Call Any Vegetable...

Seven years ago this week, Karen and I were driving across the Catskills We were en route to Ithaca (a town fondly described as “ten square miles surrounded by reality.”). It was hard not to notice that he sides of Route 30 were lined with thousands of flowers, in varying shades of white, pink, and lilac—Hesperis matronalis. “Ahhhhh,” I blurted, “A Wreck of Hesperis!”

Such collective terms, when referring to animals, are known as “terms of venery.” Realizing that there were no collective terms for members of the plant kingdom, we both began shouting out new examples. Over the next hour, we came up with dozens of new collective terms, with Karen frantically scribbling them down. We knew that neither one of us would remember them, otherwise.

Naturally, we decided to coin our new phrases “terms of vegery.” Over the next year or so, we gathered many more into a little book of pretty pictures and pretty-god-awful puns (e.g., two sample pages, below).

We published Terms of Vegery, first as a Kindle book (because all those color photos would have been prohibitively expensive to print), but—this Spring—as a paperback, as well, printed on high-quality paper, with a bunch of added entries.

Since the printed edition is, indeed, prohibitively expensive, you get some free samples here:

Disclaimer

(or something trying to pass as legal mumbo-jumbo)

While the botanical names of the plants in this book (hereinafter referred to as “the plants in this book”) are as scientifically-accurate as we could manage to make them, the chapter names (Splendifera, Edibilia, Inedibilia, Utilitaria, and Untouchabilia) are totally bogus, made-up, spurious, and guaranteed never to be found in any respectable botanical text.

We suspect that, throughout the scientific community, a vast collective sigh of relief (and concomitant rolling of the eyes) has just occurred.

The authors (and/or their accomplices) are quick to point out that any perceived slurs, of any kind whatsoever, are purely unintentional. We intend no offense to any flower, fruit, tree, vegetable, or weed whose name or image appears here (humans, however, are fair game).

Frankly, we are mystified as to the manner by which any such scurrilous phrases managed to find their way onto these august pages.

And yes—before you jump all over us for including mushrooms in the plant kingdom—we know that fungi are not plants. But they certainly aren’t animals, are they? Only taxonomists (and similarly-motivated fussbudgets) give a rat’s patootie about the distinction. Besides, while vegans serve them as if they were the main course—everyone else treats them like vegetables.

So, lighten up, already!

Splendifera

You know how there’s always someone prettier (or more handsome) than you, and how you try to minimize the unfairness of the situation by assuming that they’re shallow, vain, not very intelligent, and have terrible personalities? The plant world is full of such pests—or rather they would be considered pests, if we didn’t grow them, on purpose, for their good looks alone. They fill our gardens, sometimes for just a season, sometimes for years on end. They are the Splendifera of the vegetal universe.

Some of them (quelle surprise!) are rather high-maintenance, and it’s amazing the lengths we’ll go to keep them happy. Every once in a while, they confirm our suspicions about their lousy personalities by actually becoming pests—overstaying their welcome, spreading to parts of our gardens where shyer, but nicer, Splendiferae are struggling to be noticed.

We suspect that our aversion to such rudeness may be connected in some way to our identification with those sensitive, oft-times put-upon, species. Don’t you sometimes experience a little smug satisfaction while ripping the self-aggrandizing divas out by their roots and tossing them on the compost pile? Come on, now; confession—and the judicious application of trowel and pruning shears—is essential to the cultivation of one’s soul.