Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:
Thank you for giving the names in English. My cactus is not christmassy, it flowers in November (every year). And that 'jade plant' ... I did nothing to make it flower, it just happened.
See, the reason I often use latin names for plants is that many plants are known by different names in different parts of the world, or even in the same part of the world. Common plant names do not always translate from one language to another. And sometimes, you can have the same common name for two very different plants. I just had an example of this in another thread where I was talking about lime trees, but not the green citrus sort, the Tilia sort which are called lime trees in English as a corruption of "line" because they used to be used for making string!
But with botanic names, anyone in any country (apart from a few pronunciation differences) would know exactly what plant I was talking about, especially now we have google and you can look up what other common names they might have. And it also gives you an idea what other plants they are related to that might be of interest to you or give you clues about looking after them. Until the botanists decide to re-classify them with new names of course, but that's another story!