[pbs] Convallaria

Jane McGary janemcgary at earthlink.net
Tue Nov 13 11:48:47 EST 2007


Mark wrote:
>I know and grow the rather disappointing Convallaria majalis 'Rosea',I 
>have seen it looking better in some gardens but is not a first class 
>plant.I was refering to the illustrations in the various hortus and 
>herbals of byegone times when speaking of really pink forms.Some were 
>called red!


We need to take old color descriptions with caution. Translating color 
terms is difficult, and it's even harder to know just what, say, a German 
herbalist writing in the regional Latin of the 18th century meant by "rubra."

For that matter, there is a whole range of languages that make no 
distinction between what we English speakers call "blue" and "green," and 
the red-to-yellow color range is also problematic cross-linguistically. 
This subject forms a small but entertaining side area in semantics.

Jane McGary
Northwestern Oregon, USA



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