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| Berberis julianae C. K. Schneider |
Once again I’m amazed at how much information can be derived
from a botanical name. And I’m caught by surprise at how much I sometimes don’t
know about what I think of as familiar plants.
The plants from which the branches shown here were cut are
plants I’ve observed for more than twenty-five years. For almost all of that
time, I knew them as the components of a low, boxy hedge under a low window, a
hedge rigorously pruned yearly to maintain that low stature. When asked back
then what they were, I said “Berberis julianae” but didn’t give it much
thought.
This year the hedge did not get pruned, and it quickly
transformed itself into something unexpected. If you look at on-line photos of
this barberry, you’ll see plenty of photos which suggest that it is just
another broad-leaf evergreen with little leaves. In fact, that’s the way I
thought of it for all those years. In general, these photos do not give any
indication of the disposition of the foliage on unpruned plants. That formerly neatly pruned hedge has sprouted
a crown of yard-long wands the length of each one punctuated at regular
intervals with what at first glance seem to whorls of five leaves. The branches
are bare between the “whorls”, and on closer examination these “whorls” are
seen to be neat fans of leaves attached to one side of the otherwise bare
stems. But there is more to it than that. Here’s what Bean says ( Bean’s Trees
and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles the seventh edition from 1950. I’ve
been lucky enough to have this three-volume set for over fifty years): As you
read this, keep in mind that barberries and mahonias are closely related. “ The morphology of
the leaves and spines of barberry is interesting. In the true barberry group [i.e. Berberis not Mahonia], the
“leaf,” as we call it is really the terminal leaflet of a pinnate leaf, the
side ones of which are suppressed, and the tuft of leaves as a whole is a
branch in which the internodes are suppressed. Then the spine, (usually
three-parted, but sometimes simple, sometimes much divided), in the axil of
which the tuft of leaves is borne, is a metamorphosed pinnate leaf.”
About the name: yes, I had the right name, at least as far
as spelling was concerned, but other than statements indicating that it was
named for the wife of the taxonomist, there was not much more of interest. Bean
was no help here, and his citation of Berberis julianae C. K. Schneider
blinded me to something already very familiar to me.
I wanted to know if
this C. K. Schneider was an English Schneider (in which case his wife’s name
would have been pronounced Juliana) or a German Schneider (in which case her
name would have been pronounced You- lee-AH-na). So I turned to the Zander Handwörterbuch
der Pflanzennamen (which has been in
print in various editions since 1927! I have the 15th edition of
1994.) And there I got my answer quickly
- and with it a reminder of how dense I can sometimes be. C.K. Schneider was
none other than Camillo Schneider (Camillo Karl Schneider), Germany’s and
probably Europe’s foremost dendrologist at that time. Among his other
accomplishments: he published (from about 1920 to 1942) with Karl Foerster Gartenschönheit.
I’ve been collecting issues of Gartenschönheit for decades, and knew him as Camillo
Schneider. He and Foerster also co-authored numerous popular garden books. The
C. K. Schneider in the formal citation of his name in botanical nomenclature
meant nothing to me.
Here's a view of Foerster's home garden; this is from the 1922 edition of his Vom Blütengarten der Zukunft :
In the days before WWI Schneider visited the Arnold
Arboretum and worked briefly with Sargent and Wilson. His major work, on the
genus Berberis, was destroyed before publication in the bombing of
Berlin during WWII. He and Foerster both survived the war, but Schneider’s
Berlin and Foerster’s Potsdam were in Russian held territory, and they lived
out their lives in relative obscurity, seemingly little remembered here in the
West. Foerster’s home garden fell into ruin, but has in recent years been
renovated. Two of the most important people in central European
botany/horticulture are all but unknown to Americans born after the war.
Now, more about that name julianae: that’s the spelling
Schneider used when the name was published. The name is sometimes spelled
julianiae. Why? It’s a case of dueling rules in the code. In general, botanical
names based on a person’s family or personal name are to be treated as compound
words. The compound has at least three
components: the family or personal name, the Latin connective letter “i”, and
the final suffix indicating the grammatical function of the word. This is
expressed in the case (usually genitive)
and gender of the of the word. For instance, in the epithet wilsonii,
the name is Wilson, the connective vowel is “i”, and the suffix for grammatical
function (case and gender) is “i”. Although we commonly think of this as a
‘Latinized” word, only the final “ii” is
Latin.
Here’s the potentially conflicting rule in the code: in the
example above, the “ii” was used because wilsonii is a compound word. Wilson is
not Latin, so in order to “Latinize” it, one has to add the “i” to form a compound
word and then add another “i” to indicate the case and gender.
But, if the name in question is a name actually used in true
Latin, it is not necessary to form a compound word: one simply adds the
appropriate suffix to indicate the grammatical function/ case and gender. For
instance, the Roman male name Justus, if used for the name of a plant in
botanical nomenclature, would be written justi, not justii or justusii.
Now back to julianae/julianiae: if you accept that the name
Juliana was in fact a Roman name, then the proper spelling of the botanical
name is julianae. If you insist that Juliana is not proper Latin, then the
spelling julianiae (i.e as a compound non-Latin word using the “i” connective
vowel – and this spelling has been used) or even julianaiae (which has not been
used) are available. According to the USDA Plants Database/Plants Profile, the
spelling “julianiae” is cited as an orthographic variant. The same USDA site gives as a tone deaf
common name Julian’s barberry. How about Juliana’s barberry? It was named for
Juliana Schneider, not Julian Schneider.
This is going on a bit, but I can’t pass without complaining
about this pet peeve in the pronunciation of botanical names in the Anglophone
word: in those words which end in -ii, why is the first “i” pronounced “ee” and
the second “i” pronounce “eye”? Except
for the fact that the first i” is the connective vowel and the second one is
the one indicating grammatical function/case - gender, they are the same Latin
letter. They are not the English letter “i”, they are the Latin letter “i”
which is pronounced “eh” if short, “ee”
if long. And there is another important
difference in Latin, and it’s an important one to know in order to place the
stress correctly: the connective vowel “i” is short. And here’s
something else handy to remember: in Latinized Greek compound words, the
connective vowel is “o” and it is a short “o”. Some smarty-pants reading this
might be thinking “how does anyone know if it was long or short, that was
thousands of years ago?” If you know the Greek alphabet, you already know the
answer: Greek has different letters for short “o” ο (omicron) and long “o” ω (omega).
Here is a link to an image of Camillo
Schneider:
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