h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Willem,

How interesting. Thank you.

We have our own cabbage tree here in NZ http://www.doc.govt.nz/conservation/native-plants/cabbage-tree-ti-kouka/

I had no idea there was anything similarly named anywhere else, but I guess our ancestors were all looking for food when they travelled to far flung places and refered to what they knew from home when naming plants (and animals).

Fb

Aha - and we have our own Mountain Cabbage Tree too http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/13831/toi-mountain-cabbage-tree

Thanks for sharing those Frenchbean. Lovely trees as well as useful ones in New Zealand. I still have a hard time associating cabbages with trees.

The naming shows some lack of imagination on the part of our explorer ancestors I fear. I'm not sure whether it was the taste, texture, or perhaps the after-effects of eating the plants which led to the naming
Fb

Hi Frenchbean! Yes, I did know about those, they're very similar to what we here call dragon trees: http://www.eastafricanplants.senckenberg.de/root/index.php?page_id=47&id=2786#

(click on the small pics for bigger ones, you'll see the resemblance)

Did you see the other thread about walking-stick cabbages? The cabbage trees we have here are in a way reminiscent of those!

It's generally the case that we don't have the right words for proper tree names...

That's why the Latin nomenclature is so important, although that keeps changing too

We deal with Latin names, English common names and Maori names for everything here, which does actually help, because one of the names will lead you to the right plant or animal. Do you have similar?

Hi again! Over here the trees have English, Afrikaans and Latin names and also names in at least one other local language.