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Quote (Tamlin Dawnstar @ May 28 2003,1:39)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">If everyone makes up a name for a VFT that looks different than their other VFT's, how many names do you think we can come up with?
TYPICAL? What does this mean? That one VFT can represent ALL the variation to be found in the genus? People, let me tell you I have VFT's with long teeth, short teeth, double teeth, no teeth, dentate teeth, saw teeth, red teeth, thin teeth close together teeth. I have short white teeth, short red teeth, long white teeth far apart, straight teeth and teeth that reflex slightly.. I have 2 trigger hair, three trigger hairs, four trigger hairs. All red, all green, green with red traps, green with red traps and a green band, red with a green band, green with red outer traps, blood red inner traps small, blood red inner traps large, large traps, large erect pink inside, large erect red inside, small erect, small traps, cup traps, clumping varieties, thin petioles, wide petioles, erect, prostrate.
Typical does not exist!! The more you look at them the more you will see they are individuals expressing a range of phenotypic diversity.
Since there is no central photographic reference for these plants to link the names to, it is rather silly to try to intelligently discuss what any one has vs. what anyone else has.
Frankly, I am so frustrated that I am considering trying to publish a photographic essay in hard copy containing descriptions of the most widely circulated varients, and actually get some registered as cultivars with the ICPS.
"Common Usage" names are particularly frustrating, because material may become confused through error and subsequent distribution. A decade down the road, everyone has a plant by the same name, but they all seem different. Which of them has the original plant, and *how can you know this?*
Nurseries develop plants, but they too come and go. Who is Clayton of "Claytons RED" Has anyone spoken lately with Dingley?
Does anyone realize thet Big Jaws isn't just a plant with large traps, but a specific varietial developed in Australia by a nursery there, AND how many people have distributed large trap VFT's as "Big Jaws"? If you want to trade for one you take your chances that you will get the right one. Perhaps ignorance really is bliss, in this case and many others as it now stands, you can never know!
Folks, we have to register these plants after publishing a photo and a description. Once this is done we can begin to discuss the merit of this one or that one, but until this is accomplished none of us can really know what the others are talking about.
I hope this gives some food for thought. Just think, you could register the cup trap varient yourself....call it "Catcher's Mitt" or even "Pot Holder" Name it after yourself even, become immortal...another Linneaus of the CP world! Go for it![/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
Tamlin,
I completely understand where you are coming from. It has completely gotten out of hand, especially in the short time i've been here. In the past few months i've seen well over 30 or 40 different "varietal" would be names. A lot of them are just another persons nick name for the plant, or something that the specific culture of the plant was intended to do: fast, vigorous, etc., these are all names given to plants so that a nursery could know how they grow. It truly is silly that they have leaked out of that behind the curtain world.
The thing is, how would one even begin to discuss a plant, not having a digital camera or scanner, with out having some sort of basis to go on? BobZ's photo site has a lot of similar pictures grouped under some of these names in a hopes to help distinguish the difference, and create a slight order out of this chaos.
We need to start somewhere. If someone says that they have one of these would be cultivars, it usually starts up a discussion about it, most people still have no idea what more than half of these are supposed to look like. But people talk, and discuss, someone searches and finds a little info on it, another finds an e-mail address of the person who apparently came up with it, the person sends a picture, or a plant...then from there, you can learn the truth from it. Compare it side by side in constant conditions with the others and note if there truly is a difference between them, or find out they are all the same a few years down the line when environmental differences would subside as the plants grew to fit into the newer habitat and all it has to offer.
You are completely right though, someone has to do something. And some people are working on it, trust me.
The hardest part to all of this though seems to be from keeping new rumors started. Like this one for instance, this was listed on another site, someone heard from someone, apparently, that their friend either had or knew someone that has a blue
Dionaea muscipula. I don't doubt that it could happen, but don't you think that would have been a little bit of a bigger deal? I'm not really sure if a VFT of that shade could naturally come about with out something sever changing it drastically.
We have to go with what we've got so far, and try to stop any of the newer ones before they confuse it any more. I do agree there should a picture and a description somewhere at least before a person ships something out with a new name. Heck, I don't really care for my last name, but I haven't just started calling myself something else because I got a tan.