Mary Sue, I salute you. That was extremely well put and I hope satisfies not only the membership but also the critics who may have quibbled with the names. Shirley Meneice, Pebble Beach, CA -- now Zone 10. -----Original Message----- From: pbs-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:pbs-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Mary Sue Ittner Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2013 11:55 AM To: pbs@lists.ibiblio.org Subject: [pbs] Policy on naming off plants on the wiki Hi, As I am sure you can all imagine, we struggle all of the time about what to call the plants that are illustrated or described on the PBS wiki. This is made difficult by the lack of agreement by taxonomists and data bases. Our purpose on the wiki is to allow our members to add photos of plants they grow or see. We want to be using names that most people are using so that people looking for information about plants they are acquiring can find it. So we don't want to change the names the first time someone decides to change them but instead wait until the proposed names are widely accepted. And we do not want to get in the middle of taxonomical debates since we do not have the expertise to know who is correct. Most of our members I expect are gardeners and are growing plants they purchased or grew from seed without knowing the origin of either. Once you start growing from seed that has been collected from someone growing several species of the same genus that flower at the same time you can no long assume it is pure anyway unless the grower has made sure there is no way that pollinators can visit both species. I suspect a lot of us who love bulbs are growing hybrids so that makes naming the plants even more of a challenge. Our wiki team has discussed this matter in some detail and this is what I am now going to add to our Photographs and Information page. The PBS wiki is not an official publication for plant naming. We use the best judgment of our members when listing plant names. The names we use reflect the usage of our members and our best effort to reflect the most widely accepted names and therefore may not reflect recent name changes. An effort will be made to list previous names as synonyms when we adopt name changes of plants that are widely grown and sold under different names. Mary Sue