When I first encountered the scientific method of naming plants and animals I endorsed it enthusiastically, believing that using the correct Linnaean moniker would always avoid the confusion of identity that resulted from a plethora of vernacular names for the same organism. Also I had ‘O’ level Latin and few other outlets for applying such arcane knowledge.
This system of nomenclature was devised by a Swedish gentleman, Carl von Linne, more frequently referred to as Linnaeus. Known as the binomial system, each organism, once discovered, acquires a generic name and a specific name. In other words it is assigned to a particular genus and defined as a particular species belonging to that genus.. For example, us humans belong to the genus Homo, which these days contains only one extant species – we probably killed off all the others – called sapiens: Homo sapiens, literally wise man (surely some mistake….)
The generic part of the name thus provides a clue to relationship: we are a species of Homo – man, thus closely related to other, now extinct, hominids such as Homo erectus, H. neanderthalis, H. floriensis. The specific epithet is usually descriptive (though not necessarily accurate) but sometimes honours the person who discovered the organism or introduced it to the West eg. Hosta sieboldiana, named after the German physician Philipp von Siebold, who collected plants in Japan while employed by the Dutch East India Company. In this particular example the generic name Hosta also celebrates a human – Thomas Host – honouring him as a botanist of the day. But Hostas were not always called Hostas.
Plants belonging to this genus first arrived in Europe in the second half of the eighteenth century, as seed of two species, Hosta plantaginea and H. ventricosa – the first literally ‘plantain-like hosta’, the second ‘swollen in the middle hosta’. But that is not what they were called back then.
Gertrude Jekyll, an early populariser of the genus, referred to Hosta plantaginea as Funkia grandiflora, because Funkia had superseded Hosta only five years after honouring Mr Host and for the next ninety celebrated a Mr Funk. Not long after Ms Jekyll’s hayday the International Congress on Botanical Nomenclature, in its wisdom, decided that the earlier designation should be set in stone: Funkias became Hostas, again.
Hostas are by no means the only plants whose Linnaean name has changed over the years, as all gardeners will know. Taxonomists – the scientists who create names – are for ever revising the criteria that define an individual or group of organisms. Such criteria have always reflected observable characteristics, collectively known as the phenotype, such as the number of stamens, the length of the pedicel or the presence of hairs on the leaf. Now though attention is being paid to the genotype, examining the precise genetic component through a microscopic scrutiny that should, in theory, result in a definitive, immutable name. Quite possibly the generic title of the plants we know as Hostas will change again.
Ironically, the very unscientific varietal names have a greater chance of survival. Plant breeders, employing various types of jiggery-pokery, have sub-divided the genus and species categories by creating innumerable cultivars of a single genus or species, all of which need distinguishing with a name if deemed garden-worthy.
So, for example, genus Hosta contains around 60 species that can be found in the wild i.e Japan and neighbouring parts of Korea and China. Yet there are more than 10,000 named cultivars, produced either by crossing species (sexual reproduction) or by the vegetative propagation of selected mutations, or sports.
Hostas are prone to throwing sports. New buds, developing on the over-wintering crown, do not always resemble the parent plant. Occasionally a ‘new’ plant appears which, if carefully removed from the parent, can be grown on. These new plants are invariably distinguished by a novel change in leaf colouration resulting from mutation affecting the distribution of the green, photosynthetic pigment called chlorophyll. This mutation occurs spontaneously, on occasion, but can be induced by plant breeders during the micro-propagation process.
Whether induced or spontaneous these new hostas need names to distinguish them from the rest; and Carl von Linne is not around to help.
A non-variegated sport of Gertrude Jekyll’s well-named Funkia grandiflora is the very fragrant, pure white, double-flowered sport called ‘Aphrodite’ - suitably evocative for a beautiful Hosta. But there are only so many names of that calibre to share amongst the thousands of cultivars that require distinction, hence the rapid evolution of vernacular taxonomy.
Some Hostas are particularly disposed to throwing sports, and H. ‘Gold Standard’ (H. used as an abbreviation for Hosta, and the cultivar name ‘Gold Standard’, written in parentheses) is a good example. One of its mutant progeny has a green leaf with a yellow centre and a thin white line separating the two colours. The breeder of this plant called it ‘Striptease’, but at the time of doing so could not have predicted that H. ‘Striptease’ would also become the progenitor of a long line of garden-worthy plants, produced/nurtured in nurseries around the globe.
One of the first of these came from a New Zealand breeder, and he called it H. ‘Kiwi Full Monty’: similar to ‘Striptease’ but the green is bluer. Elsewhere other Hosta enthusiasts naming sports of ‘Striptease’ saw the opportunity to tap into a rich seam of nomenclature, giving rise to ‘Risky Business’, ‘Pole Dancer’, ‘Teeny Weeny Bikini’, ‘Stripped Naked’ and many more in a similar vein.
Linnaeus’s specific epithet has disappeared though the cultivar name is both descriptive and relational. My favourite example of this particular genealogy is a plant I acquired from a friend, labelled as H. ‘Striptease’. It began the season with leaves yellow on the outside, separated from the green centre by a thin white line. Forty-two days later the leaves of this plant were green on the outside, yellow in the centre, virtually indistinguishable from ‘Striptease’. Unwittingly my friend had provided me with H. ‘Strip Poker’ - one of many Hosta cultivars that ‘changes its clothes’ in the course of a growing season.
It seems quite conceivable that the taxonomists will come up with a new generic name for what we now know as Hostas. But is it likely that ‘Strip Poker’ loses its place in the horticultural lexicon? I doubt it.