Garden Vocabulary: ICN – International Code of Nomenclature

Posted on March 16, 2017 by Douglas E. Welch

Garden Vocabulary: ICN – International Code of Nomenclature

Someone has to manage all those latin names that pot up in books, nurseries and, more importantly, in our gardens. Who decides that that plant is a Clytostoma callistegioides and not a Ficus benjamina? Ever notice when plants change their Latin names. Moraea isn’t Moraea anymore. It’s now a Dietes.

By Carl von Linné – bibbild.abo.fi, Public Domain, Link

These names, formalized in the International Code of Nomenclature, is controlled by the International Botanical Congress which held its first congress in Vienna in 1905.

You can find more information on the ICN using the links below.

The International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN) is the set of rules and recommendations dealing with the formal botanical names that are given to plants, fungi and a few other groups of organisms, all those “traditionally treated as algae, fungi, or plants”.^[1]^{:Preamble, para. 8} It was formerly called the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN); the name was changed at the International Botanical Congress in Melbourne in July 2011 as part of the Melbourne Code which replaces the Vienna Code of 2005. As with previous codes, it took effect as soon as it was ratified by the congress (on Saturday 23 July 2011), but the documentation of the code in its final form was not finished until some time after the congressional meeting. Preliminary wording of some of the articles with the most significant changes has been published in September 2011.^{[2] — Wikipedia}

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Garden Vocabulary is inspired by

A Botanist’s Vocabulary: 1300 Terms Explained and Illustrated

This Garden Vocabulary series seeks to introduce and explain to you — and in many cases, myself — words and terms associated with gardening. Please let me know if there are any terms you would like me to explore. You can leave your ideas in the comments section and we can learn together!

Garden Leaves: Echeveria – 4 in a series

Posted on July 12, 2016 by Douglas E. Welch

In the natural world, flowers get all the attention and I have been guilty of perpetuating that bias here in my own blogs. That said, leaves are amazing, too, so in this series I will highlight the many forms of leaves available out there. — Douglas

Echeveria

These might not look like traditional leaves, but leaves they are — even if heavily modified to store water in this drought-tolerant plant. The extra waxy exterior of the leaves also help to limit loss of water through evaporation. I especially like the color variegation of these leaves – adding a lot of flair to what might otherwise be a bland-looking plant.

Echeveria is a large genus of flowering plants in the Crassulaceae family, native to semi-desert areas of Central America, Mexico and northwestern South America. The genus is named after the 18th century Mexican botanical artist Atanasio Echeverría y Godoy.Plants may be evergreen or deciduous. Flowers on short stalks (cymes) arise from compact rosettes of succulent fleshy, often brightly coloured leaves.^[2] Species are polycarpic, meaning that they may flower and set seed many times over the course of their lifetimes. Often numerous offsets are produced, and are commonly known as “hen and chicks“, which can also refer to other genera, such as Sempervivum, that are significantly different from Echeveria. Many Echeveria species are popular as ornamental garden plants. They are drought-resistant, although they do better with regular deep watering and fertilizing. Most will tolerate shade and some frost, although hybrids tend to be less tolerant. Most lose their lower leaves in winter; as a result, after a few years, the plants lose their attractive, compact appearance and need to be re-rooted or propagated. In addition, if not removed, the shed leaves may decay, harboring fungus that can then infect the plant.— Wikipedia

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Garden Leaves: Lemon – 3 in a series

Posted on July 5, 2016 by Douglas E. Welch

Lemon

A shot of our lemon leaves here in the garden. Thick, waxy and designed to convert as much sun as possible into growth and fruit. This dwarf tree has been stunted by years of shade from surrounding trees and was quite sickly last year, but our El Niño rains this year — while not as heavy as excepted — seemed to help it recover from vigor.

The lemon (Citrus × limon) is a species of small evergreen tree native to Asia.

The tree’s ellipsoidal yellow fruit is used for culinary and non-culinary purposes throughout the world, primarily for its juice, which has both culinary and cleaning uses.^[1] The pulp and rind (zest) are also used in cooking and baking. The juice of the lemon is about 5% to 6% citric acid, which gives a sour taste. The distinctive sour taste of lemon juice makes it a key ingredient in drinks and foods such as lemonade and lemon meringue pie.

The origin of the lemon is unknown, though lemons are thought to have first grown in Assam (a region in northeast India), northern Burma or China.^[1] A study of the genetic origin of the lemon reported it to be hybrid between bitter orange (sour orange) and citron.^[2]

Lemons entered Europe near southern Italy no later than the first century AD, during the time of Ancient Rome.^[1] However, they were not widely cultivated. They were later introduced to Persiaand then to Iraq and Egypt around 700 AD.^[1] The lemon was first recorded in literature in a 10th-century Arabic treatise on farming, and was also used as an ornamental plant in early Islamic gardens.^[1] It was distributed widely throughout the Arab world and the Mediterranean region between 1000 and 1150.^[1]

The first substantial cultivation of lemons in Europe began in Genoa in the middle of the 15th century. The lemon was later introduced to the Americas in 1493 when Christopher Columbusbrought lemon seeds to Hispaniola on his voyages. Spanish conquest throughout the New World helped spread lemon seeds. It was mainly used as an ornamental plant and for medicine.^[1] In the 19th century, lemons were increasingly planted in Florida and California.^[1]

In 1747, James Lind‘s experiments on seamen suffering from scurvy involved adding lemon juice to their diets, though vitamin C was not yet known.^[1]^[3]

The origin of the word “lemon” may be Middle Eastern.^[1] The word draws from the Old French limon, then Italian limone, from the Arabic laymūn or līmūn, and from the Persian līmūn, a generic term for citrus fruit, which is a cognate of Sanskrit (nimbū, “lime”).^[4]— Wikipedia

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Garden Vocabulary: Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt)

Posted on January 21, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

Garden Vocabulary: Bacillus thuringiensis

Gardener’s will often come across mention of Bacillus thuringiensis or BT as it is commonly called. It is a bacteria and biological pesticide that is often used in organic farming and gardening as it does not have many of the environmental and human side effects as other chemically-derived pesticides. It is most commonly used to control caterpillars of several garden pest including cabbage worms and tomato hornworm. My reading shows that there is some concern over side effects of using BT and the Wikipedia article has an extensive and well cited article on BT.

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Gram stain of Bacillus thuringiensis under 1000 X magnification (Wikipedia)

Bacillus thuringiensis (or Bt) is a Gram-positive, soil-dwelling bacterium, commonly used as a biological pesticide; alternatively, the Cry toxin may be extracted and used as a pesticide. B. thuringiensis also occurs naturally in the gut of caterpillars of various types of moths and butterflies, as well on leaf surfaces, aquatic environments, animal feces, insect rich environments, flour mills and grain storage facilities.^[1]^[2]

During sporulation, many Bt strains produce crystal proteins (proteinaceous inclusions), called δ-endotoxins, that have Insecticide action. This has led to their use as insecticides, and more recently to genetically modified crops using Bt genes. Many crystal-producing Bt strains, though, do not have insecticidal properties.^[3]

B. thuringiensis was first discovered in 1901 by Japanese biologist Ishiwata Shigetane.^[3] In 1911, B. thuringiensis was rediscovered in Germany by Ernst Berliner, who isolated it as the cause of a disease called Schlaffsucht in flour moth caterpillars. In 1976, Robert A. Zakharyan reported the presence of a plasmid in a strain of B. thuringiensis and suggested the plasmid’s involvement in endospore and crystal formation.^[4]^[5] B. thuringiensis is closely related toB.cereus, a soil bacterium, and B.anthracis, the cause of anthrax: the three organisms differ mainly in their plasmids.^[6]^:34–35 Like other members of the genus, all three are aerobes capable of producing endospores.^[1] Upon sporulation, B. thuringiensis forms crystals of proteinaceous insecticidal δ-endotoxins (called crystal proteins or Cry proteins), which are encoded by cry genes.^[7] In most strains of B. thuringiensis, the cry genes are located on aplasmid (in other words, cry is not a chromosomal gene in most strains).^[8]^[9]^[10]

Cry toxins have specific activities against insect species of the orders Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies), Diptera (flies and mosquitoes), Coleoptera (beetles), Hymenoptera (wasps, bees, ants and sawflies) and nematodes. Thus, B. thuringiensis serves as an important reservoir of Cry toxins for production of biological insecticides and insect-resistant genetically modified crops. When insects ingest toxin crystals, the alkaline pH of their digestive tract denatures the insoluble crystals, making them soluble and thus amenable to being cut with proteases found in the insect gut, which liberate the cry toxin from the crystal.^[8] The Cry toxin is then inserted into the insect gut cell membrane, paralyzing the digestive tract and forming a pore.^[11] The insect stops eating and starves to death; live Bt bacteria may also colonize the insect which can contribute to death.^[8]^[11]^[12] Research published in 2006 has suggested the midgut bacteria of susceptible larvae are required for B. thuringiensis insecticidal activity.^[13]

In 1996 another class of insecticidal proteins in Bt was discovered; the vegetative insecticidal proteins (Vip).^[14]^[15] Vip proteins do not share sequence homology with cry proteins, in general do not compete for the same receptors, and some kill different insects than do cry proteins.^[14]

In 2000, a novel functional group of Cry protein, designated parasporin, was discovered from non-insecticidal B. thuringiensis isolates.^[16] The proteins of parasporin group are defined as Bacillus thuringiensis and related bacterial parasporal proteins that are non-hemolytic but capable of preferentially killing cancer cells.^[17] As of January 2013, parasporins comprise six subfamilies (PS1 to PS6).^{[18] — Wikipedia}

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Garden Vocabulary: Palmatum

Posted on January 14, 2014 by Douglas E. Welch

Garden Vocabulary: Palmatum

Today’s Garden Vocabulary is another garden epithet — a descriptive term — usually Latin — that is used as part of a plants name to describe its most defining characteristic. Palmatum means “shaped like the palm of a hand” ¹ and is used quite frequently in plant descriptions. This weeks “Interesting Plant” entry is one example — Acer Palmatum, the Japanese Maple. While some varieties exhibit palmatum more than others, almost all of them show leaves that are vaguely palm shaoed, hence the palmatum adjective.

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Japanese Maple Leaves

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Garden Vocabulary: Annual

Posted on December 24, 2013 by Douglas E. Welch

In most gardens, annual plants are used to dress up flower beds and containers during the height of the growing season. Those gardeners in temperate zones tend to rely on annuals as they are designed to grow, flower and die within on growing season and therefore don’t require any special care or protection in order to overwinter. For myself, I don’t like the extra work required by annuals and prefer to plant perennial plants and shrubs whenever I can. Of course, here in Southern California, I would like to plant more native plants, many of which are annuals. These are often self-seeding, though, and that makes them almost a perennial if the conditions are right.

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Garden Vocabulary: Annual

“In gardening, an annual plant is a plant surviving just for one growing season. Many food plants are, or are grown as, annuals, including virtually all domesticated grains. Some perennials and biennials are grown in gardens as annuals for convenience, particularly if they are not considered cold hardy for the local climate. Carrot,celery and parsley are true biennials that are usually grown as annual crops for their edible roots, petioles and leaves, respectively. Tomato, sweet potato and bell pepper are tender perennials usually grown as annuals.

Ornamental perennials commonly grown as annuals are impatiens, wax begonia, snapdragon, Pelargonium,coleus and petunia.” — Wikipedia

Sunflower is just one example of an annual plant

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Garden Vocabulary: Parterre

Posted on September 17, 2013 by Douglas E. Welch

Parterre gardens, with their air of formality, aren’t for everyone, but I would guess it is one of the most popular garden styles even today, long after its first invention. Today’s gardens, especially here in the US, tend to lean towards more casual styles, but you will see elements of the parterre garden style in nearly every garden. It might only be a lightly clipped hedge or a stone walkway, but the elements seem to be part of our basic garden vocabulary.

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Garden Vocabulary: Parterre

“A parterre is a formal garden constructed on a level surface, consisting of planting beds arranged to form a pleasing, usually symmetrical pattern, with gravel paths laid between. The beds are edged in stone or tightly clipped hedging and need not contain any flowers. French parterres originated in 15th-century gardens of the French Renaissance, such as the Chateau of Versailles, and were elaborated out of 16th-century Baroque garden à la française knot gardens, and reached a climax at Versailles and its many European imitators, such asKensington Palace in London.

The parterre was developed in France by Claude Mollet, the founder of a dynasty of nurserymen-designers that lasted deep into the 18th century. His inspiration in developing the 16th-century patterned compartimens—simple interlaces formed of herbs, either open and infilled with sand or closed and filled with flowers—was the painter Etienne du Pérac, who returned from Italy to the château of Anet, where he and Mollet were working. About 1595 Mollet introduced compartment-patterned parterres to royal gardens at Saint-Germain-en-Laye andFontainebleau; the fully developed scrolling embroidery-like parterres en broderie appear for the first time in Alexandre Francini’s engraved views of the revised planting plans at Fontainebleau and Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1614.^[1]” — Wikipedia

A parterre garden in St. Fagans, Cardiff, UK

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Garden Vocabulary: Sepal

Posted on June 26, 2013 by Douglas E. Welch

To paraphrase Old Possums Book of Practical Cats, “The naming of plant (parts) is a difficult matter. In this edition of Garden Vocabulary, we focus on the part of plant that most people ignore, even though is can be a large part of the decorative aspect of a flower.

It can take quite a bit of investigation and close observation to tell the difference between sepals and petals in some flowers. In this picture of a Passiflora flower, the long white structures all look to be petals, but according to my research, they are both sepals and petals interspersed around the plant.

Of course, we need not know everything about every plant perfectly but it can be interesting and fun to investigate new plants and flowers and see what you can learn.

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Garden Vocabulary: Sepal

“A sepal (/ˈsɛpᵊl/ or /ˈsiːpᵊl/)[1][2][3] is a part of the flower of angiosperms (flowering plants). Collectively the sepals are called the calyx (plural calyces),[4] the outermost whorl of parts that form a flower. The word calyx adopted from the Latin calyx,[5] not to be confused with calix, a cup or goblet.[6] Calyx derived from the Greek καλυξ a bud, a calyx, a husk or wrapping, from Sanskrit kalika, a bud.[7] Usually green, sepals typically function as protection for the flower in bud, and often as support for the petals when in bloom.[8] After flowering, most plants have no more use for the calyx which withers or becomes vestigial, however, some plants retain a thorny calyx, either dried or live, as protection for the fruit or seeds. Examples include species of Acaena, some of the Solanaceae, and the water caltrop, Trapa natans. In some species the calyx not only persists after flowering, but instead of withering, begins to grow actively until it forms a bladder-like enclosure around the fruit. This is an effective protection against some kinds of birds and insects, for example in Hibiscus trionum and the Cape gooseberry.” — Wikipedia

Glossary of plant parts from GrandpaCliff.com

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Garden Vocabulary: Latin Botanical Epithets – Augustifolia

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Douglas E. Welch

After watching 2 days of coverage of the Chelsea Garden Show and noting all the plant names I see, it re-interested me in a project to research those Latin words that appear frequently in plant names. Some are very common and others quote rare, but I figured I would start with one of the most common botanical epithets (as they are called by botanists) — Augustifolia.

Latin Botanical Epithets – Augustifolia

“Augustifolia, Stately, noble foliage, aw-gus-tih-FOH-lee-uh”
– Dave’s Garden Botanary

So, if a botanist has decided to use the term augustifolia, they are saying that the plant has a stately, noble foliage. While many of the botanical epithets are a bit vague, they do give the gardener (and botanist) a general idea about the form of the plant or flower. One example would be Lavandula augustifolia. For this plant, you can assume from its name that it has the typical traits of a lavender (pleasing scent, purple flowers, etc), but this particular variety would also have stately foliage. Makes sense, doesn’t it? (SMILE)

Lavandula augustifolia “Hidcote” from Flickr User Amanda Slater

I’ll make a point of highlighting other common botanical epithets in future editions of Garden Vocabulary, so come learn along with me.

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Garden Vocabulary: Bolting

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Douglas E. Welch

Bolting

“Bolting is when agricultural and horticultural crops prematurely produce a flowering stem (or stems) before the crop is harvested, in a natural attempt to produce seeds[1] and hence reproduce. These flowering stems are usually vigorous extensions of existing leaf-bearing stems, and in order to produce them, a plant diverts resources away from producing the edible parts such as leaves or roots, resulting in a poor quality harvest from the grower’s point of view. Plants that have produced flowering stems in this way are said to have bolted. Crops inclined to bolt include lettuce, beetroot, brassicas, spinach, celery and onion.[1] — Wikipedia.org

Unfortunately, living here the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, I am very familiar with bolting in plants as our long periods of high heat can cause cold crops to bolt to seed almost immediately. Here we must grow out lettuce and kale in what other parts of the US would consider deep Winter — January through March. I often joke that we only get about 2 weeks of nice Spring weather before the Summer heat arrives and any of the last cold weather plants in the ground will quickly bolt. Even worse, you can’t really predict when the heat will arrive, so you play a bit of a gambling game with anything planted later in the season.

You can recognize bolting by flower stalks arising from plants you normally raise for leaves of root. With many plants, bolting takes energy from the formation of roots and leaves and, in the case of lettuce and other leaf crops, it can turn them very bitter and inedible. While you can recognize bolting, there is nothing you can do to halt the process as far as I know. You can only try to plant with the proper season for your area and hope that the weather cooperates. Of course, this is true with everything in gardening, isn’t it?

Photo of bolted lettuce

Photo used under Creative Commons from Filckr User paix120

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Category Archives: Garden Vocabulary

Garden Vocabulary: ICN – International Code of Nomenclature

Garden Leaves: Echeveria – 4 in a series

Garden Leaves: Lemon – 3 in a series

Garden Vocabulary: Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt)

Garden Vocabulary: Palmatum

Garden Vocabulary: Annual

Garden Vocabulary: Parterre

Garden Vocabulary: Sepal

Garden Vocabulary: Latin Botanical Epithets – Augustifolia

Garden Vocabulary: Bolting

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