Saturday, November 27, 2010

Errata, Taxonomy

For reasons which are too complicated and boring to go into, I was up at 3:30 AM yesterday, and used the opportunity to update links to plant profiles and make some minor changes to old posts. You're not at all obligated to care, but these are them:

  • Aloe maculata is now correctly identified. Posts no longer refer to the synonym A. saponaria.
  • Alworthia 'Black Gem' replaces the earlier, incorrect Aloe 'Black Gem.'
  • Hoya carnosa var. holliana replaces Hoya carnosa 'Holliana.' I'm not sure it's right, but I do at least know that the plant is not Hoya holliana, which is how I had it on the spreadsheet for forever.
  • I am now spelling CalibrAchoa correctly. (It's not CalibrIchoa.) I sort of understand why the ex-boss used to insist on calling them "mini-petunias" even though they're not.
  • Dracaena surculosa replaces the obsolete synonym D. godseffiana.
  • My plant that I thought was either Aglaonema 'Silver Bay' or 'Emerald Bay' was identified in the comments to the Aglaonema profile as A. 'Emerald Bay' by a very confident-sounding Anonymous person, so I changed that.
  • Aloe x 'Dorian Black' makes more sense than A. x 'Doran Black,' so the plant I'd been calling Doran is now being called Dorian, except that it might not be that either. I don't have a positive ID for it, I've never had a positive ID for it, and I don't anticipate having a positive ID for it in the future. But if I have to guess, and kinda I do, then I'm going with 'Dorian Black.' (UPDATE: Actually it's 'Doran' after all. This has since been corrected.)
  • Aloe vera is in fact the current correct name for Aloe barbadensis, I think just to spite me; older posts have been changed accordingly.
  • During the research for the Ficus elastica profile, I ran into a number of sources that made it sound more dangerous to children and pets than the other Ficus species. Consequently, I changed the posts in the houseplant toxicity posts to reflect this: Ficus elastica is now in the Potentially Dangerous category, rather than the Unpleasant category. The other Ficuses remain in Unpleasant until I hear something to change my mind.
  • I finally got around to changing Carludovica 'Jungle Drum' to Asplundia 'Jungle Drum.' Even if the plant is usually sold as Carludovica, I think the plant is much more likely an Asplundia.
  • Somehow, I dropped an "i" from Pilea nummularIIfolia. This is probably because nummularifolia makes a lot more sense, even though it's wrong.
  • Ficus maclellandii replaces Ficus binnendijkii, though I very much preferred saying and typing binnendijkii.
  • The dumb-sounding Anthurium andrAEAnum is apparently correct; I'll be really lucky if I can remember not to spell it andrEAnum, like I've been doing for the last three years.


6 comments:

Sentient Meat said...

I can't positively ID your particular plant, but I can say without question that the correct name for the aloe cultivar is 'Doran Black', an eponym given in honor of a plant breeder by the same name. Not to worry... It is very commonly misspelled, and cactus and succulent folk -- while they can be picky, they are also a generous and forgiving lot. They are always happy to hear people speaking their language, even if we sometimes speak with an accent.

mr_subjunctive said...

Well, crap. I put it on the list, and will change it back whenever I do this again.

After which point I will probably find out that the ID is wrong.

Sentient Meat said...

If it makes you feel any better, it was rather famously misspelled 'Dorian Black' on labels from venerable pillars of cactus and succulent culture, including Grigsby Cactus Gardens. ('Famously', that is, in a teeny, tiny corner of the larger world.)

The slip makes perfect sense... Dorian Gray/Dorian Black.

Maaike said...

Dear Mr Subjunctive, I just noticed that the link to Ficus maclellandii (formerly F. binnendijkii) goes nowhere..
Love your website! Best regards from The Netherlands.

mr_subjunctive said...

Maaike:

Thanks for letting me know. The post is just not there anymore, even though I didn't delete it. I do have a saved copy somewhere, but it's going to be a pain to copy and republish. Plus it's really alarming that the post disappeared in the first place.

mr_subjunctive said...

Okay, the Ficus maclellandii post's link should work now. Also fixed the link in the sidebar, which had the same problem.