Revolting, embarrassingly awful plant names

Sifting through the 2019 seed and plant catalogues (they make excellent bathroom reading) I found that in desperation to promote sales, hybridizers have been working overtime to come up with dreadful cutesy names.

Main offenders:

Echinacea “Orange You Awesome”

and

Rudbeckia “Giggling SmileyZ”.

In the immortal words of Jean Shepherd’s father, “Holy Christ! I’m gonna heave!!”

Yeah, that’s pretty bad. I only really deal with seed catalogs - maybe live plants are worse?

Look, this might not be exactly what you were looking for, but:

Rubus cockburnianus

(Rubus cockburnianus - Wikipedia)

Yes, that is me sniggering. I’m sorry.

j

You may be onto something there.

The worst I can find under Zinnia seeds for example is “Zinderella”, but in the live Zinnia plant marketplace we have this, ecch.

Echinacea also has “Pixie Meadowbrite” which sounds like it should be someone’s stage name or maybe a Dungeons & Dragons character. Note to self: make halfling named Pixie Meadowbrite.

Flowering shrubs aren’t immune: Hydrangeas give us Invincibelle & Incrediball and under lilacs we have Bloomerang and Scent & Sensibility.

Clitoria blue pea is pretty gross.

Latin names are exempt. Besides, Clitoria makes a nice display with Gomphocarpus and Solanum mammosum.*

*I have grown all of these, but not at the same time.

This brings to mind paint sample cards in home improvement stores, with colors like “Moody,” “Glamour Girl,” or “Spirit Animal.”

I’m doing a horticulture degree at the moment- as part of one of last year’s modules, we had to learn to identify, and correctly name, a selection of plants. One of the ones we were given to learn was this one.

Everyone remembered the name :smiley:

Amorphophallus titanum is also pretty good. My Latin’s not great, but I’m pretty sure that’s ‘huge deformed dick’.

Naked broomrape

Perfect name/post combo

Good grief, the alternate names, combined with the pic of the blossom, poor plant doesn’t stand a chance of NOT being creepy

Bearded Iris have some pretty weird names too. I give you Bewilderbeast:

https://www.schreinersgardens.com/page_6327_6023/bewilderbeast

I actually planted this one in my mom’s garden. Bought it just because of the name. Very pretty in full bloom.

“One-flowered cancer root”? Why? Just why?

There’s also Bastard Toadflax, Nipplewort, and Huevos de Tigre (Jaguar’s Balls).

nm

Those cutesy names at least don’t sound contagious. I had this friend whose father was a gardener and had a gardening show, and he had names of all kinds of plants. He used to tell his teachers he couldn’t go to school because he had scabiosas, which actually are kind of pretty plants but which sounds like a communicable disease.

I’m reminded that there’s a variety of fig whose name derives from the mediaeval custom of checking to make sure a newly-elected pope wasn’t a female imposter in disguise. It’s called Couilles du Pape, or in English Pope’s Bollocks.

‘“Coreopsis has set in,” said [Dr.] Renshaw nervously.’ (from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty).

As for plant hybrid names, I can do better. Awhile back there was a story about a Caribbean scandal in which a valet working for a wedding party at a fancy hotel was accused of groping the bride. In the ensuing lawsuit he was referred to using a florid term which I thought was the perfect name for my new African violet hybrid. I give you Saintpaulia “Salacious Violator”. :slight_smile:

Coreopsis verticillata ‘Golden Showers’

Phalaris arundinacea var picta ‘Feesey’

I used to work at a nursery. We sold a lot of roses. One was called “Golden Showers” and another was “Sugar Daddy”.