And finally...
PHOTO: JASON INGRAM. ILLUSTRATION: CHRIS MADDEN/EYECANDYILLUSTRATION
‘You say to-may-toe and I say to-mah-toe’; so goes the old George and Ira Gershwin song. It is something with which I have enormous sympathy. After all, as far as gardening goes, you say clee-may-tiss and I say clem-ahtiss. Does it really matter? Well, probably not, but on the basis that the aim of the binomial system of nomenclature devised in the 18th century by the Swedish botanist Carl von Linné (Linnæus to the cognoscenti) was that it should be worldwide in its application does sometimes fail to succeed in its universality. When they are written down there is no room for doubt, but in conversation the pronunciation of a plant name is so different from country to country that it is sometimes impossible to understand what the heck your interlocutor is on about.