At 09:23 AM 18/03/2008, you wrote: >In my discussion of this issue, I made a proposal for what struck me as a >reasonable solution to the problem of having two such similar names. That >solution was to format the names properly. Jim, I'll buy into this slightly.... as a non-paeony officionado (I very basically dabble, but I am no expert)..... you're saying that the home gardener should be expecting that the sellers of a plant will definitely have the correct "format" for the names and that the cultivar name isn't enough? Given that so many suppliers can barely get the right thing under the right name isn't that a bit like expecting the cat to look after the mouse? And I do have to make a quick point out re the different spelling of the cultivar being enough to differentiate...... I guess that means that the Americans all grow a different genus to the rest of the world given that you all grow Peonies while the rest of the world used to grow Paeonies (until the American "ease" of spelling was required to be taken up, as many Americans wouldn't accept the correct spelling I assume because it was too hard to remember?). I'm not pointing this out to have a go at the Americans, but rather using it as an example of how dodgy expecting a spelling difference to help differentiate something is...... a single letter in a cultivar name spelling such as the a in your two different "cultivars" called Cham(a)eleon is just not enough differentiation, regardless of how you format them. At this stage the original hybrid may be very rare but you just never know what will happen in the future with tissue culturing etc. Then again, I guess this is no worse than importing new items into a country and giving them a new name..... thereby muddying the waters further and further as these plants are then interchanged with overseas people as "new" cultivars etc. To me a cultivar name should be unique and clearly distinguishable from previous names...... and if it is not then the cultivar name should not be adopted. I can't honestly see the sense in having to have the formatting of a name being the only definition between two different plants. It's already bad enough when you have subspecies that have the names of other species (e.g Narcissus bulbocodium ssp serotinus etc) without an "x" differentiating between two Paeonia (x) Cham(a)eleons (brackets indicate optional items depending on which cultivar you're talking about <grin>) As to a counterproposal..... given the naming has taken place and can't be reversed then I imagine there isn't really much of a counterproposal that could be put forward is there? Other than not letting it happen like this again? Cheers. Paul T. Canberra, Australia - USDA Zone Equivalent approx. 8/9 Growing an eclectic collection of plants from all over the world including Aroids, Crocus, Cyclamen, Erythroniums, Fritillarias, Galanthus, Irises, Trilliums (to name but a few) and just about anything else that doesn't move!!