Ferraria/Spelling rules

I think the take home message about spelling scientific plant names is
that there are indeed rules, even if they may be convoluted or arcane
at times. At one time I thought that any male honorific specific
epithet whose root ends in "r" or a vowel carries only one "i" but
this is not strictly the case. Under Ferraria a ssp. "nortierii" (as
spelled on the wiki) reminded me of this; I believe this should be
"nortieri" as in Oxalis and Haemanthus.

Sometimes convention officially changes also, as "lanceifolius" to
"lancifolius" and so on. Sometimes a name is mistakenly spelled in its
original publication, as Anthurium ernesti, which is properly A.
ernestii. This is an example of an orthographic error.

The botanical code is only familiar to me in a general way but
spelling issues I think are almost always resolved by referring to the
rules and applying them; controversies or "going to committee" is
uncommon. I would think most of the latter are "global changes" rather
than specific cases for a particular plant.

One of the confusing aspects of Latinization is the conversion of
surnames. Your Babiana vanziliae may be an example. Others are
Euphorbia macvaughii, named after Rogers McVaugh, and one that has
always bothered me, Anthurium sanctifidense. The last example means
"Anthurium from a sanctified place" when in fact the author's
intention was to indicate that it hails from Santa Fe, Panama!

I look forward to reading your excursion into Tropaeolum tricolor(um),
another vexing case.

Dylan Hannon

On 10/12/2008, Mary Sue Ittner <msittner@mcn.org> wrote:

I've been working on the wiki Ferraria pages thinking to add a species we
saw in 2006 in Namaqualand.
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…
I have the revision from 1979 so thought I could spend some time pouring
over it and figure things out. Of course it wasn't so simple since there
have been changes since 1979. The plants we saw that were considered in the
revision to be a subspecies of Ferraria uncinata were elevated in 2004 to
species level. This species, Ferraria macrochlamys , has pale yellow
flowers and distinctive leaves, which have strongly crisped or wavy margins.

Audrey Cain gave me permission to add pictures of Ferraria schaeferi
clearly showing it to be much different from some plants I grow by that
name that I had decided were really F. crispa.

I've added some pictures of some very dark Ferraria crispa flowers we saw
in Tulbagh and at Lion's Head. One of the pictures if you look closely even
has a fly pollinating the flowers.

My next challenge was learning that in 2005 Goldblatt and Manning named a
new species, Ferraria variabilis, that apparently was considered a
subspecies of F. divaricata. Both have a wide cup. The new species was
published in Bothalia 35: 73 (2005). If anyone has access to this I'd be
interested in understanding more about it. I found online the Corrections
and Additions to Cape Plants updated in May 2008.
http://posa.sanbi.org/flora/flora_cp/…
I'm always thrilled when information like this is added free to the public.
I have the book so it is nice to see what has changed since it was
published in 2000. The additions state about F. divaricata, "revised
species circumscription and range." This species is described as having
flowers that are brown to maroon with lighter brown margins or golden brown
with darker margins and the range is northwest and southwest from
Hondeklipbaai to Langebaan.

F. variabilis flowers are described as dull yellow, yellow-green or brown,
with banded or speckled markings and darker margins. The range is wide for
this species: S. Namibia to Clanwilliam, Caldedon to Little Karoo. These
descriptions led me to conclude that pictures we took at Villiersdorp and
on our way to Middelpos had to be this species instead of F. divaricata as
we thought. I'm concluding the same about one of Cameron's pictures as
well. I'm wondering if most of the plants we grow as F. divaricata are
really this species and would like to better understand how they are
different. Does anyone think the beautiful close-up picture I added from
Alan Horstmann and the plants we saw at the Karoo Desert National Botanical
Garden pictured on the wiki are F. variabilis instead of F. divaricata?

Finally I noted that Kew is spelling one of the species differently than it
is spelled in all my books, including the Iris book that was just published
and the revision where it was named. This species is spelled Ferraria
densipunctulata by Kew and Ferraria densepunctulata by every one else. I
emailed a question about the spelling and got this response:
"The "i" is correct. The code states that a connecting vowel should be
corrected to "i"
Cheers,
Rafaël Govaerts"
If you do a Google search you will find that almost all of the hits you
will get spell it as it was published. Some names are changed later to the
original spelling. Babiana vanzijliae was quoted in the Babiana revision as
the correct spelling since that was how it was first published even though
most of the books have been spelling it as Babiana vanzyliae. If as a wiki
administrator I can be allowed a rant... it seems to me that if the purpose
of having a botanical name is so we will all know that we are talking about
the same plant, changing the spelling later so that the same plant is
spelled slightly differently just brings about confusion.
eg. Besides my earlier example there is always Tropaeolum tricolor versus
Tropaeolum tricolorum

Sorry this has gotten so long, but for those of you who are still with me
and can help I'd appreciate help with the F. divaricata pictures and
understanding about the spelling rules. Thanks.

Mary Sue

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