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Originally Posted by fzzdk  it's amazing what people name orchids. i actually felt the same way about the "little black sambo" orchid being discussed earlier this week. it seems like the naacp would be all over that :P |
yes, that's what i thought when i saw that post too.
but i think the world of orchid nomenclature is small and insulated enough that the big outfits that take umbrage over these things wouldn't notice. the NAACP has bigger fish to fry (-cof- don imus -cof-).
after all when you think about it, the universe of people who actually get down to the botanical latin of orchid names is pretty small; for instance, the subscription to the Orchid Digest is somewhere around 3,000; AOS membership is what, 20,000? that's actually not that many people compared to the population of the US or the world, so i can see how this stuff could sneak in.
and one final word on naming orchids: TYPE the registration cards. once upon a time there was this splotchy purple phal which its registrant wanted to call "Golden Peacock." the handwriting wasn't that great, and this plant, which is now in the ancestry of dozens and dozens of harlequins, ended up being called "Golden Peoker."
http://www.robert-bedard.com/orchids..._peoker_bl.jpg