Article 35767 of rec.gardens:
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From: catyron@aol.com (Cat Yron)
Newsgroups: rec.gardens
Subject: Re: how to learn taxonomy
Date: 17 Jun 1994 01:32:01 -0400
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The recommendation to acquire a book by Liberty Hyde Bailey for
self-tutoring help in taxonomy is great! I agree that although many
families and genera have "split" since he was alive, he is the
clearest at laying out the essentials. His book "Hortus," (avoid the
revised third edition, by the way) is essential reading. 

The mention of the MALVA group made me smile. My daughter is named
Althaea (the old spelling, not the more common Althea). The word
means "healer," and the soothing juice of roots of several plants in
that family were once used in medicine. (The juice of Marsh Mallow
roots, for instance,  was mixed with honey and beaten egg whites to
cure soore throats, but it was so tasty that it became a kind of
treat, and now a "marshmallow" is a candy made from sugar and
geletine.)

Anyway, rather than give our child a middle name, her father and i
planted an assortment of Althaeas, including some which had been
split off into other genera (Sidalcea, Hibiscus, etc.). When she was
four, she asked why her friends had middle names and she didn't, so
we told her we wanted her to pick her own middle name and we took her
out to the Hollyhock family patch. She went right to the Althaea
zebrina and said, "That's the one i want for my middle name," and she
has been Althaea Zebrina Yronwode ever since. (For those of you
unfamiliar with it, A. zebrina is a rangy plant with rather small
flowers for its family, but they are beautifully striated in purple
over lavender, hence "zebrina" -- zebra-striped.) 

Only once in her life has anyone commented on her name. When she was
a student at the University of California at Berkeley, she went on a
blind date with a friend of a friend. The young man was a botany
student. He told her that Althaea was an "obsolete name for the
Hollyhock." She responded that she knew that -- and that her middle
name was Zebrina. "That's a Turkish species, i believe," he said. She
joked that she was afriad to date him again because next time he
might chide her for capitalizing Zebrina! 

Gosh, was that off-topic or what?

Sorry!

catherine anna yronwode, hollyhock grower


