WHAT'S IN A NAME?

by Marilyn A. Holt of Holt Geraniums

What's in a name? Plenty! The saying "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." is true, but imagine if at the time roses were discovered, one person called it a rose and another person called it a strang. Now, also imagine you are a plant collector and you heard of this great new plant called a "rose" and the description of the plant was so lovely you knew you had to have it, so you arranged to buy one. A little while later you heard of another plant called a "strang" with the same fantastic description. Oh boy, two different fantastic plants, have to have that one too so you also arrange to get one of those. Finally, they both bloom and can you imagine how annoyed you are when you've discovered you've paid good money to buy two identical plants, bearing different names?

That is what is happening in the geranium/pelargonium world. Plants are being sold, given, or traded under different names -- what confusion! All I can say is we must be more responsible when we label cuttings we take, to make sure the name is correctly put down or someone will think it is a different variety, buy it and have two of the same thing. Now, you're probably thinking this is a rare incident, but that's not so. Take for instance the stellar pelargonium "Ruth Lesley". This plant was brought from Australia to the United States in mid 1970 by Faye Brawner. She sold cuttings, correctly labelled. A few years later she judged a show in California and low and behold a stellar there, labelled as "Ruth Besley" was identical to "Ruth Lesley". Turns out that the plant was bought by a collector, who sold it to a nursery person, who had hired help (non-English speaking) taking the cuttings and labelling them. Inadvertently the name became "Ruth Besley" and hundreds were sold under this name. Now if half the people gave a cutting to a friend with the Ruth Besley name on it, how many people do you suppose have this plant with the wrong name? You're right, hundreds!

Another instance is a variegated sport of "Gay Baby" which was named "Variegated Gay Baby". This variegated form had been out for five or six years when an identical sport occurred in a plant of Gay Baby here in Canada. Not knowing that the sport had already occurred the Canadian inadvertently named the plant "Flakey", then took the plant to England as a "new introduction". Imagine the mix up there when two identical plants, one called "Variegated Gay Baby" and the other called "Flakey" were side by side on a show bench or in someone's greenhouse. This is not an isolated case, there are numerous identical plants going by different names, I have listed just a few below:

And the list goes on and on. In some cases the names were deliberately changed to avoid paying patent fees, in other cases the names were given because someone thought they had a brand new plant, not knowing that the sport had already occurred somewhere else in the pelargonium world. Or in extreme cases a person doesn't like the original name or the name is too long to write so they decide to change it - once a plant has been introduced under one name it must remain with that name according to nomenclature rules. Not only that, what right do we have to change a plant's name when the hybridizer has already named it?

Another nightmare that needs clearing up is when a plant sports. Say I had a pelargonium called "Imagine" and Cliff has the same pelargonium with the same name. Both our pelargoniums sported a variegated form. I called mine "Mirage" and Cliff called his "Fantastic". Now we both took cuttings of this variegated form but neither of us knows that the sport has occurred on the other's plant. I sell about fifteen "Mirage" and Cliff does the same with "Fantastic". Now, say Roy bought one of my "Mirage" plants and Jean bought one of Cliff's "Fantastic" plants. A few months down the road, Roy's "Mirage" sports to a non-variegated form (which is "Imagine" but he doesn't know it) and Jean's plant also sports to a non-variegated form (which of course is "Imagine"). They are both excited about the "new" plant and Roy names his "Maple Ridge" and Jean names hers "Langley". We now have three identical plants under three different names: 'Imagine', 'Maple Ridge' and 'Langley'.

To go one step further, say they sell their "Maple Ridge" and "Langley" plants to other people and what do you know, in someone else's place they sport back to a non-variegated form (of course these new purchasers don't know that there was an original form) so they name their new plants - here we go again, same plant, different names! Where does it end?

At Faye's several year's ago a herb society group from a nearby state visited. Faye had a large Paton's Unique (also known as "Apricot") growing in a pot. Half the plant had sported to a very pale pink, almost white, flower. One of the ladies in the group pointed to the plant and said "look at this plant, it's sported". Another lady from the group said she had that plant, pointing to the almost white flowered side and said it was called "Mexican Sage". She noticed the darker colour flowers on the other side of the plant and wanted to know what Faye was going to name it, thinking the darker coloured flowers were the sport when in actual fact that was the original plant. See what I mean?

The only way I can see of clarifying this situation is, when a plant sports, no one has the right to rename the plant, after all we didn't hybridize it, nature caused the sport. If "Imagine" sports to a variegated form it should be called "Variegated Imagine", if it turns into a gold leaf, it should be called "Gold Imagine" if the red flower sports to a pink flower it should be called "Pink Imagine" that way if "Gold Imagine" should sport to a normal green leaf plant everyone would know the plant was "Imagine" and not name it something else.

Plants that sport, usually have the tendency to sport more than once. A great example of this are the Ivy-Zonal Cross plants with the "Hearts" suffix, i.e. Jack of Hearts (double salmon pink with red pencilling), King of Hearts (pale pink with red pencilling), Ten of Hearts (light orange-salmon with red pencilling) and Queen of Hearts (double white with a lot of red pencilling). Just buy Queen of Hearts and wait awhile, the other three will show up on your plant eventually.

Nomenclature rules state that once a plant is introduced and sold under one name it cannot be changed to another name. If you see plants listed wrongly - be VERY verbal and advise the nursery, seller or mail order house that they are not being responsible sellers!

Now make yourself a nice cup of tea, sit back, relax and ponder, "What's In A Name?"

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