British Columbia: Cross polinator for Honeyberry shrubs

While you wouldn't be allowed to call a maple-cultivar 'Aureum', there would be nothing stopping you from publishing new forms (forma) of other yellow-leaved maples, e.g. describing Acer platanoides 'Princeton Gold' as Acer platanoides f. aureum 'Princeton Gold'. I suspect that's how the examples you listed originally got their names?

I'm guessing the applicants simply didn't know, they did choose an invalid name twice after all... One would have to read the Canadian PBR code, but it would make sense for it to require cultivars having a new and unique name, whomever approved the name 'Borealis' could have followed the Canadian regulations to the letter, unaware of the ICNCP.

It's an interesting discussion. Still, with so many Latin words being used in living languages I'd say using them defeats the intent of the code. What if someone discovered a northern form of Lonicea caerulea and named it var. borealis?

 

That is true and at the very least the use of "borealis" would create a degree of confusion which is also against the code. Probably the final nail in the coffin for my attempts to find ways to justify their use of an illegitamate cultivar name. I find it sad that both the persons introducing the cultivar, and those approving the name, ignored rules from the ICNCP about using Latin when those rules have been around since at least the 1990's, and had hoped that there might be some loophole that allowed "borealis" to not be considered a Latin word.

 

Borealis and Tundra were developed by the University of Saskatchewan from Russian germplasm. At this time, they contain no germplasm from Hokkaidō in Northern Japan although they are currently breeding Japanese haskap germplasm into their plants. They are named Haskap because USask was trying to develop a berry that would appeal to the Japanese market not because they wished to differentiate them from the Russian lines.

The name honeyberry was coined by One Green World's Jim Gilbert introduced Russian varieties in the 90s. It was nothing more than a marketing name.

In the US Dr. Maxine Thompson has been breeding haskap germplasm and has released some plants to nurseries in the US. As far as I know, none of these plants are sold in Canada yet.

Naming is very confusing because of the Japanese haskap and USask haskap.

For more info, see http://ediblebluehoneysuckle.wordpress.com

 

Re: Latin words used in cultivar epithets

Coming back to the question of using Latin words in cultivar names, I recently read the latest edition of the "International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants" and it seems Latin words are indeed allowed if they are also used in other languages. From page 28 of the Eighth Edition:

"Aurora Borealis" is specifically mentioned as an allowable term, along with words such as "bicolor", "campus", "major", "minor", "museum", "peninsula"; personal names such as "Cicero", "Claudia", "Julia", "Julius Caesar"; and place names such as "Africa", "Bognor Regis", "India", "Londinium" and "Nova Scotia".