There is a beautiful shy Australian called =91Sturt Desert Pea=92. I just included it in my ebook, and I try to be accurate when adding botanical names. Strangely, this one is =91Clianthus formosus=92 in some books, but =91Swainsona formosa=92 in others. I chose the latter because it seems a more recent naming. I found that in 1999 yet another classification was suggested but =93=85rejected by the scientific community=85=94 Question: who exactly determines a plant=92s classification? Thanks for replies =96 Klaus
For a long time, flowering plants were classified mostly by the forms of their flowers, including microscopic examinations. Other characteristics were also used, but flower form was the primary characteristic.
In recent years, however, the advent of DNA sequencing has led to using that as the primary (almost sole) basis for classification. Two different plants with very similar DNA are now classed as closely related and might thus be separate species in the same genus or even separate varieties of the sam species. This has led to (1) a major reclassification of plants and (2) the creation of new genera and species.
For the botanical names of plants in my garden that I indicate on my Web site, I rely mostly on Sunset's "Western Garden Book", which might be considered the "gardening bible" for the U.S. and Canada west of the Rocky Mountains. Australia, of course, is outside the scope of that reference except for imports of some North American native plants into Australia and (more likely) exports of Australian native plants into North America.
A new edition of Sunset's "Western Garden Book" is published every few years. I currently have four different editions. When I get a new edition, I check all the botanical names shown on my Web site to see if any require updating. Often, the book parenthetically indicates prior botanical names when there has been a change. The book generally does not have botanical names for vegetables and fruit trees but does have botanical names for ornamental varieties of those.
Where the book does not list botanical names, I resort to Wikipedia.
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