Botanical Latin

This picture doesn't really have anything to do with botanical Latin, except, of course, that all of the plants in it have Latin names. The pink one is a weeping peach whose Latin name I don't know. It was so pretty yesterday I just had to take its picture.

Now for the Latin. All plants have Latin names - 2 words, like Acer palmatum and sometimes a cultivar name like 'Peaches and Cream' (a gorgeous maple, by the way). There are 2 kinds of Latin in plant names. What I'll call real Latin for lack of a better name and Latinized English. In this example Acer is Latin and comes from a work meaning sharp, which may refer to the pointed leaves, not sure about that. Palmatum (an accusative form of palmatus - meaning it is used as a direct object) has a meaning of 'embroidered with palm leaves' though I expect that it just means in the form of a palm leaf. These are easy and you can find them in any good English/Latin dictionary. The harder ones are those which are Latinized English. A lot of these will be in the form ending in i or ii, like sieboldii which is a genitive form indicating possession. These are almost alway plants that are named after someone and will usually have the i or ii just added onto the name. The other Latinization is the one that is irritating to me and totally unpredictable. One of the worst offenders is for variegated plants. The Latin for variegated is versicolor. You will see this, though not as frequently as variegata, variegatus, variegatum. Since all 3 have Latin endings and since this isn't really a Latin word, there is not way to say which is proper. I often see a plant listed in different catalogs or books with all three spellings, depending on where it is written. The whole point of Latin names is to have some sort of uniformity which is totally defeated by not using words which conform to Latin grammar rules. For plants which are registered with plant societies, this is not usually a problem since there are pages and pages of rules for naming which must be followed. It is more of a problem with plants that are named without registration and put into commerce. Enough for today - there are weeds to be pulled. Actually, I first have to uncover all of the plants which had to be covered last night because of a threatened frost. I don't think our temperatures got that low, but we'll see. When your garden covers 7 acres, there are many different climate zones and so frost in one place might not happen in another. Part of today's activities will be a walk in the woods to see the trilliums and maidenhair ferns on a northfacing hillside across the creek.

Tomorrow I'll give you a list of a lot of Latin words and their English meanings which will help greatly in knowing what an unfamiliar plant might look like.

Cercis canadensis 'Covey'

The last of my Redbuds is this relatively new one called Covey. It is a weeper. Ours has about a 3 foot trunk before it starts to weep, but you can have a taller one by staking in until it gets bigger before you let the branches start to cascade. Ours overhangs a lotus pond and is perfectly in scale with this smaller pond at the size it is. This is the first year that it has been really covered in bloom, but everything that is blooming is really covered in bloom this year. I'll probably take a hillside view to use tomorrow since photos of Latin noun endings aren't nearly as photogenic.

Cercis canadensis 'Silver Cloud'

The leaf shape is the same, but you might not recognize this as another Redbud. The leaves are a bit smaller and more delicate (thinner), and certainly more noticeable. The tree is about the same size, but with smaller everything - leaves, branches, trunk - and it seems to be more susceptable to frost in the spring. Ours also blooms less and the leaves may edge scorch if it is planted in too much sun or during drought. Despite this, it is well worth having for what it adds to the garden. We have 2 I can remember, but there might be another tucked away somewhere. The one near the rose garden where it gets more shade keeps its color better, but the one next to Lake Amanda where it gets a little more sun is larger and better shaped (no competition from other close trees). I think you can find this, though I don't see it offered frequently. One more Redbud to go...

Redbuds on the hillside

No time to write this morning, so here's a picture I took of the eastern hillside above our first pasture showing a crabapple in the front and some redbuds going up the hill.

Cercis canadensis 'Forest Pansy'

Isn't this color just gorgeous? The best thing about it is that, unless the tree is in full sun, which it really wouldn't like anyway, the color hold pretty well and all new growth is the lovely deep purple. Flowers are the same as the species. Tree size is about the same too, so having 'ungreen' leaves doesn't seem to be a problem nutrition-wise. We have several of these scattered around the gardens and people always seem to notice them. Easy to grow and they provide a nice quick shade for perennials like hostas and pulmonaria if your garden has too much sun. The shape is good for underplanting too as it will quickly resemble a sort of shade umbrella. Two more Redbuds to go, then I think I'll write a bit on Latin names in the garden and why they are the way they are; not so much how they are named, but how you can tell just what the endings should be. It will be a quick primer for those who never studied Latin, which would have been me 10 years ago. Now, having those years of Latin study under my belt, the lack of uniformity and just plain incorrectness in the use of Latin sometimes gets downright annoying. But as I said, 2 more Redbuds before the Latin rant. Hopefully it will be informative.

Cercis canadensis 'Alba'

A quick note this morning since this is our opening day for the season and there's still lots to do. This is the white flowered form of our native Redbud. We have one in the yard right now, only a few years old, but covered with bloom today. Most Redbuds seem to be short lived trees, at least compared to something like and oak or maple (the maples in our front yard are almost as old as our house which was build in the 1860s). They get wonderful gnarly trunks if they do manage to get old, though. More on Redbuds tomorrow.

Cercis canadensis

As we were driving into town yesterday, the star of the show were the Redbuds, Cercis canadensis. All along the edges of the woods was this lovely pink cloud. We didn't have these when I was growing up in Southeast Pennsylvania, but I have truly grown to love them and hate it in springs when we get a frost and their bloom is cut short. The flowers in the picture are not quite out and will be a lighter pink when they are. These make lovely additions to the edge of the woods and intermingled with dogwoods (Cornus florida will usually bloom at about the same time) are just about perfect. We planted 2 in the front yard some years ago which are now quite large. Another 'appeared' a few years ago, seeded in by birds or squirrels or something and it has finally gotten to blooming size this year. There have been a number of selections made and I'll post a few pictures of them tomorrow.