Letter From America: Linnĉus Didnt Do It That Way!
Although Carl Linnĉus, the Swede who devised a system for naming, ranking and classifying organisms, died in 1778, we minimally educated folk are still trying to come to terms with and understand the names of plants over two centuries later, declares Ronnie Bray.
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The Swede, Carl Linnĉus, is known as the Father of Taxonomy. The Linnĉan system for naming, ranking, and classifying organisms have influenced generations of biologists. His father, Nils, was a Lutheran minister and an enthusiastic gardener. From him Carl developed his love of botany.
Later botanists found much wrong with his plant taxonomy, yet the Linnĉan system has survived as the method of hierarchical classification and the customary rule of binomial nomenclature.
Before Linnĉus, species naming practices varied. Many biologists gave the species they described long, unwieldy Latin names, which could be altered on a whim. For example, a scientist comparing two descriptions of species might not be able to tell which organisms were being referred to, as is the case with the common wild briar rose which was referred to by different botanists as Rosa sylvestris inodora seu canina and as Rosa sylvestris alba cum rubore, folio glabro. Linnĉus cut to the quick and called it Rosa canina, which is typical of his bi-nomal, or two-name, system that rapidly became the standard system for naming species.
Fascinating stuff, but Linnĉus died in 1778, and we minimally educated folk are still trying to come to terms with and understand the names of plants over two centuries later. Although Linnĉus certainly wouldnt approve, a garden nursery in Arizonas Valley of the Sun has come up with a system that everyone ought to be able to doodle with. The language and terms are not scientific, but their meanings are still not clear enough for me.
They ran an attractive full page advertisement in the newspaper in which they use their own invented nomenclature to describe their trees in a fashion that while it might mean something to the leather-faced desert dweller, completely foxes me, and would have left Linnĉus gasping.
Note that there are no small, medium, or big trees. Sizes start at "Super," next up are "Jumbo," which are followed by "Select Huge," and "Huge Instant." After those the sizes are "XXL," "Blockbuster," and "Select Blockbuster." The final sizes rise through "Giant," to culminate in "Titanic."
It is hugely entertaining, but puzzling to an English transplant who likes his trees measured by diameters and heights in old-fashioned inches, because he still hasnt got the hang of those newfangled decimal metric things!
Copyright İ 2006 Ronnie Bray
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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