Gardeners, I think it’s fair to say, have a fairly fraught relationship with plant taxonomy. Botanists want the way plants are classified and named to reflect our best understanding of their evolutionary relationships. Gardeners just wish they would leave well enough alone.
In recent years, the whole subject has been revolutionised, in part, by our ability to look directly at plant DNA, which has often revealed that some of our earlier ideas weren’t quite right, and that plants’ names need to change.
Aster
But change how? Sometimes we need new names, and a good example is Aster. When Carl Linnaeus was handing out our modern Latin binomial names, he picked the European aster as the ‘type’ species of his new Aster genus and called it Aster amellus.
Quite a few other European plants looked rather like the European aster, so these were added to the new genus. Later, botanists found an absolute cornucopia of asters in North America, including Aster novi-belgii, the New York aster, and Aster novae-angliae, the New England aster. These two are the plants that are most often called Michaelmas daisies, and these days it’s hard to imagine the autumn garden without them.
Aster just grew and grew, but suspicions developed that not all those plants belonged together, suspicions confirmed by the new DNA evidence in the mid-1990s.
Bu hikaye Gardens Illustrated dergisinin July 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye Gardens Illustrated dergisinin July 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
STEPS TO SUCCESS
Enclosed within a rustic barn conversion, this courtyard garden contrasts riotous Mediterranean-inspired gravel planting with clean lines and a reflective pool
ANNIE GUILFOYLE
The garden polymath on the pleasures of passing on knowledge, the rewards of close observation and the circuitous route towards grounding her itchy feet
HEAVEN SCENT
As summer adds a new dimension to his garden, Nigel Slater reflects on the rewards of planting for perfume
Colour therapy
Ann-Maree Winter's joyful Australian garden became a place of solace and nurture in hard times
30 plants with interest all year
These hard-working plants provide several seasons of interest in your garden through flowers, fruit, foliage, bark and even spring shoots
PERFECT HARMONY
Rosarian Michael Marriott and TV producer Rosie Irving have very different ideas on gardening, but they have discovered the secret to sharing a single plot amicably
SUMMERFLOWERING ALLIUMS
Loved for their showy spheres, alliums have long been stalwarts of late spring, but now new introductions are extending the party through summer
Faith in the future
Marian Boswall's contemporary design for the garden of a former chapel respects the property's history while looking to the future
Summertime at Sissinghurst
Ensuring Sissinghurst’s famous roses look fabulous throughout the season is one of the many tasks keeping head gardener Troy Scott Smith and his team busy right now
FRESH APPROACH
Colm Joseph’s design for this new garden, which surrounds a modern house within a heritage setting, uses clever planting to give a historic site a contemporary feel