On Bugs ...

Does Blogger have a new bug? A while back, when I was working on another of my Blogger sites I suddenly realised the back button on my toolbar wasn't working. I could click on all the links, but could never get back to the previous page. On other sites it was fine - no problems at all. I didn't really have time to think about it at that moment, so mentally filed it away under "to be investigated" and went on to other things.

And then the other day, I realised it had happened to this site too. (Go on - try it. You're trapped ...) So I started to look at other sites, and lo and behold, other Blogger sites were doing the same thing. Carol, May Dreams Gardens seemed to have got the bug - but I've just checked again and it's fine today. Yolanda Elisabet, Bliss in the Netherlands is affected too. But it's not every Blogger site. Some others seem fine.

For a while I wondered if it was my computer. But no, I tried on another and the same thing happened.

Does anyone know what's going on, and how we fix it? It's a b***** nuisance, both when you're trying to work on the site and when you're trying to read it. So if you are stuck here, my apologies. I didn't set the trap, I promise.

Whilst on the subject of bugs, if you read this blog last year you'll know I was plagued by (read obsessed by) caterpillars for much of 2007. How can they eat so much and do so much damage and avoid predators at the same time. So when I found this David Attenborough clip the other day, I couldn't help but watch. The BBC has opened a series of channels on My Space, and are inviting people to post them to their own sites. So, The Balcony Garden brings you (legally) David Attenborough and the sneakiest caterpillar in the world. The amazing thing is the complexity of the programming that must exist in the miniscule blob of protoplasm that makes up the brain of this tiny creature ...

PS - but an important one : Remember the Garden Blogger's 2008 Carnival? You're still in time to show your appreciation of one of the blogs which you enjoy by nominating it for next week's carnival. It's a great way to say thank you. Click on the link for details.

On the naming of plants

If there's a plant which I find easy to grow, it's Epipremnum aureum, commonly known as Hunter's Robe. That's the plant in the photo.

If that last paragraph had you reaching for the comment button to tell me I got it wrong - hold on. How about Scindapsus aureus, Pothos aureus and Raphidophora aurea? Oh, and as a common name, Devil's Ivy, Taro Vine or Silver Vine. Or Golden Pothos. Or Ceylon Ivy. Or my favourite - Centipede Tongavine. Yep, all the same plant.

I don't have a problem with the common names - it's fairly obvious that each region will decide its own name for a plant and more than one may filter through to common use. But why four official botanical names?

Well, according to the Royal Horticultural Society they're not actually all official, only one is. The others are referred to as "synonyms". And the reason for the alternatives is much the same as the reason for the difference in common names - before the era of global communication, botanists working in different parts of the world would often give "official" names to plants, unaware the plant had already been classified and named by someone else. Occasionally two different people might even manage to give the same name to two different plants.

So someone has to decide which name to use. The rule used to be that whichever name was given earliest won. But that occasionally meant that a name which had become more generally used lost out. So common sense now sometimes prevails and a later, but more widely used name is given official status.

The other reason that alternative names may exist is that sometimes they've just got it wrong, classifying a species under the wrong genus, so that the name has later been changed. Forget Coleus, for instance. It's now Solenostemon.

Again, common sense will sometimes prevail and the taxonomists (the people responsible for classifying plants) will sometimes let us keep the more common name, even when a change of genus is concerned. We were saved from Freesia becoming Anomatheca, for instance. Phew!

And then there was the case of chrysanthemums. In 1989 it was decided that the genus name should be changed to --- umm, er, what was it again? Doesn't matter. It didn't catch on, and at a recent International Botanical Congress (which is where they decide these things), they gave in and changed it back again.

Now personally, it took me a couple of minutes to get my brain around Solenostemon. I typed solestemon, solestenum and a couple of other variants before I just gave up and copied it out letter by letter. I think I may just stick with Coleus ...