[thechat] wolf's peach, an extremely oddball sport (was RE: Odd Ball Sports)

[Luther, Ron]

Joel Canfield noted:

>>according to http://lamar.colostate.edu/~samcox/Tomato.html :

>>"In the 18th century Carl Linnaeus conjured up binomial nomenclature 
>>to name species, and took note of this legend when he named the 
>>tomato Lycopersicon esculentum, which literally means, 'edible wolf
peach'"

Methinks they got it wrong.

I think 'esculentum' translates better as "succulent" - relating to
juiciness. Or even relating to "ripeness".  'Edible' would be more
"edulis" in Latin I think.

Also, since Carl considered the tomato to be related to the belladonna
it would be a wry bit of fancy indeed for him to name it 'edible'.  And
while there are some wry bits of fancy in taxonomy, I don't recall
hearing this to be one of them.

Here is the best list I have seen for wry bits of taxonomic fancy:
http://home.earthlink.net/~misaak/taxonomy/taxPuns.html
{Warning - will probably kill more than 10 minutes!}



>>Kinda like when I wrote a term paper in High School wherein I referred

>>to Bermuda as 'the first place in the United States to use paper
money.'

It's true isn't it?  I hear they weave it from that grass they export to
all the golf courses!



>> wolf's peach

Getting back to anime ... There is a "Wolf's Rain" series and a "Wedding
Peach" series ... But I doubt either has much to do with tomatoes!


RonL.

(Who once met the guy (Dr. Hugh Quinn) who wrote the official scientific
description for the Lampropeltis triangulum campbelli!  [If you look in
a scientific book you'll seen the Latin binomial name and then, in
parens usually, the author and year for the article originally
describing the species to science.  It's considered quite the honor to
be chosen to write these articles.]  Anyway - The cool part was that I
actually owned one at the time I met the guy!)  ;-)