Scilla
Mary Sue Ittner (Wed, 17 Dec 2003 22:19:08 PST)

Dear Julian,

Thanks for writing about all those changes. I think we all like to know
what is proposed. Jane's response made me smile. How do they come up with
names for new genera? It seems like Scilla could only be pronounced a
couple of different ways and it would be easy to figure out what you were
talking about. But some of these new names don't exactly roll off the tongue.

What reaction to these proposed changes do Scilla enthusiasts have? Reading
that a couple of the proposed genera don't have many species certainly
makes it even more challenging for us horticultural types.

It's kind of the reverse Moraea story. Instead of throwing a lot of things
together that don't look alike, you split up those that look alike into a
lot of groups.

I do always appreciate Julian's attempts to try to find some common
denominators like seeds for those of us who would like some way to tell
things apart short of carrying with us something to detect dna in the
field. Will that be available some day does anyone think?

Mary Sue