This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.
Taxonomists and name changes
I know taxonomists use DNA now to re-assign plants to the correct group or invent new classifications and have been known to mess with favourites such as chrysanthemum at their peril but when did this happen?
https://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/357093/Hylotelephium-(Herbstfreude-Group)-Herbstfreude/Details
Sedum anyone?
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
Plato
0
Posts
I think that was a couple of years back. Yesterday I found out that what I have always called Mesembryanthemum criniflorum is now called .Dorotheanthus bellidiformis
aw don't say that fidget, that was the first botanical name I ever learned. I was 10 at the time and very pleased with myself.
How come it's never been mentioned before then Fidget. Haven't spotted it here or on GW or Beechgrove........
That new name for ice plants sounds very unfortunate.
I know I will still call most of my plants 'Sedum' (I collect succulents!) but I am already getting used to some of the new names.I actually correctly identified a Phedimus the other day,quite pleased with myself!!!
It can still be confusing though:-
Hylotelephium is one of a group of genera that form a separate lineage from Sedum, and is closely related to Orostachys, Meterostachys, and Sinocrassula. According to the Missouri Botanic garden, "Upright Sedums were at one point separated into the genus Hylotelephium, but are now generally included back in the genus Sedum." Kew Garden's online database now lists Hylotelephium as a synonym for Sedum.
Last edited: 11 November 2017 14:53:34
They can change them as much as they like ... I understand the need for change and I applaud their desire for accuracy.
However, at the age of 27 it is highly unlikely that I will remember the new names.
Before I got to 27 I assimilated the geranium/pelargonium change but it seems that the garden centres never did, so I don't suppose it'll matter too much.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
the sedum name change was a while back.
Autumn Joy became Herbs whatsit about 3 or 4 years ago, then the sedum bit changed too, to hylo whatsit.
At least when they changed schizostylis to hesperantha it was from a tricky name to an easier name; but sedum autumn joy to Hylotelephium (Herbstfreude Group)!! I ask you!!!
Not forgetting Symphyotrichum, formerly hard to pronounce Aster. Rolls off the tongue, eh?
I used to keep up to date with all this stuff but it moves too fast now (or I move too slow)
In the sticks near Peterborough
I can see the point of some name changes - especially now I'm gardening in French with their common names to deal with tho, being more collectors than gardeners my new gardening friends trip botanical names with surprising ease and frequency tho still the old ones sometimes. Persicaria is still polygonum to many of them. Nor do they call tender geraniums pelargoniums yet. Their common names are unfathomable to me. eg Ancolie for aquilegia.
I'm just surprised that this particular change hasn't come up earlier. Didn't Carol extol the virtues of sedum Autumn Joy on GW recently? No mention of a botanical name change.
Like you Nut, I can't keep up.