Monocarpic---a valid term for bulbs ???

[Jim McKenney]

This thread seems to have developed into a botanical version of Zeno's Paradox.

Perhaps quoting part of the judgement in Elton John's recent libel case would help: "It is common ground that the meaning of words, in law as in life, depends upon their context."

Surely, just as one accepts that the pronunciation of a Latin name should be such that one's audience recognises the plant in question, one also accepts that the definition of monocarpic depends upon the context in which it is placed.

Rob, with respect to your quotation from Elton John, if that's the case, then what do you think the term monocarpic means when applied to Cardiocrinum? Is one free to apply one meaning of monocarpic to one plant of Cardiocrinum and another meaning of monocarpic to a different plant of Cardiocrinum? Is one free to apply one meaning of the word monocarpic to Cardiocrinum and another meaning of the word monocarpic to its liliaceous relatives?

My point in this discussion is not simply that the word monocarpic does not describe what happens in Cardiocrinum. Equally important is the belief that what happens in Cardiocrinum is not different from what happens in Tulipa, Lilium, Fritillaria and other related plants.

Call it monocarpic if you will, but acknowledge that what happens in related genera is similar (i.e. that the annual stem dies after setting seed) and to my knowledge these are never called monocarpic.

With respect to your comment about pronunciation, how is that different than saying "surely, the identification of a plant should be such that one's audience recognizes the plant in question". If I'm giving a presentation to a garden club, am I obligated to use identifications from the least common denominator pool? Should I eschew botanical names in favor of vernacular names?

Let's see, perhaps I'll talk about bluebells in all their unrelated diversity. Never mind that some are monocots, some are dicots, some are from the Northern Hemisphere, some are from the Southern Hemisphere and that they are drawn from varied botanical families.

In my experience, confusion about  the identity of a plant rarely arises  because of the way the name is pronounced except, ironically, in the case of the shortest, simplest words. Long, Graecoroman botanical names are likely to be recognized regardless of how they are pronounced: any educated listener makes the mental adjustments necessary to comprehend. The proof of this comes when someone criticizes one's pronunciation: they know very well what word one is saying!

One final comment to help keep everything in perspective. My bed time reading the night before last was from the Cambridge County Geographies series, this time the one on Somerset. This was published in 1909, and contains the remarkable assertion (to me, anyway) "But what most of all distinguishes the inhabitants of the two regions [eastern and western halves of Somerset] is the difference in dialect...The difference is so marked that a man from the east side of the county has a decided difficulty in understanding a man from the west side of the Parrett...]

I assume radio- and television-speak  has largely replaced those differences by now.

Evidently, to paraphrase GBS,  it's not just England and America which have been separated by a common language.

[Tony Willis]

.............. oh God, life's too short!

I have not joined in but have enjoyed the thread. It is clearly going nowhere but is raising interesting points on how plants grow.

David

I would add your comment to your primula thread on showing, lifes to short to spend the whole of saturdays at a plant show week after week. but  I suppose we all enjoy our hobby each in our own way.

[gote]

Jim and Gerry,
A word is a symbol for something. The only way to define the connection between the word and the something is by a kind of at least partial consensus. In English we usually connect the word 'Horse' with a four legged animal that we can use for riding or put in front of a carriage. There is no internal logical justification for this. We do not claim that the five letters symbolise the four legs and one tail or that the word sounds like the animal. The usage is a result of consensus within a group that finds it practical to have a word for the animal in question (and have based their consensus on previous usage). This consensus is not necessarily universal. I call it 'Häst' in my group.
 
When we deal with words mainly used by a subgroup, (or used by the subgroup in a specific way) it is the consensus within that subgroup that defines the meaning of the word. Any physicist will tell you that the use of up down etc on quarks (as the word quark itself) is an entirely arbitrary choice. This use of up and down is very much different from the use in other contexts (also quark which is the word for cottage cheese in some languages). However this does not make the word wrong when used by the physicists. When we are discussing the M-word the relevant subgroup is the botanists. It is thus highly relevant to ask for authorities.

As far as I can see, you have not yet quoted any botanic authority whatsoever, who definitely is using the M-word in your meaning of the word. You have only tried to elude that question.
 
As far as I understand, de Candolle was the first to use the M-word and on page 437 of  ‘Introduction à l’etude de la botanique...' printed 1835 he gives Agave as one of the examples. Somehow I think that someone who invents a word for something should be the first authority for the use of the word and that 173 years of usage has relevance.
 
If we are going to be philosophic about this and call Karl Popper to our help, I would like to quote Bertrand Russel: " when the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain;" My belief is that this also is true for usage.

I might be accused of being a Zen-philosopher (you are right my philosophy is different from yours) but I think that all of us who has grown Cardiocrinum and Lilium know the difference between the two. A Lilium does not start from scratch after having flowered - it is a simple as that.

By the way I find it slightly surprising that you – as you have done in previous posts - assume that botanists and I base our use of words on mistakes about factual circumstances such as the life cycle of Cardiocrinum and Notholirion. In my opinion it is better to assume others to be knowledgeable – sometimes they are you know.
All the best
Göte

[David Nicholson]

.............. oh God, life's too short!

I have not joined in but have enjoyed the thread. It is clearly going nowhere but is raising interesting points on how plants grow.

David

I would add your comment to your primula thread on showing, lifes to short to spend the whole of saturdays at a plant show week after week. but  I suppose we all enjoy our hobby each in our own way.

You are right of course Tony.

[Maggi Young]

I would add your comment to your primula thread on showing, lifes to short to spend the whole of saturdays at a plant show week after week. but  I suppose we all enjoy our hobby each in our own way.

 In the SRGC we only have two non-competitive shows , six Scottish shows and the two joint shows with AGS to occupy our Saturdays.... that's only ten chances a year to show what our hobby is all about to a wider public and meet up with loads of gardening chums........ and since I, for one, have never yet managed to attend ALL those events in one year.... I'm not going to stop trying yet!!

[Tony Willis]

Been there done it for years until sanity took over,ten great gardening days in spring lost,still if you have chums maybe its okay.........

[Maggi Young]

Been there done it for years until sanity took over,ten great gardening days in spring lost,still if you have chums maybe its okay.........

 Well, YOU'VE  got ME, Tony!! 

[Jim McKenney]

Göte, thank you for bearing with me on this. I'm in full agreement with the first paragraph of your most recent post. But from there on we have our differences.

This discussion has branched off into so many directions that the core points of relevance have become obscured. For me, this discussion is not really about how words acquire their meaning. For me, it is not about historical precedence, appeals to authorities or arcane philosophy.

I raised this issue because I believe (and nothing I have read in this thread has weakened my conviction one bit) the this word monocarpic is not being used properly. And to my way of thinking, an important part of "properly" is that all instances of the same phenomenon should receive the same name.

Let me first see if I can point out a weakness in something you wrote. You wrote: "As far as I understand, de Candolle was the first to use the M-word and on page 437 of  ‘Introduction à l’etude de la botanique...' printed 1835 he gives Agave as one of the examples. Somehow I think that someone who invents a word for something should be the first authority for the use of the word and that 173 years of usage has relevance. "

Although that is a thing much to be desired, let me give an example of how real world circumstances can make that point of view a source of confusion and even error. Taxonomists of the past typically based their species and other taxa on morphological characteristics. Modern biology on the other hand recognizes the sexually interbreeding population as the salient characteristic of a true species.

The old time taxonomists are the authority (for purposes of nomenclature ) for the names they established. They understood these taxa in morphological terms: in other words, if the morphology fit, then the entity in question was a member of their taxon.

If a species has a type location, we can often identify with reasonable certainly the population from which the type material was drawn. And if, in addition, it turns out that on the one hand the population in the type location seems to be contained and on the other hand other similar entities with the purportedly defining morphological characteristics are not interbreeding with it, then there is reason to treat these as separate species.

That means that the taxonomist who originally described the taxon on a morphological basis (and who remains the authority for the name for purposes of nomenclature) really did not understand what he had created. His concept of the species (the "word") was wrong.

The rules of nomenclature do not require that a name be trashed simply because the taxonomist who validly published it did not know what he or she was doing. We keep the name but we redefine it so that it agrees with what is happening in the real world.

I do not have a copy of de Candolle's work at hand. Perhaps you can answer a question or two about what de Candolle knew or did not know. For instance, was de Candolle aware that the agave does not always die after flowering and setting seed?

If de Candolle does not make it clear that he understood that, then that calls into question his understanding of the life cycle of the agave.

What de Candolle knew is important to this discussion. If de Candolle believed that the agave dies after blooming and setting seed, and therefore should be described as monocarpic, then the fact that we in modern times know that the agave does not always die does not change what de Candolle knew.  He just chose a bad example.

If one wants to assert that monocarpic in de Candolle's sense must agree with what happens with an agave, (as if, so-to-speak, agave is the type species for the meaning of the word monocarpic) then that de Candolle knew or did not know  that agave does not necessarily die after fruiting becomes irrelevant.

On the other hand, if de Candolle did not know that agave sometimes survives after fruiting, then that raises the question that de Candolle himself might have applied the term incorrectly.

The concept behind the word clone is perhaps ancient; but the word itself did not come into use until the late nineteenth century I think. De Candolle might very well have considered each agave rosette to be an individual (again, that difficult word) plant. We now know otherwise.

Isn't the common-sense meaning of word monocarpic "the plant dies after fruiting"?

And isn't the background theme in this discussion really about whether plants propagated as clones represent one or more than one plant?  

It makes no sense to call plants which fruit more than once monocarpic. And Cardiocrinum have the capacity to fruit multiple times over a span of many years.  

In each case, the primary bud on the perennial stem of the plant fruits only once. But I believe that is true of all monocots.

Göte, for me the primary point of this discussion is not to resolve how people use the word monocarpic. The point is to get people to realize that what happens in Cardiocrinum or Agave or in numerous bromeliads is scarcely to be distinguished (the time span involved is the primary difference) from what happens in Tulipa, Lilium or Fritillaria. And does anyone call those monocarpic?

Let monocarpic mean what you want it to mean, but apply it consistently.

[Maggi Young]

Isn't the common-sense meaning of word monocarpic "the plant dies after fruiting"?

 Sadly, too often the phrase would be "the plant dies after flowering"... since there are so many occasions when no seed is set ..... 

[Gerry Webster]

Jim and Gerry,

Gote -  obviously I have not made myself clear. I have no views on whether Cardiocrinum is or is not monocarpic. My posts were concerned with the philosophical issues, implicit or explicit, in your exchanges (i.e., the form of your arguments) & I found problems with the way both of you argued your respective cases.

[Jim McKenney]

Jim and Gerry,

 My posts were concerned with the philosophical issues, implicit or explicit, in your exchanges (i.e., the form of your arguments) & I found problems with the way both of you argued your respective cases.

Argued, Gerry? Who said we are finished? 

Göte, since Gerry does not seem to approve of the way we have conducted ourselves, why don't we start again? Now that we know that Gerry's primary interest in this is argument form, let's start again and try to keep to form.

To get things started again, I'll offer an if...then statement for consideration as the initial volley from which we can procede (if either of you would like to offer an alternative, I'll gladly withdraw mine).

Here it is:

If by the term "monocarpic plant" we mean a plant which dies after blooming and setting seed, then Jim's position is that Cardiocrinum is not monocarpic.   

Let's see where things go now.

[gote]

Jim, I do not understand.
Do you mean that you do agree with my first but not with my second paragraph?
If so, do you mean that the particle physicists all use their words incorrectly? They would no doubt be grateful to know that.

Yes! Of course the question is how words get their meaning. Unless we determine how they get their meaning, it is impossible to say that a meaning is wrong or right. There must be some kind of basis for any statement that we are supposed to take seriously.

You say that the meaning of the M-word as used by the experts is wrong. Then you have to show that. What you have shown until now is that you use the M-word in different way than I do. It is also different from usage in ALL Botanical and gardening literature I have consulted.

Carl von Linné  (to use the proper name when not writing in Latin) called Hepatica nobilis Anemone hepatica. Later botanists have come to the conclusion that it should not be in the genus Anemone and it has been renamed Hepatica nobilis. This does not mean that the first name in any way was wrong. It was correct within the framework of AD.1753. It is even still today correct (but not very practical) to write Anemone hepatica if we add an ‘L’ after it. The new name is right now because it follows the consensus of the experts today.

You are not many enough to form a consensus among the experts. Thus I ask you to show the authority behind your claim.

I repeat that it is not really productive to assume that other people are ignorant. ESPECIALLY NOT IN THEIR OWN FIELD. I suggest that onus to prove whether de Candolle did know enough about Agave or not, lies on you. You are the person who says that the experts and I are wrong. You can find his works on the net using Google.  I used (http://www.archive.org/details/introductionltu02candgoog)  Personally I find it likely that someone with his background would know very well that Agave proliferates by underground runners since it is so obvious.

This is, however, beside the point. If he invents the word and gives examples of what he means by that word, these examples ARE what he means by the word.
To say that de Candolle did not know the meaning of a word he invented himself is to my mind not quite quite ..... Are you certain your name is Jim?? And besides is not your birth date hearsay?

I would like to call the attention to Demokritos. He stated that the world is build from small particles that cannot be divided. These he called atoms = indivisibles. I have read in many places that he was wrong since we can split atoms. This does not make him wrong at all. It makes us wrong since it was we who erroneously used his word on the wrong particles. He must have meant quarks. He defined atoms as particles that are so small that they cannot be divided. If such particles exist (as we believe) he was right. It is just that some people used his word on the wrong particles.

In the same way: if de Candolle calls plants that after flowering must start from scratch, as Agave and Cardiocrinum do, monocarp he is right and you Jim are wrong.

It is not quite meaningful for me or you to define the word monocarpic. I am no an expert and you are not many enough. I am quite happy to use the word it is usually used.   

Gerry,
I am insufficiently bright to understand what you mean by objecting to the form. I was unaware that we needed to stick to a form on this forum. I merely wanted to point out that we consider identical twins as two individuals even Siamese twins. We do that in spite of the common genome. A common genome does thus not necessarily make several physically separate entities the same individuum.

Göte

[Ian Y]

Guys this is the most fascinating debate I have one question and one request.

Question:- when you have come to a conclusion who will tell the plants?

Request:- can you then have a similar debate on the described bulbs, corms and tubers?

[Gerry Webster]

Gerry,
I am insufficiently bright to understand what you mean by objecting to the form. I was unaware that we needed to stick to a form on this forum. I merely wanted to point out that we consider identical twins as two individuals even Siamese twins. We do that in spite of the common genome. A common genome does thus not necessarily make several physically separate entities the same individuum.

Göte

Gote - Before bowing out of this discussion I would like to make two points.

1. Having read some of your other posts on complex technical issues, I find it difficult to take at face value your claim that you are “insufficiently bright”  to understand what I mean. To summarise: I found the arguments presented by both yourself & Jim  unconvincing as arguments, i.e., as forms of reasoning.

2. I have never claimed that a common genome necessarily makes several physically distinct entities into a single individual. My Garden Centre  example made exactly this point. The whole thrust of my argument by example is that these matters are context dependent & there are no universal criteria.

[Jim McKenney]

I suggest that onus to prove whether de Candolle did know enough about Agave or not, lies on you. You are the person who says that the experts and I are wrong. You can find his works on the net using Google.  I used (http://www.archive.org/details/introductionltu02candgoog)  Personally I find it likely that someone with his background would know very well that Agave proliferates by underground runners since it is so obvious.

Göte

Thank you, Göte, for the reference to de Candolle. I was able to find  only one reference in that text to monocarpic plants, on pages 436-437. In this passage, de Candolle does not define the concept monocarpic, but he does use agave as an example.

It is evident that the death of the plant is a core part of de Candolle’s concept of monocarpic. Indeed, the passage in question begins “La mort des plantes monocarpiennes…” and  then goes on to describe how the strain of fruiting draws sap up into the stem, causes buds to wither and  roots to perish. I don’t think the prospects for this doctor’s patient are very good; in fact, I believe he is describing a dying plant.

So let me put my point of view this way: Cardiocrinum does not die after setting seed, therefore it is not monocarpic in de Candolle’s sense of the word.