Over the years, I’ve made a few photos of Blue Dicks here and there. They got their funny common name from their – now former! – scientific name Dichelostemma capitatum – one can imagine a person trying to remember it: “Here are those blue Dic… Dic… whatever, dicks!”. They’re also known as Wild Hyacinth (the first name I learned actually), Purplehead and Brodiaea (a misnomer).
I recently went to review my photos, when the new scientific name “Dipterostemon capitatus” has been proposed for them. When that happens, many naturalists are often a bit miffed. As soon as one remembers one of those complicated scientific names, “they” change it! ;-)
It’s not exactly great fun as a website owner either: I try to give my files accurate and search-engine friendly names, and add common and scientific names to the captions of the photos that I have online – and then the name changes. But that is the nature of scientific names. Common names are often based on color, similarities to other plants (but only on a surface level), or certain features, but they tell us little about a plant’s family or relationships.
Scientific names on the other hand are more than just labels. Here’s a wonderful, if perhaps a bit overloaded (look at conclusion #3), PDF by Robert E. Preston that explains what’s in a scientific name, and that makes the case why Blue Dicks should really be Blue Dips instead: Not Another Damn Name Change!
With the proposed name change, I dove into the online archive of photos here on my website to supplement the captions and descriptions, and compiled the existing photos into a little gallery. Interesting to see how my photographic eye, style and vision has changed over time.
Prints available in my store.
The other fun part about name changes is that people will continue to use the old names for years. I try to have the Latin names in a post/photo be the most current but often include the older ones in there too, just to catch the stragglers and the stubborn. :)
Absolutely.
I know I need improvement with regards to my scientific naming. I usually try to do it as a synonym for a keyword in Lightroom to the common name, but then it seems to get lost in the metadata if I don’t do a JPEG export directly from within Lightroom. I am usually doing that from within Photoshop.
Any suggestions?
I honestly have no idea Mark – I rarely use Photoshop for my processing, and if I do it’s usually an in-between step. My last step is always the export out of Lightroom.