Brook, I never heard the term horticulturalist until an announcer on a local radio station used it a few years ago. Since then I'm hearing it more often. As you have, I've often wondered what the word says. To me it sounds like a word to describe dandies who took an interest in "things horticultural". I'm winging this, so don't take me too seriously, but it's easy to imagine that in nineteenth century England, where class and occupation distinctions were taken very seriously, the word horticulturist suggested a mere gardener. And heaven forbid that a gentleman should give the impression that he actually made the sort of effort which might result in perspiration. Thus, or so I imagine, horticulturalist: a dabbler in other words. But I may have it completely wrong. As an example of this preoccupation with image, consider this. Only last night I was reading Gertrude Jekyll (Home and Garden, chapter XI The Workshop), and in a passage where she describes the workshop on the family property, she mentions her father's interest in the place and the enjoyment he took of the activities there. Just as I was forming mental images of her father with his sleeves rolled up and the déclassé yet egalitarian drops forming on his brow, she hastily adds that his enjoyment came from the management of the staff who actually worked there. "His ability did not so much consist in working at a bench himself, as in planning and directing the handiwork of others." What a hoot! Evidently they cast in lead in that workshop, so perhaps he called himself a "metallurgicalist". I don't mean to put this one on our friends on the other side of the pond; we have our own in abundance, although nowadays we call them yuppies (does that date me?). Jim McKenney Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7, where Crocus korolkowii in several forms has joined the party.