A rose by any other name...

Shakespeare knew what he was talking about when he referred to the fact that flowers, and plants in general, are known by multiple names. In my experience talking with friends about flowers as well as in researcher the names of what turns up in my garden I have been amazed at the variety of names a single plant bears, as well as the variety of plants that share the same name.

Growing up spending my summers in the Laurentians, I learned the names of the local wildflowers and trees (and fish, animals etc, but mostly the flowers). My mother says that by the age of five I could name everything in the forest. This may explain why there is no room left in my head for much else these days, however given my renewed passion for gardening it has not been wasted.  There was a bushy plant which had small delicate orchidlike orange flowers which I remember calling lady slippers. Then one day my mother found a large, wild orchid and told me that it was a lady's slipper. Just for fun, google images for lady's slipper and you will see how many varieties of orchids pop up, and a few that look suspiciously like irises too.

Black eyed susans, no smut!

When my friend Laure wrote out for me the names of the plants she gave me last summer, she carefully wrote out both the common names and the latin names for most of them. The anemone was one she missed on the common names, and I was puzzled when I expected a short plant with a single white bloom and a buttercup turned up (it was a yellow anemone, which was a buttercup in my lexicon). Josh the city boy was sure it was not a buttercup because he said buttercups are very short plants with a single flower, and this was two feet tall with flowers on multiple branches. I figured out he usually sees buttercups in city lawns where they will flower after being cut down by lawn mowers. In the country meadows and roadsides they always look like Laure's anemone. She also gave me what she called a white echinacea in English and a Rudbeckia in latin. I happen to know that black eyed susans are a type of Rudbeckia because I bought a pack of seeds two years ago which had both the latin and common name. I thought that they were not related to Echinacea, the most common one being the ubiquitous purple cone flower. Echinacea is well known outside of the garden as the herbal tincture to prevent colds, extremely common in use in our cold climate. I did some research and although they are related, and the names seem to be interchangeable on labels of photos of white flowers that all look like the one Laure gave me, the information sites did not seem to include any white rudbeckias. As an aside, one gardening site lists common problems of plants and one of the possible issues with rudbeckias was smut. (Is that why they are Rude Beckias?) I looked smut up on Wiki and apparently it is any number of plant parasitic fungi. I know that this was a reputable entry because they actually put the definition of the fungus first and the reference to pornography only third. I tried to find an image of smut, but unfortunately the other definition of smut is more common on the internet and I got a lot of smutty images pop up but not a single fungi, (just a few fun guys and lots of naked ladies). Did you know the Aztecs used corn smut in recipes? Apparently it has more protein than the corn it grows on. Barley can suffer from loose smut (is there any other kind?). Wow, I had no idea!
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Loose_smut_spores.jpg. and
http://lavidahuatulco.blogspot.ca/2011/08/huitlacoche-mexican-truffle.html (that is great marketing, they turned smut into "the mexican truffle.")

When my daffodils bloomed, Olivier complimented my narcissi (narcissuses?). I had heard of the flower made famous by Greek mythology, but never connected it with daffodils. My mother says it is only one variety of daffodil which is called a narcissus. Google images and wikipedia imply that this is not the case, they imply that the two terms are interchangeable. I was discussing with my friend Olga how much I love cornflowers and that I want to rescue some from a nearby vacant lot which was slated to be turned into a condominium. I grew up with cornflower being synonymous with chicory, but in Russia there is a different flower, even more beautiful blue in colour, and not related to the chicory which is a "real" cornflower. And it has nothing to do with corn.

It has been challenging figuring out the names of some of the plants that I have growing. Some have popped up spontaneously, others were given to me by friends who had no idea what the name of them were. I type in some descriptive words (blue flower thistle Amercia) and hopefully something that looks like my flower will turn up. Wikipedia has been surprisingly helpful, although many private photos and blogs tend to have "pretty blue flower that looks like a thistle" or only one name which may be a local or even erroneous one. When researching my siberian squills, I stumbled on something poetically called blue eyed grass. It turns out that the mini iris plant Alex gave me, which my mother informed me is actually called tradescantia.It is also called Blue eyed grass by some, but it looks nothing like the blue eyed grass I found when researching my squills. It is related to Wandering Jews, which surprised my mom, but I looked up wandering Jews and it turns out is is another name for what we call Moses in the Basket (setcreasia, Purple Heart) which is related to Tradescantia and looks a bit similar, and what we call Wandering Jew is a plant taking over my dining room right now is something else completely, latin name Zebrina pendula (that doesn't sound Jewish at all).

When we moved in there were these pretty purple bell flowers all over the property. Josh thought they were Foxglove (Digitalis), but I realized they were something else when Iulia bought some foxglove and the bells were much denser and thicker. I finally looked up purple bell flower weeds and discovered that the ones growing all over my property are an invasive week called Creeping Bell flowers. I really like them but they do take over and crowd out everything around them so I am pulling them out by the hundred, while leaving a few to flower.

Foxglove on top, Creeping Bell flower on bottom

Something new popped up between my cucumbers and my tomatoes with a beautiful flower. I saw it yesterday but as it was Shabbat I waited to photograph it today. When I went into the garden this morning it had disappeared. I asked Josh if I had really showed him a gorgeous new flower yesterday or did I dream it. He said it was real, he saw it, and his sharp eyes and good memory zeroed in on a tiny plant with a shrivelled flower and some buds. So no photo today, but I will catch it on the next bloom and post it to see if anyone can help me identify it. One name will be enough, thank you!

Friday afternoon I remembered I was supposed to hang the garlic to dry. It was still sitting on my woodrack since I harvested earlier in the week. José helped me to get it all up in the garden shed. He wanted to braid the stems, we tried but they there thick and difficult to work. Chloé told me this morning that the braided garlic is a soft stem variety, Music is not made to braid. In case you were wondering how this ties into my theme, garlic is also referred to as the Stinking Rose. It is not actually a rose, it is a member of the allium family.

One last note, although Shakespeare was correct in general that flowers can be known by multiple names, Roses themselves nowadays are one of the rare flowers that are known very widely by the name rose. There are over one  hundred species according to Wikipedia, but they are all, indeed, called by the name rose.

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