organized by common names. Fortunately, that is not the case. The thousands of people who read the PBS wiki pages every day would be better served, and educated, if the plant descriptions were as carefully crafted as the spelling of the plant names. I don't think anyone is confused by the words flower, flowered, or flowering. On the other hand, the word "bloom" means something else and should be used when describing blue or silvery-leaf plants (assuming we don't need to discuss algae blooms or chocolate bloom). I'm not just suggesting this. I am reporting the fact that this is the current scientifically accepted form of communication of plant descriptions. What I am suggesting is that the PBS Wiki catch up to this reality. If you are happy describing plants with the same words used by a Walmart add or the local botanic garden trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator of would be gardener, then "bloom" as in "flower" is the word for you. I get that there are superficial reasons to say "bloom" aloud or in email. It's one syllable, I get to say "oom", I already said flower, my Grandmother always said bloom, "repeat flowering Iris" sounds stupid, etc. But, the PBS Wiki can do better than that. There is an excellent database that can show you the historical use of the word "bloom" in plant science: Agricola = http://agricola.nal.usda.gov/booleancube/… The numbers below are the number of publications for the given time frame, first # is for the word "bloom" and the second # is for bloom NOT phytoplankton NOT Cyanobacteria NOT wax NOT algae NOT diatom NOT macroalgae NOT "water bloom" NOT algal NOT gelatin NOT chocolates NOT duckweed 1970-79 338 290 1980-89 485 427 1990-99 744 648 2000-09 1233 895 2010-14 1021 540 2014 70 29 While the majority of 1970's publications with "bloom" in their citation are about flowers, the vast majority of 2000-2014 publications with "bloom" in their citation are about something else, mostly algal blooms, with the ratio increasing to over 3 to 1 by this year. Unless you write ads for Walmart, the trend does not look good for bloom as a description of flowers. I want to contribute to the Wiki. Could we please bring it out of the 1970s so I don't have to uncomfortably change someone else's text every time I post some pictures? Do we want to settle for "common" or strive for accurate? Nathan At 01:31 PM 10/14/2014, you wrote: >Hi, > >On 13/10/2014 23:40, Nathan Lange wrote: >>that ratio of flower/bloom hits to about 18.2. Sadly, the ratio for the >>PBS Wiki is only 1.5, one of the reasons I am very reluctant to ask you >>for a password for posting pictures. > >For the wiki I can find exact values, flower 1406, bloom 641, giving >a ratio of 2.19. > >Google offers (about), 777 and 393, ratio 1.97 > >For this list archive I get, flower 10493, bloom 11421. Google >gives flower 24,900, bloom 32,000. > >People are welcome to contribute to the wiki. > >Common usage is produced by those who write and are read. The >thousands of people who read the PBS wiki pages every day are being >exposed to the current choice of words. > > > >-- >David Pilling