Monophyly and Plant Name Changes

Plant names keep changing. Some changes are based on studies that show previously unknown relationships. Plants are moved to reflect that and sometimes the names change. Other times plants are found to be the same or different and the process of merging or splitting a species creates a name change. More puzzling to non-botanists are mergers and splits based on phylogeny. Let me try to explain. 

Pasque flower, Anemone pulsatilla

Plant Story--Silky-leaved Lamb's Ears, Stachys byzantina

Lamb's ears, Stachys byzantina, is a mint brought from Tuirkey, Armenia, Iran, and Azerbaijan in western Asia, to be a garden plant.

lamb's ears, Stachys byzantina

Indigenous Knowledge and Problematic Common Names

Language steadily changes. Words are added because we have new things to describe. Meanings shift. I just read Moult’s Relation, a record of the Plymouth Colony, 1620. Relation in the title is “what Moult related” but it sounds really weird to me. In it, a rope trap to catch a deer was described as “as artificially made as by any roper in England”—the writer clearly meant "skillfully" so artificial's meaning has shifted.

Hopi tea, greenthread, Thelesperma megapotamicum

Naturally, we have plant common names whose meanings or nuances have changed. Some are insulting or objected to by the people they refer to. People regularly suggest changing ones they don’t like. The American Public Garden Association (link) asked for input and in 2021 published a report on “Potentially Problematic Common Names in North American Public Gardens”. They found a long list of “potentially problematic” words, noting, that “… words may seem completely benign to one group, culture, or language while holding offensive and egregious connotations for another.” (p. 26 )

Plant Story--Red Yucca, Hesperaloe parviflora, a Very Handsome Plant

I saw red yucca in bud or flower all over the Dallas Fort Worth area of Texas in April. A handsome plant, it was easy to learn to recognize it.

red yucca, Hesperaloe parviflora

Plant Story--Sorghastrum nutans, Indiangrass, Yellow Indian Grass

Sorghastrum nutans was one of the three most common grasses of the tallgrass prairie. Its range spanned the U.S. from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains. It has been recorded in almost every county across that range. And because prairies and meadows were plowed, most people don't know it.   

Sorghastrum nutans, Indiangrass, yellow prairie grass

Growing Native Wildflowers on the Colorado Front Range

When people grow native plants, the plants are domesticated or becoming domesticated, whether we intend it or not. The conditions in yards and gardens are pretty different from growing in the wild, even in the same location. This post is about that contrast.

black-eyed Susans, Rudbeckia hirta, in a garden

Plant Story--Balloon-Flower, Platycodon grandiflorus, Ornamental, Food, and Medicine

  Balloon-flower is a pretty ornamental from Asia. 

balloon-flower, Platycodon grandiflorus

Balloon-flower is sufficiently unique that there is only one plant in the genus Platycodon, the balloon-flower, Platycodon grandiflorus. It is in the bellflower family, Campanulaceae.