Dend. phaleanopsis type spike initialization

[Dollythehun]

WW said it well: "Someone in the overall floral world wouldn't have a doubt about the meaning. Call it a stalk, a stem, a spike, a scape, a long thing with flower buds... it's casual language."

When I take someone to my flower bed to show them a plant that's blooming I don't say inflorescence, scape, spike, raceme, I say "oh man I have to show you what's blooming today!"

This is part of the reason I have stayed away from the OB. I feel like many times we lose the fun and the wonder of what we're doing in favor of splitting hairs and correcting people. I stuck my toe in the water with this post and I'm beginning to wonder if it was a wise choice.

[camille1585]

Originally Posted by Dollythehun

This is part of the reason I have stayed away from the OB. I feel like many times we lose the fun and the wonder of what we're doing in favor of splitting hairs and correcting people. I stuck my toe in the water with this post and I'm beginning to wonder if it was a wise choice.

It depends what you call fun. I'm a scientist by training, and I was taught to be precise in my use of vocabulary. I'm also very curious about things, and when I read about a spike being called scape, my first reaction was "that's interesting I didn't know that : I want to research the question further". My goal wasn't to correct you, or anyone, but just share some info I came across. Pursuit of knowledge is something fun for me and it is the main part of my day job to be constantly asking questions, learning the WWWWW of things, and I'm sorry if it ruffles feathers here. So I'll try to keep the science-y attitude at work, and stick admining and posting pretty photos over here.

[JScott]

Originally Posted by camille1585

It depends what you call fun. I'm a scientist by training, and I was taught to be precise in my use of vocabulary. I'm also very curious about things, and when I read about a spike being called scape, my first reaction was "that's interesting I didn't know that : I want to research the question further". My goal wasn't to correct you, or anyone, but just share some info I came across. Pursuit of knowledge is something fun for me and it is the main part of my day job to be constantly asking questions, learning the WWWWW of things, and I'm sorry if it ruffles feathers here. So I'll try to keep the science-y attitude at work, and stick admining and posting pretty photos over here.

I enjoy your sciene-y comments. And I did some research about scapes, and it appears that botanically, a scape arises from the base of the plant, from the rhizome or certain root structures, or from the base of bulbs, so I guess a Cymbidium flower spike might be considered a scape, and maybe Oncidium spikes, but most other orchid flower spikes would be not. But I don't really care. Call it whatever you want.