American Nurseryman -Jan 2012

OSU Chamberlain Ken by Photo genera related to Fraxinus in the Oleaceae family So forsythia and lilac and others were checked None seem to be hosts in nature for the emerald ash borer which is restricted to the genus Fraxinus Note that mountainash was not looked at as a potential alternate host in the studies because even though it has ash as part of its name due to some similarities in its leaf structure compound it is not in any way closely related to true ashes Indeed as you saw above Sorbus in the Rosaceae is not in the same plant family as Fraxinus in the Oleaceae A little OCD Linnaeus truly did love to organize being the original naming authority for more than 4000 animals and 8000 plants He even developed a soon abandoned system for giving Latin binomial names for rocks He did hate fungi however since they were mostly microscopic hard to study in the 1700s and often hard to link up their sexual and asexual stages He therefore declared in exasperation that there was only one species of fungus Chaos fungorum Fortunately we have come a long way since then and the Latin binomial system is now used for fungi for example Venturia inaequalis for the apple scab fungus and Ceratocystis fagacearum for the oak wilt fungus Linnaeus was proud of his classifi cation and naming expertise and somewhat grandly declared of his efforts Deus creavit Linnaeus disposuit God creates Linnaeus organizes He did however have his humble streak knowing his and everyones place in the world As related in a wonderful essay the Creator has so gloriously arranged by Kennedy Warne in the May 2007 issue adorned with such noble bed curtains of Smithsonian magazine that marked and perfumed with so many soft scents that the bridegroom with his bride might the 300th anniversary of the birth of Linnaeus in 1762 when Linnaeus was made a member of the Swedish nobility and given the name von Linne he chose for his heraldic emblem an unprepossessing Lapland fl ower Linnaea borealis a plant named after him and described by him as lowly insignifi cant disregarded fl owering for a brief space from Linnaeus who resembles it A true stubborn Swede It is true that Linnaeus did have a contrary streak The following story comes from a neat webpage www ucmp berkeley edu history linnaeus html Linnaeus enjoyed waxing poetic about the male and female parts of fl owers writing once that The fl owers leaves serve as bridal beds which Photo by Ken Chamberlain OSU Photo by Jim Chatfi eld Teach our children well Second graders in awe of spiders Video machines Monkeys No the glory of trees umbrella magnolias They now even know the Latin binomial Magnolia tripetala Leaf cutter bee damage is evident on Eastern redbud These bees are a species in the genus Megachile and they are in the insect order known as Hymenoptera bees wasps ants Eastern or Canadian redbud is Cercis canadensis in the plant family Fabaceae the bean family All of this name and classifi cation information helps organize our knowledge about these organisms Continued on page 28 Linnaeus gave us the fi rst organized system of Latin binomials for naming living organisms www amerinursery com American Nurseryman JANUARY 2012 27