That's the first time that I've seen a flower head round there in 20 years - and there's a whole 'gaggle' of them popped up this year....wiat for the photos and the pleas for an ident...!
If you're really just looking to catalogue your plants, I'm not sure you need to be too OTT about it, Steve. It's more useful when you need the ID of something, or cultivation info.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
@Fairygirl - I agree - it's just that I want something that I can refer to and speak 'sensibly' about. I was going to use a simple spreadsheet, but I needed to get my brain going again anyway, so I thought I'd knock up some mickey mouse software for my personal use. It's getting there... and it's forcing me into knowing more about the plants - another 4 years and I'll know everything I need to know!
The species sometimes gets dropped, when it's a hybridised variety. For example I have a plant called Salvia 'Blue Note'. It's usually listed as that, but sometimes (probably incorrectly) you see it as S. greggii 'Blue Note', sometimes as S. chamaedryoides x lycioides 'Blue Note'. Sometimes with hybrids the exact lineage is disputed or unclear, and the species part of the name is dropped for practical reasons.
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour".
Yes, I mentioned that above. But if it's available it's often so useful that it would a shame to miss it as a field in what looks like it's going to be quite a detailed database! Consider Buddleja davidii vs Buddleja globosa - pretty much everything you need to know as regards care, habit etc is in the species name. Cultivar would fine tune it only.
'If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.'
I'm trying to work on correct botanical terms for polite gardening society but at home with my wife we still refer to plants by extremely vague nicknames. 'have you watered the stinky pink shrub' 'the orange boxing glove plant has started flowering' 'how is that plant behind the big plant doing now?'. We know what we mean.
Jacob's Ladder (Polemonium caeruleum) is now known to us as 'Dawson's creek' as my wife kept calling it Jacob's Creek by mistake. Now it makes no sense to anyone but us.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
@WillDB@LG_ I have three fields that can be used for any three levels - and I have 'you know it as' and 'botanical name' (which I think I'll rename as 'common name') - so given what has been said, I think that will cope - eg my 'bee plant' becomes:
Just looking out the window at the plant itself - even though yesterday's rain washed away three quarter's of the blossom, I can still see five bees on this side alone. So it's the bee plant.....
@wild edges - makes you smile eh? The whole point of gardening is to enjoy the end results isn't it? - and what better way than with a bottle of Jacob's Creek....
I want to know what the orange boxing glove plant is!
Calceolaria integrifolia. It's got flowers that look like little orange boxing gloves.
They do indeed!
@steveTu, it's your database, how you organise it is your own business and it has to work for you. But in my need for accurate terminology I have to just point out that scabra is not the cultivar name but the species name. The binomial system works on two (=bi) key names - genus and species. All the rest is extra detail.
'If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.'
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If you're really just looking to catalogue your plants, I'm not sure you need to be too OTT about it, Steve. It's more useful when you need the ID of something, or cultivation info.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Calceolaria integrifolia. It's got flowers that look like little orange boxing gloves.
@steveTu, it's your database, how you organise it is your own business and it has to work for you. But in my need for accurate terminology I have to just point out that scabra is not the cultivar name but the species name. The binomial system works on two (=bi) key names - genus and species. All the rest is extra detail.