Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
General Subjects => General Forum => Topic started by: Lesley Cox on February 27, 2007, 09:07:55 PM
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While looking among the E's in the RHS Dictionary I came across a fabulous plant name - Echinofossulocactus coptonogonos. I've always had a fondness for crazy words like that, and invite Forumists to contribute their own favourites. My late mother always made a point of mentioning Metasequoia glyptostroboides to garden visitors and I'm sure there are other out there worth a mention.
This thread will certainly be among the top 10 of "Silly Subjects" which Maggi will judge at the end of the year.
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Lovely. Name that plant while giving a talk to a local gardening society and they will look at you in awe! (always assuming you can remember it yourself).
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I prefer the old name, Orphanidisea gaultherioides to the new name of Epigaea, and I adore the plant, too.
I like to mention Roscoeas on account of their family, Zingiberaceae ! Fab!
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A name that will always stick in my memory is Rhytidiadelphus triquetrus (a type of moss), only because I had come closest to spelling it correctly in a field report my undergraduate class had to write up.
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This is a nice new topic Lesley, I have to admit that I actually grow that Echinofossulocactus. A bid sadly the whole genus has now returned to the old name Stenocactus, a name less interesting.
Staying with cacti one of my favourites are Austrocephalocereus dolichospermaticus :D
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There could be a sub-plot to this story: the smallest plant with the longest name, complete with photo, preferably.
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Yes, we also grow Echinofossulocactus, the name runs nicely off the tongue. Here's some more to throw into the daft name stakes:
Silybum marianum (my firewall setting at work deems this as "an inappropriate search term")
Happlopappus diplopappus
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What we need now is the Errol Cosh clone of Echinofossulocactus, that could get a tongue rolling into a reef knot!
("Errol Cosh clone": see Tulipomania nouveau thread)
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Ah, Maggie, that give me the opening to bring in Potentially Confusing Thread Titles.
Per will be delighted to know that he had me thinking for quite a while about Tulipomania nouveau but I did catch on before looking this genus up in the books :D
A second title was Crocus Crossing. I was disappointed to find that this did not relate to road traffic signs in Norwich and Neustadt!
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A rich vein of potential there, David! Thank you for not mentioning the Erectile Dysfunction thread of the Meconopsis page. :-[
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Yes David, I have to admit being i bit proud of the name of that thread ::)
I have a few suggestions for this thread in line with the Meconopsis, but will hold them for myself :D
Coming back to names, Kew have recently transfered among other genera Eremurus and Hemerocallis to the family Xanthorrhoeaceae!!
Cheers
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I've always had a soft spot for Tchihatchewia, pronounced to provoke the response "Bless you!"
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Maggie, there are limits to where even I will go ;D
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A great thread Lesley, that I just can't resist. A favourite of mine is Catalpa bignonioides, but no picture sadly. ... :(..
So I'll just have to submit the Silversword from the Hawaiian Island of Haleakala: Argyroxiphium sandwichense.. just try saying it... :D...
And attached, see pic, courtesy of a fellow geologist friend of mine who hiked across the island a few years ago. Sadly, I have not managed to get myself a visit yet....
I am reminded that the BD and his good lady showed a sizeable non-flowering rosette a few years ago. Ian/Maggi, did you manage to flower it??
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We flowered some. Dave. One whopper went to Secret Squirrel the Glenrothes Greenfinger for its retirement.. I think it flowered, too. No good seedfrom them sadly. They are monocarpic.
It is, in my opinion, the most silvery of silver plants. Very beautiful and a pleasure to have grown and shown it.
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Dare I say ... even better to have seen it growing in its native habitat... having to hike up to over 10000 feet tramping over basalt lava and dusty ash, all at the equator.......... I agree, a very beautiful plant.
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tramping over basalt lava and dusty ash
Good grief, Dave, must you tell people about the state of my kitchen?
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I see they're talking about Galanthus snogerupii in the snowie threads...snogerupii..now there's a word..
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Per-Ake's Austro..... has my vote so far but Dave, you must come a close second as I believe the full name for the silver sword is Argyroxiphium macrocephalum sandwichense. I have actually grown this and would post the pic if I could find the darned thing. (Scanned from a print and on a floppy disc. Can't find the right disc.) It grew for 3 years then died, in a large pot surrounded by parsley plants. Joe and Ann Cartman have grown and flowered it and my plant was a seedling from one of theirs. I loved the leaves, so thick and succulent yet looking very metallic.
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Re smallest plant with longest name, it would probably go to one of those tiny Japanese violas or hypericums.
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This one always stumps me - Michauxia tchihatcheffii , but a close contender is Crocus cvijicii - that just has to be a typing error, or a joke! Or are you given the secret of pronouncing in on initiation into croconut status??
Sue
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Crocus cvijicii - are you given the secret of pronouncing in on initiation into croconut status??
I believe that E A Bowles said you had to sneeze it or play it on the violin
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Maggi - I would never steep so low as to comment on the state of your kitchen floor.
Lesley, it's good to hear that others too have grown the silversword the silveriness is really something; I had forgotten that sandwichense was the subspecies name, thanks for adding the full name. I guess the problem is that seed is but rarely available, though looking at the plant with its large flower spike, it must set bucket loads of seed?
Sue - I've no idea whether my pronunciation Crocus cvijicii is correct, but the specific name defies spelling!!
Fossil plant names can be an absolute nightmare, take for instance Zosterophyllum myretonianum, an extinct member of the Zosterophyllopsidae and related to the lycopods from Devonian time.... but I suppose you'll disallow this.....
Then of course there are the Gym..no..sperms......... :o :o
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Try sieve-ee-each-ee-eye, running the first ee and the each together. Works for me though I deeply resent Bowles' suggestion that it has anything in common with the sound of a violin, except perhaps in a brand new learner, drawing bow for the first time. I don't have a problem with Gymnospermium but until seeing your spaced out version David, have always used a hard g as in gate, hadn't considered that it could be as in Jim.
On something completely different. At last week's Market in town, I was given a page from the Scotsman and a video tape both of which featured our moderators' garden in Aberdeen. In the paper, Ian talked about the plants and his reasons for certain techniques and there were some very nice pictures. In the video, the delectable Maggi was talking about rhododendrons and other small Ericaceae in their garden. I can tell those who don't already know that Maggi animated is quite a different person even from the smiling avatar by which we down here know her. A real delight in fact and a pleasure to meet even if not quite in the flesh. Thanks Maggi for sending these to your sister and to Ann, for letting me borrow them.
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Re a hard "G"... good point, but then we are accustomed, or at least, I am, to saying jimnasium, jimkhana rather than the Gymnasium, etc. which rather than the classics, suggest German to me! Then again, I do not wish to attend a Jinocologist when my insides fail! Tricky business, this!
And, Lesley, fancy you seeing us on tape etc.! I did send them a video tape that the BBC Scotland Gardening Programme was flogging a while ago, a compilation of the "best garden visits" from the 25 years they have been running and Bill wrote a great letter to Living TV when Ann turned on her TV one day and found us on, and the TV Company was sweet enough to send her a tape... they normally never do that sort of thing, you know. Ann was well pleased and I was amazed! It must have been one of those you saw, though we have done a few telly "bits", I don't think Ann has any of the others. She has been pleased to discover that various garden things we have done pop up on satellite tv channels like Living etc... if only we got repeat fees!
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You would then become one of the Mag(g)i Maggi?
The name for our second (third?) smallest bird always amuses me: Troglodytes troglodytes troglodytes is the mainland (UK) form of the European Wren (there are four other sub-species on St Kilda, Fair Isle, the Hebrides and the Shetlands).
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I don't actually say the word "gymnasium" ever, under any circumstances. Or let it enter my mind or my body enter it! Too painful by half.
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Re : "gymnasium" Lesley, I apologise if my use of that word offended you.
Anthony: You would then become one of the Mag(g)i Maggi?
s'pose I would, wonder who the others will be?
I wouldn't make a good Joe di Maggio, though. that is "Madge-eeo" isn't it?
Not much wonder these long latin names can cause confusion and worse, look at the bother we can get into with our own, Anthony, Ant-ony etc!
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Crumbs, even simple English words come a cropper. Last week all our staff were given pedometers. I other 'English' speaking peoples would make of that; but then they seem to get all het up about foot-fetishists (think about it)? ??? It's my surname that gets spelled wrongly all the time >:(
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It's my surname that gets spelled wrongly all the time >:(
Anthony you've got it lucky, try having a surname which people think is your first name. I have lost count of the number of people who call me Gill/Jill. It's got to the point now where I sometimes just look at them and go 'I'm not called Gill' and wait to watch the light dawning, sometimes very slowly!
re crocus civijii etc I noticed that Janis slid very quickly over it's name at Dunblane - could it be he's not sure how to say it. . . .
Sue
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Jānis seemed to call it Crokus "sieve-eee--ee" which has a happy simplicity to it!
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we have done a few telly "bits", if only we got repeat fees!
Now the BBC has cut a deal with You Tube to make it legal, any chance of seeing them on line?
I doubt it, for the BBC stuff we've done. The other things, various progs. for Channel Four, are circulating via satellite but if you don't have satellite TV you are safe enough from us invading your living rooms! M
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Back to the original theme (I'd rather have the BD and spouse on Gardener's World than the current incumbents), our longest fern name is Polypodium australe Semilacerum Group 'Falcatum O'Kelly', which is the devil to get on labels.
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That is a tonque twister of a fern name, Anne. And who would have thought old Sickle-sides O'Kelly would get a plant named for him ? ::)
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So you too, Anne, are taking the mickey? :-\
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:D