[John J]

Alisdair, with regard to the article in the Daily Telegraph that you quoted, I have recently read a couple of books by the same Ken Thompson. They are:  'do we need pandas? The uncomfortable truth about biodiversity' ISBN 978 1 900322 86 7 and 'An ear to the ground. Garden science for ordinary mortals' ISBN 1903 919193. The latter has an excellent quotation from the book on the back cover regarding the use of Latin. Would it be an infringement of copyright to repeat it on the forum?

[Alisdair]

So long as you acknowledge it (author, title of book etc), it wouldn't count as an infringement of copyright - especially as the cover is basically advertising!
Good idea, John.

[John J]

The following quotation is from 'An ear to the ground. Garden science for ordinary mortals' by Ken Thompson, published by Transworld Publishers.
"Do not be afraid of Latin. It is the specialized jargon of gardening, and part of the fun of any hobby is getting to grips with the jargon, if only so you can show off to those who know less. Do not be put off by difficult pronunciation - nobody knows how Latin should be pronounced except the Romans, and they aren't around to argue. And if you want to buy a Paeonia mlokosewitschii, just point......"
As an addendum, I hadn't heard of the above Peony for several years. Known as the Caucasian Peony we used to get around its tongue-twister of a name by calling it Molly the Witch.

[JTh]

I have 'Molly' in my garden in Norway, growing very slowly, but one of my  favourites, I even manage to pronounce the Latin name properly now.
I am very glad we have the Latin names for the plants, I would be lost otherwise; it is espacially useful for those of us not having English as our mother tongue, it is so much more practical to have one name we all recognise whatever our background may be.