A Walk in the Garden with Bob Hill What’s in a Name? Rudbeckia (“Black-Eyed Susan”) Plant titles come from all kinds of sources 8 • <strong>Sept</strong>/<strong>Oct</strong> <strong>2019</strong> • Southern Indiana Living
Late summer is when the plant commonly called Black-eyed Susan comes into flower, often in thick, bright yellow, excitedlooking clumps that stand and shout and wave like happy fans too long adrift in a sports bar. Truth be told, the Rudbeckia, or Black-eyed Susan, is one of the more useful and hard-working perennials any gardener with a sunny spot and limited budget can use. Some will only live a few years, but in such glory while they’re around. But today, class, we are going to walk farther down this garden path and mostly talk about the sources of fun and descriptive plant names. What’s with this Rudbeckia thing? Where did the name Black-eyed Susan came from? Even the very popular Zinnia has some funky name history. Wait until you read about the Yellow Wax Bells. But first, the academics. To do all this naming-explaining properly we must begin with Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus who, in the mid-1700s, came up with a binomial system using Latin — a universal language — to categorize the world’s plants and animals. Think about that. Prior to Linnaeus, a flower common to Germany or France or the Baltic countries could be given vastly different names by the locals. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but those names sure wouldn’t be the same. So, Linnaeus proposed that plants first be named in the general group in which they fell, called a “genus.” For instance, all pine trees would be pine or pinus. But a specific pine tree, such as our common Eastern White Pine, would be given a second name: Pinus strobus to distinguish it from the roughly 115 other pine species. OK — and I promise there will not be a pop quiz on this — you are now wondering where the strobus came from. The answer is it comes from the Latin strobilus, meaning pine cone and the Greek strobus, meaning whirling around. You apply this tedious process to a few various trees and only the true plant geeks and academics can tell a Pinus sylvestris (Scotch Pine) from a Pinus thunbergii (Japanese Black Pine). It took some time — and a ton of international meetings still going on — but what’s important here is that a botanist in China and one in Canada can discuss a tree native to South America and know exactly what the other is talking about. And Linnaeus got it all started, labeling some 5,900 plant species himself. OK, class over; back to the Blackeyed Susans. Linnaeus gave them their Latin name, Rudbeckia hirta, some 270 years ago. The Rudbeckia part came in honor of his old Swedish botanist buddy, Olaf Rudbeck, and his son, also an Olaf Rudbeck and a botanist. The more distinguishing hirta part is Latin for hairy/ shaggy/unpolished. That’s how it worked — and works — over and over. Registered plant names come from friends, locations, botany. It gets complicated because, for instance, the Rudbeckia, a North American native, is related to the sunflower. It’s also called “coneflower” and comes in at least 40 types, with each of them needing a Latin name. Not to worry; we are not going there. In the Rudbeckia’s case, its incredibly diverse history includes it being a Native American favorite used for washing sores and swellings, as a poultice for snake bites and for treating colds. You may or may not try that at home. And the name Black-eyed Susan? According to the classic story, it came from a poem written by Englishman John Gay (1685– 1731). It tells the story of a Blackeyed Susan (she had been crying) coming aboard a ship facing a long voyage looking for her lover, a guy named William. Yes, the very memorable four lines in the poem also gave us another flower: “Sweet William”: “All in the downs the fleet was moored, Banners waving in the wind When black-eyed Susan came aboard And eyed the burly men. ‘Tell me ye sailors, tell me true. If my Sweet William sails with you.’” The historical kicker is the Blackeyed Susan and Sweet William bloom at roughly the same time. The very versatile Zinnia plant also has some dated history. The first of them — looking nothing like they do today — And the name Black-eyed Susan? According to the classic story, it came from a poem written by Englishman John Gay (1685– 1731). It tells the story of a Black-eyed Susan (she had been crying) coming aboard a ship facing a long voyage looking for her lover, a guy named William. were native to Mexico and brought to Europe by the Spaniards in the 1500s. A very complicated plant, they are also in the aster family and kissing cousins to daisies. There was no poetry involved in its naming. The “Zinnia” name was born when a Dr. Johann Gottfried Zinn of Gottingen University in Germany — and say that quickly five times — wrote the first description of it in the 1750s. Almost disappointing, isn’t it? Then there are the Yellow Wax Bells, a somewhat bushy native of China, one of which made its way to below a partly shaded downspout just outside Utica, Indiana. It came highly praised as a yellow-blooming gem, but I only keep mine around because it has refused to fully bloom for 10 years and I am willing to wait it out. The proper name of this thing is Kirengeshoma palmata. That would be kihren-gesh-OH-may palm-AY-tah — but many of you already knew that. Loosely translated in original Japanese, it all means “a yellow lotus hat embroidered in a palm branch.” All I want it to do is fully bloom. • About the Author Bob Hill owns Hidden Hill Nursery and can be reached at farmerbob@ hiddenhillnursery.com. For more information, including nursery hours and event information, go to www.hiddenhillnursery. com Southern Indiana Living • <strong>Sept</strong>/<strong>Oct</strong> <strong>2019</strong> • 9
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