The nature of the relationship between classical Latin and botanical Latin has been raised. I’m not at all concerned about the answer to the question “are classical Latin and botanical Latin the same language?”. But I am intrigued by the way people justify the positions they take on this issue. I know that many members of this forum are not only interested in the horticultural aspect of things but also have backgrounds in the biological sciences. I wonder how many of you realize how similar in some ways are the ways linguists approach the problem of distinguishing languages and the ways biologists approach the question of distinguishing species. Paleontologists in particular find it useful to distinguish between what are sometimes called horizontal relationship and vertical relationship. Horizontal relationship refers to relationship at a given point in time. Vertical relationship refers to relationship over a time span. Thus, all living species have evolved from previously living species or concurrently living species. When we look at the fossil record and consider the relationship of living species to their extinct presumed precursors, the differences are so great that no one would consider the living and the extinct to be the same species. Yet logically we know that if a living species evolved from an extinct species, then there must have been an unbroken chain of intermediates between them. And furthermore, there would be no way to divide the continuum into good species: it’s all one species varying over time. Now apply that point of view to languages and ask this question: is Italian Latin? I’ve never heard a linguist argue that Italian is Latin (and I’m not suggesting that it is, either), but there is every reason to believe that there has been an unbroken continuum of speech between speakers of Latin and speakers of modern Italian in all its variety. If we somehow knew about all of these intermediate forms, then we would clearly see that Italian and Latin are the same language. But since we know only the extreme disparate ends of the rope, we focus on the differences and treat them as different languages. And now consider the relationship between classical Latin and botanical Latin in the same light. To me this makes the question which started all of this irrelevant. As far as I know, linguists have been no more successful at arriving at a clear solution to the issue of distinguishing “species” of languages than biologists have been in distinguishing natural species. There are splitters and lumpers among linguists: for instance, most linguists consider Flemish and Dutch to be the same language, others insist that such differences as exist between Dutch spoken in the Netherlands and Dutch spoken in “Flanders” are sufficient to justify recognition as separate languages. As with all such discussions, you can pick your doctor and get the diagnosis you want. Jim McKenney jimmckenney@jimmckenney.com Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, 39.03871º North, 77.09829º West, USDA zone 7 My Virtual Maryland Garden http://www.jimmckenney.com/ BLOG! http://mcwort.blogspot.com/ Webmaster Potomac Valley Chapter, NARGS Editor PVC Bulletin http://www.pvcnargs.org/ Webmaster Potomac Lily Society http://www.potomaclilysociety.org/