1, 2 Fat Hen (Chenopodium album) (not "Lamb's quarters", whatever that is, presumably part of a sheep) 3. Black-bindweed (Fallopia convolvulus) 4. Agreed, Opium Poppy (Papaver somniferum)
560,000 hits. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=lambs+quarters Never heard of "black bindweed."
I've never heard of "black bindweedfullstop" either, but here's some info you might find helpful: http://internt.nhm.ac.uk/jobj/java/...rintNamePage&accountref=987&NAME=&NAMEID=9835
Your posts of this nature serve no useful purpose. I am quite weary of them at this point. Common names have no correctness and vary with the user, as well as regionally. Some plants have dozens of common names.
And I am quite weary of your forever telling everyone, worldwide, that they should use the US version, even when it is not a US native plant. Britain is not part of the USA. And for your information, what you say "Common names have no correctness" does not apply on this side of the Atlantic. They can, and do, over here.
I'd prefer if the discussion went to private messaging, or perhaps, even better, an agreement to disagree. I agree with Ron that there are no such things as standard common names, but I also find it interesting to learn of common names from places elsewhere than I reside - sometimes it provides some insight, other times it just makes you wonder how things came to be. So, feel free to post the common names from your country, and let others do so - and let suggestions that one or the other is more correct roll off you like water off a canard's back (or duck, if you prefer).
This thread made me pull down Euell Gibbons's 1962 book Stalking the Wild Asparagus. Old Euell, a folksy forager for edible wild plants and by no means a scientist, said it was Chenopodium album that finally convinced him of the value of scientific names. He learned the plant in Pennsylvania as pigweed. Traveling around the US, he found people calling it lamb's quarters, goosefoot, wild spinach, and "dozens of other common or folk names in different places."
Common names do vary no matter where you are. I am quite sure that the UK does not have one single set of "common names to rule them all" Michael F... The only way to avoid confusion and keep the relative simplicity that we all love would be to post the common name (whatever name is common in your neck of the woods) followed by the scientific name.
Hi Vbort, We do have a single set of official common names; they're downloadable from the Botanical Society of the British Isles here: http://www.bsbi.org.uk/html/database.html
Michael, the point is that many PEOPLE use colloquialisms that aren't found in BOOKS or WEBSITES. So the common names posted there do not represent everyone for every plant in the UK...
This is the second time that I have seen "official common names" for plants come up. The only organism I know of with official common names are birds, so I did a search on the subject. I found that some local organizations attempt to place official common names on plants, but the International Association of Plant Taxonomist in their International Code of Botanical Nomenclature makes no attempt at common names, and The International Plant Names Index does not even list common names. But, i did find an interesting website, Dictionary of Common Names, that converts common names to scientific names and vice versa, which are not "official" but might be helpful.
