"Calla Lilies" -"Arum Lilies" - notes on word usage
Diane Whitehead (Sat, 17 Jun 2006 10:08:00 PDT)

Mary Sue,

I think perhaps just giving the name of the genus would be less
overwhelming to a casual questioner, yet accurate enough to begin
with.

Often, that will suffice because there may be no other representative
of the genus in the region. Here, the big red-barked evergreen trees
are called "arbutus" as their common name. No one needs to know that
they are really Arbutus menziesii.

We have a couple of species of Camassia, but they are both called
"camas" as they look the same except under close scrutiny. I was
puzzled to find them labelled in a local public garden with a
so-called "common name" that is never used here. A garden volunteer
had used a name found in a book. Now I can't remember what the silly
name was - Indian lily? Indian something, anyway.

Of course, it won't take long for your casual inquirers in California
to find there are a lot of very dissimilar plants called
"calochortus" so they will soon need to discover that two words are
needed for the names.

--
Diane Whitehead Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
maritime zone 8
cool mediterranean climate (dry summer, rainy winter - 68 cm annually)
sandy soil