A little lesson of Italian/Spanish
J.E. Shields (Fri, 23 Jan 2004 10:19:53 PST)

Jim and Angelo,

That just goes to show you how weak my Spanish a la Hoosier is. So it
might be ungrammatical Italian.

At 12:25 PM 1/23/2004 -0500, Jim McK wrote:

But I guess it could also be ungrammatical Spanish!

At 06:28 PM 1/23/2004 +0100, Angelo wrote:

Now I know a new word in Spanish too, "Estrella". It's amazing what all I
learn in this forum. Why couldn't Walter just have given it a simple name,
like "Goldiger Stern" or "Stern vom Gold"? Who can tell me what language
might call it "Staila da Aur"? (It's not Portuguese.)

Naming cultivars can be a very hairy business, it seems. Note that bad
grammar and poor spelling are not counted off, nor corrected, in
registration of cultivar names. Not only that, but adherence to the
registration system is purely voluntary, so anyone is free to call Walter
Jablonski's 'Stella de Oro' anything he or she wishes, even 'Stella d'Oro'
which seems to be the most common form of the name used in the nursery and
landscaping trade.

In parts of the world where STELLA won't grow well, I believe they often
instead grow something else, similar, like 'Happy Returns'. It is a little
taller and a little lighter yellow than 'Stella De Oro', as I recall, but
it also reblooms well. That is certainly true for the warmer parts of
Florida, and probably in Southern California to some extent too.

They are both yellow, and both depressingly common where they are
used. It's just not a strip mall without some STELLA planted around
it. I've sold a lot of 'Stella de Oro' over the years; thank you, Walter.

Jim Shields
in central Indiana (USA) where we speak Hoosier, sort of our own version of
bad English

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Jim Shields USDA Zone 5 Shields Gardens, Ltd.
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