I'm hoping the change in the name of the forum will reduce the number of threads where people post about plants in their gardens. I agree with the opinionated writer of the [WIKI]wildflower[/WIKI] entry on Wikipedia that the term "wildflowers" has been corrupted from "plants that one encounters in the wild" to, essentially, "plants with flowers". In any case, I can't come up with a better term than "Native Plants", even though nonnatives, introduced plants, garden escapes and such are welcome here (if someone is looking for an ID on a plant that is growing in a wild place but it turns out not to be native, I'm fine with that).
Re: Forum Name Change -> Wildflower ID to Native Plants ID Seems sensible to me - also makes it more inclusive (the likes of Pinus contorta or Polystichum munitum can't be considered 'wildflowers'!) Would "BC Native Plants" or PNW Native Plants" be even more apt? Or is it open to posting native (or apparently native) plants from anywhere?
Re: Forum Name Change -> Wildflower ID to Native Plants ID What about wild plants? That would include escapes and those that are not endemic.
Re: Forum Name Change -> Wildflower ID to Native Plants ID Didn't seem to work for wildflowers! But yes, that's a bit more all-encompassing. I'll switch to that.
It doesn't - technically, wild plant is synonymous with native plant, it does not include introduced naturalised / invasive species.
"Wild" as in growing without cultivation or the care of humans. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/wild "Native" means indigenous, endemic to an area. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/native
Yep. Q.E.D. To be wild, it has to be native, as if not, it has to have been cultivated at some point to get there.
Well, it's not being changed to "not cultivated in the recent past plant identification"! I'm not looking for a technically-defined term - I'd prefer a vernacular term that is suitable. Wild seems to fit the bill better than native.
Well, it was too confusing for quite a few folks it seemed, so I've toasted the Wildflower ID / Wild Plants ID forum and merged everything back into Plants ID.
I guess that it will be even more confusing from now on - very few wildflower questions from all over the world hidden among lots of questions about unknown cultivated plants! And the time during which a PNW wildflower question might be answered will be dramatically decreased once more because of the huge amount of questions.
I agree! I liked having the wild plants ID separate. I'm keenly interested in PNW native plants, and plants native west of the Rockies in general. If it's native elsewhere or some odd cultivar, it has to be really cool in order for me to be interested in it. I also love to help people get to know their native plants better, which is made more than a little difficult when I have to wade through scores of posts about cultivated plants about which I know very little. Having Wild Plants addressed separately helps not-so-knowledgible people more easily have their questions answered.
Well, I agree with both of you - it was one of my favourite forums. However, when every second thread needs to be moved over, it's not sustainable from a forum administration perspective. Feel free to post ID questions in the Regional PNW of North America forum, though.
