[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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