You'll get a kick of this: many, many years back, we had a good discussion on a Gardenweb forum about same. This is a clip from it, and I will sometimes use it in my seminars (with permission, of course).
RE: Nomenclature and crosses
* Posted by gardenphotographer Zone 5 WI (My Page) on
Fri, Dec 22, 06 at 10:22
Hi Rick,
Great topic. Thank you for posting this interesting question.
I'll offer you my take, which is considerably lighter in tone. Do you remember the old TV beer commercials about Miller Lite, Less Filling versus Tastes Great. This is similar to the world of plant classification. Imagine a bunch of plant people at a bar, one side is the ICBN (International Code of Systematic Botany) and the other side is the ICNCP (Internation Code of Nomemclature for Cultivated Plants). The only time that these people talk to each other is after consuming a considerable amount of beer and with much yelling and finger pointing. The only thing that they agree on is to disagree.
The ICBN looks at nature (essentially the evolution plants) and the ICNCP looks at human cultivation of plants. The fact that the two groups might be talking about the same plant never is acknowledged. It's just too much fun drinking beer, yelling, and pointing fingers.
I'll attempt to take the middle ground and say that both groups are correct and offer some comprimise. Of course, now both groups will start yelling and pointing fingers at me. Alas, so be it.
Let's assume that in a well documented observation we find that a Pelican is blown 1000 miles inland by a hurricane. Suppose that Pelicans are not normally observed this far inland. Furthermore, assume that the bird is covered with pollen and it lands, exhausted, in a field of flowers. As it happens, the pollen of a distant species fertilizes the local endemic plant. Since the Pelican is natural and the hurricane is natural, then the plant cross must be a naturally occuring hybrid. Let's call it by my made up name, Flowerium x pelicana. Clearly this is a plant claimed by the ICBN.
On the other side, a gardener grows this distant species in a pot on their windowsill and the endemic species grows natively in their backyard. The gardener crosses the two plants with an artists paintbrush and produces a manmade cross. In all ways the manmade cross appears identical to the naturally occuring hybrid. What to do? How is this plant to be identified?
The grower consults the ICBN and is booed and hissed out of that section of the bar. A human is clearly not considered part of nature. How could anyone confuse a human intervention with a Pelican being blown inland by a hurricane. Clearly one is natural and one is not.
The grower goes to the other section of the bar and is embraced by the ICNCP. After many beers, the ICNCP suggests a name. Let's call the plant, Flowerium Pelicana.
So, I offer you this. Call the naturally occuring hybrid by the nothospecies, x pelicana, and call the cultivated plant by the grex, Pelicana.
Outraged, both the ICBN and ICNCP threw me out of the bar. Blasphemy!, they yelled at me with fingers pointed. So, I, the gardener, and the Pelican, went home with a six pack and decided to sit around and just admire the plant. The flowers sure are pretty, no matter what the name happens to be.
Tom
