A Rose by any other name might be a Heather

The Chi-town Trib had an article today about botanical names for people, well, actually for babies because that's when they get named, and it seems only for girls. Why are flower and plant names perceived as feminine?  Do Maple and Clover sound like girls?  What about Lilac?  What about Filbert?   That sounds rather masculine, but a bit nutty.  How about Nellia?  That one is basically undiscovered both as a flowering shrub and a baby name.  Does it have potential?  Yes, on both counts.  But it's true, quite a few flower names get used a girl names; everyone can remember when every other woman you met was Heather (#8 in the 1970s).  Rose was #16 in the 1910s.  Here's the 10 plant/flower names that are becoming more popular of late (according to the article): Lily, Violet, Willow, Hazel, Ivy, Iris, Olive, Dahlia, Juniper, and Azalea.  A couple of these are a surprise; Juniper?  Really?  Apparently Jasmine was number 29 in the 2000s probably a credit to Disney's Aladdin movie. Holly was popular some years back as TPP discovered via google.  Violet is at its most popular rank in 100 years. Poppy remains rather uncommon; only one comes to mind - Poppy Montgomery, although this is a bit of a truncated version of her given name - Poppy Petal Emma Elizabeth Deveraux Donaghue. TPP also knew women called Linnea and Nyssa, which reminds him that Dr. Chips names his pets after plants, e.g.,Typha (do you need to be told it was a cat?).  Of course a number of plant names are derived from the names of goddesses, so these might be very appropriate names for little girls.  For example, how about Hebe?  It does sort of suggest a middle name as well.  Or maybe just Flora or Terra (daughter of a former colleague) to cover a lot of bases?  Just happened to think of Laural. But no one is naming their little boys Nemestrinius or Radish. Why not? Ah, finally thought of a plant used as a boy's name: Ash.  Do readers have any good examples?  Let's hear them.

What's in a name? Strawberry?

The origins of plant names is fun, fascinating, and frought with ambiguities for those who choose to figure some of them out. English as a conglomerate of languages has more than its share of strange word origins. Strawberry is one of them. Now the genus is not much of a problem. Fragaria - clearly from the same root as fragrance, and, oh, do ripe strawberries smell good! But what's straw got to do with these berries? Perhaps this is one of those sound alike sideways changes that are so perplexing. Maybe they were strewberries; to strew meaning to sprawl along the ground, which certainly describes their growth pattern by runners, stolons. Even more interesting is the Shrewsbury Cake, sort of a short bread cake with a strawberry jam layer in the middle. Could this have been a strewberry cake, rather than a confection named for a small city in the UK? Well, who knows, and if you have some ideas to add, well, do tell. But the Phactor just picked a couple of quarts from our little patch, so guess what we're having for dessert?

The Plant List - Name that plant!

Well, the Phactor was preparing a blog about the Plant List, a new resource for determining the correct scientific name for a plant once you think you know the name, that is. This is a problem because many plants have been named more than once, and someone has to fiugre out is this is the case or not, so only about one out of every 3 known scientific names is correct; the rest are synonyms. Oh, and that can ruin your day. Now some day when the iPlant project gets going successfully people won't think they need plant IDers like me, but even such a resource won't make you an expert or diminish our ranks. However, Mary, Mary was quite contrary and her excellent post sort of beat me to it, and actually because it is so good, she saved me some effort, so click on over to the Accidental Botanist for a look, but this resource may not be much use to many.