Nectaroscordum meliophilum
Jane McGary (Mon, 26 May 2003 10:17:07 PDT)

Mark McDonough mentioned naming problems: >Nectaroscordum meliophilum from
the Saint Petersburg Botanic Garden, said to have

There are some likely reasons for the use of unfamiliar synonyms for plants
collected and/or grown by people in the former Soviet Union (and China):
(a) They are deriving the names from their authorities, which are often
floras and journals that were "out of the loop" of the system of
publication and peer review in the West.
(b) They did not have the opportunity to travel and compare their material
with specimens from other areas and have difficulty evaluating whether it
is really different enough to warrant species status.
(c) They are aware that Western plant enthusiasts will pay good money to
take a chance on "new to cultivation" species, and so they deliberately use
unfamiliar synonyms to entice seed buyers to purchase species they would
otherwise ignore.

Different countries have different "cultures" of taxonomic practice. For
example, Japanese botanists tend to give taxonomic names to extremely minor
variants that American botanists would never bother to name. Anyone who has
tried to figure out what to call a Narcissus will have encountered the same
problem between the British and Spanish views of the genus.

Taxonomy in general--the naming of categories and how we put things into
them--is a field within linguistic anthropology, and I'm sure there's a
paper, or even a dissertation topic, lurking in the world of botanical
taxonomy.

Jane McGary
Northwestern Oregon