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  [Aroid-l] Alocasia zebrina reticulata
From: dburch23 at bellsouth.net (derek burch) on 2008.06.23 at 00:21:17(17906)
Steve,

I hate to be pedantic (actually, I don't, it is all I have left), but if you
are going to present the name as variety reticulata, that word (reticulata)
should be italicized. It is just as much a 'scientific name as is the
specific epithet or the genus name. So you would write Alocasia zebrina var.
reticulata, but, of course you can only do this if this varietal name has
been validly published. If not, to be strictly correct, you would refer to
this as Alocasia zebrina reticulate form. This is what all the catalog
writers and advertisers should be doing, not grasping for pseudoscience.

I would also say (and thoroughly agree with Alistair Hay on this) that it is
rather loose speaking to refer to this as a sport. If, as appears to be the
case, it is just one of many forms that occur in a variable wild population,
then the appropriate measure would be for someone to select a particularly
striking specimen, verify by vegetative propagation that it has a stable
appearance over several generations and then name it as a cultivar -
registering it if I can ever get the cultivar registration program for
aroids off the ground (mea culpa here for slow resolution in setting the
program on a firm footing). By the way, there is absolutely nothing except
one's own sense of responsibility to stop anyone tacking on a cultivar name
to anything. Sad but true. It won't be a registered cultivar name until the
formalities have been done, and then we would all be able to see what this
cultivar should look like, and to whom the blame for it should go.

I really am trying hard to get the registration program going and I have a
registration form worked out that I would be glad to send to anyone willing
to test and suggest improvements. Then I will eventually try to persuade the
board that we as a society can make this work, and join the many other
groups that do this naming responsibly.

Derek

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