The Laptop Gardener

Will that be cotton-easter or co-ton-ee-as-ter?

Pronunciation is often a large barrier that must be overcome before gardeners feel comfortable when using botanical names. The names are fine to read and recognize but some of them just defy logical spelling and pronunciation in an English language way of thinking. Long convoluted combinations of syllables are hard enough to cope with, but to have to pronounce them also is often asking too much. Botanical names often add another twist by having Latin, Greek or French word origins. For example, the dawn redwood is a magnificent tree with graceful, soft needles but it has a very challenging botanical name of Metasequoia glyptostroboides. The name comes from Greek origins. “Meta” meaning “with or sharing” and “Sequoia”, the tree to which it is related. “Glypto” means “to carve” in Greek and “strobilos” means a cone. The plant has depressions in its cone that look

Continue reading … How do you say that plant name?