A singular concern

Oh dear, rather a long time since I posted.  It's been a migraine/insomnia/backache sort of week, with lots of work stuffed in between the inoperable periods, so that may explain the gap.

I have plenty to post about, mostly about seeds and seed catalogs (went to a fun seed exchange yesterday, got to meet Ira Wallace and hear her speak, got all my seed orders in after collecting the freebies of which there were plenty) but today, while putting together the data that will hopefully allow me to create a coherent map for the demo garden (mapping my own garden is a luxury I will not have time for, I suspect), a linguistic puzzle occurred to me, trivial to be sure, but I'll share it anyway.

So, when we're making lists of vegetables (and other plants too, I think, but I'll stick with veggies for now), whether in a catalog or for planning purposes or whatever, why do we state some of them as singular and some as plural?

I give you some gratuitous (and singular) Swiss chard, and carry on, citing from the Southern Exposure catalog in Ira's honor, as I think their usage is completely typical.

Singular vegetables:
Cabbage
Cauliflower
Celery
Chard
Corn
Eggplant
Garlic
Kale
Kohlrabi
Lettuce
Mustard
Okra
Rhubarb
Squash
Watermelon

Gratuitous plural tomatoes

Plural vegetables:
Artichokes
Beans
Beets
Carrots
Cucumbers
Leeks
Onions
Parsnips
Peas
Peppers
Radishes
Tomatoes
Turnips

Some oddities: broccoli is an Italian plural that's treated as both singular and plural in English; collards doesn't really have a singular; Southern Exposure makes the choice to list "Muskmelon" in the singular, but I usually see "Melons" (and often "Watermelons" too).

So why these default choices?  I considered the idea that plural vegetables are those that bear multiple product on one plant, so you can't really have just one (although I have had tomato plants like that), but then one hopes to get more than one okra per plant and squash are notorious for overproducing.  You can have just one plant of cabbage or chard, but one corn plant is not good strategy.  Radishes produce one root per plant, as do all the other root vegetables in the plural list, and artichokes, if you can get them to bear at all in this climate, usually have one flower bud, but are always plural in catalogs.

Most but not all of the cabbage family plants end up on the singular list, including all the leafy ones (if you discount collards as above).  In fact leafy things are generally singular, unless you call them "greens."  Leeks and onions are always plural, but you never hear "garlics."  Eggplant, the fruiting nightshade family plant, is routinely singular (even if you call it aubergine), whereas peppers and tomatoes are always plural.

So I really have no answer other than "tradition" though I expect it could be investigated.  I can tell you that an excerpt from "Landreth's Companion for the Garden and Farm" of 1884 (conveniently provided in the fancy new catalog) gives us much the same usage except that carrot, leek, onion, pepper and tomato are singular.  I'd have to burrow around a bit to find older sources than that.

Probably I should be concerning myself with more important matters (like making the damn map) but distraction gives life savor.  Along with vegetables.  (Please ignore implied lack of verb-subject agreement.  Vegetables are usually plural, and somehow not so appealing when not.)

Three things

1) Article today in the WPost about the new loosening of Latinate standards in the botanical world (plant names will still be Latin (or as much as they ever have been) but officially published descriptions may now be in English.  Did you even know they were still in Latin?  I didn't).  It's interesting and a slightly more complicated issue than one would think, but what really struck me was this sentence:

"The same [using Latin names] goes for the pretentious gardener who, trug in one hand, pruners in the other, can wax on about the Syringa (lilac), Salix (willow) or Solidago (goldenrod), et cetera."

Yes, well, I talk with my hands half the time, so I'd have to put something down first.  Ha.  And then I looked at the byline and it's Adrian Higgins writing that.  Adrian, how could you?  It's like a librarian describing hair buns and glasses on a chain and vicious sshhing.  I actually don't use Latin names most of the time in the gardening context, but sometimes it's just good sense, if the common names are common to more than one species and you really want to be, hm where does this word come from, specific.  And it's a good memory exercise.  When I reach the point of forgetting the common name but having the Latin come to mind immediately without hiding behind another name beginning with the same letter, then I will be worried.  Rosmarinus officinalis, that's for remembrance.

2) We're doing a seed catalog review series over on Grow It Eat It.  The link will show what we've got so far; there will be more.  And I did call Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds "food gardening porn" over there, too, so never say I'm not brave.

Speaking of (1) above, I have a sneaking preference for seed catalogs that give you the Latin even for vegetables - and I don't know why I should say "even for," as though pretentious Latin-naming was the exclusive property of ornamental gardeners.  I know we don't generally talk about chopping up some cabbage to make Brassica oleracea var. capitata slaw, but it is interesting to know that the "cole" we do use is from the Old English (and Latin and Greek) for the brassicas then extant, such as kale and rape, and it's actually quite important to know what others plants fall under Brassica oleracea, such as broccoli, cauliflower, collards, kohlrabi (there's that cole again), and Brussels sprouts.  They are all the same plant, variations bred out of an original wild species.  Similarly, chard and beets are both Beta vulgaris (this usually surprises people immensely when I tell them, even assuming they've heard of both vegetables).  Anyway, I could go on about it for days, but check those seed descriptions for bits of Latin.

3) My son's high school is doing the musical of The Secret Garden this spring.  Am itching with anticipation to see what kind of set they'll come up with for the exterior scenes (and should I volunteer to help?).  I dreamed I went to Misselthwaite again...

A rose by any other name

I'm sure it's a gardening sin to be attracted to a plant because of its name, rather than by its more horticulturally significant characteristics.  If so, it's a sin I commit frequently, or at least I lust after those plants in my heart even if prudence wins out.  (Or Pruden's Purple.)

We've had a couple of discussions over on Grow It Eat It about tomato varieties that have or haven't coped well with growing conditions this year.  Several people (including me) have done well with Speckled Roman, which is the oval-shaped tomato to the left in the photo.  Isn't it pretty?  (Being attracted to food plants because of their appearance is another failing of mine.)  They show up very well in the garden, are tasty and solid-fleshed, good for slicing and making sauces, and cope reasonably well with dire summers and brown marmorated stink bugs, though I did have some blossom end rot issues with them for a while.

Anyway, the point is that part of the initial attraction for me in Speckled Roman was the name, perhaps in this case not its own name so much as that it's bred from two varieties I've never grown but like the sound of, Banana Legs (which is just pleasantly whimsical and fun) and Antique Roman (which is a quote from Hamlet).  I wonder about people who name plant varieties sometimes, often with admiration and occasionally with horror, and hug to myself the idea that I might someday get to name one myself, except that I'd probably freeze up and not be able to think of anything clever, and end up like children who call pets Blackie or Spot.  (Neither of which would be a good name for a tomato.)  When I was very small I had a goldfish named Silly (I presume due to its highly amusing excretory functions; my mother will correct or confirm) and I don't think I was allowed to name pets for... oh, there were the gerbils.  No one could have named all those gerbils cleverly.

But anyway.  Speckled Roman came out well; less successful was the tulip Surprise, which was of course purchased because of Patrick O'Brian.  I don't have a photo of it handy, and it's not sold anymore, but it was a perfectly handsome orange tulip of the sort that starts red and yellow with stripes that sort of merge into each other as it ages.  Lovely, except that it clashed horribly and surprisingly with my magnolia that is either Anne or Jane and has big purple-pink flowers and blooms at the exact same time behind the orange tulips.  Tulips, we are supposed to inform people, do not perennialize well in this region (except for species types); well, ha.  The secret to getting perennial tulips is to plant ones that clash horribly with something else in your garden.  These lasted a good ten years after being planted in about eight inches of mostly clay; I think they may send up leaves this year but no flowers, and I hope they die and stay dead.  (I've had others last almost as long, actually; the Triumph type is particularly good at hanging on.)

I am also rather prone to flowers named after people I like (or make up *mumbleIrishistroidesGeorge*).  Never been tempted by the roses named after First Ladies; did seriously consider Hosta 'Captain Kirk'.  Because! They got the colors! Almost right.

I'm sure I have more examples of the name fallacy hanging around, but must run...

Great moments in journalism

Actual headline on (admittedly short) story in this morning's Washington Post:

LEAVES SHAKEN FROM AREA TREES

Run for your lives; it's windy in the fall.

How gardeners watch TV

screenshot from ABC

Last night I checked out the first two episodes of the new ABC show "Once Upon a Time," about fairy tale characters with amnesia living in a small Maine town.  It's quite fun, but I couldn't help noting, when Evil Queen/Mayor Regina brings a basket of apples to Emma's door, and claims they are from her Honeycrisp tree, that they look a lot more like Red Delicious.

And the tree is suspiciously pristine-looking; and I wouldn't wear that outfit in Maine in September or October when either of those apple varieties would be ripe.

Please tell me I'm not the only gardener who watches plants on the small or big screen.

Sweetgum scrunchies and the cat as architecture

Sometime back I read this Garden Rant post by Amy Stewart (which was inspired by another post linked therein) about using Google's search-by-image feature for horticultural images, and had fun playing with it for a while (okay, for a few hours).  I think Google may have made a few improvements since July, but not enough yet to use image search to ID plants, i.e., drag your photo into the search box and have it come up with an identical flower or whatever.  In fact, you are lucky if you get a flower at all; matching colors seems to be the point, which is probably nice for artists but not for gardeners.  Well, except that it's funny.

The more artistic or unusual a photo you use, the more interesting the results.  I popped in this photo of sweetgum leaves I took yesterday:

(That delicate green background is rampant ground ivy.  Please to ignore.)  And got back... hair scrunchies:

You can sorta kinda see the resemblance, right?  It did, about six images down, come up with one of leaves... maple leaves, but whatever.

Put in an interesting carrot I grew, get back... the goddess Flora and a cocker spaniel.

Last time around I tried a photo of my cat when he was a kitten:

And got back:

which was very amusing.  This time, the search did return some actual cats, although for some reason the top image is architectural:

And I also got this:

I think we are in the early stages of something that could eventually be useful but for now is just entertaining, like translation programs used to be before they improved enough to be occasionally reliable.  Something to play with next time it rains, though.