Sometimes a hyphen (Douglas-fir), or sometimes two words are just concatenated (e.g., western redcedar = Thuja plicata, family Cupressaceae). Perhaps a better way to phrase it is "not the species or family you might think it is".

Caveat -- I'm not a botanist.

On 1-Oct-09, at 7:02 PM, Warren W. Aney wrote:

A botanist may correct me, but my understanding is hyphenation is used to indicate the common name is not a true species, e.g., Douglas-fir is not a
true fir.

Warren W. Aney
Senior Wildlife Ecologist
Tigard, OR


Don McKenzie, Research Ecologist
Pacific WIldland Fire Sciences Lab
US Forest Service

Affiliate Professor
School of Forest Resources, College of the Environment
CSES Climate Impacts Group
University of Washington

desk: 206-732-7824
cell: 206-321-5966
d...@u.washington.edu
donaldmcken...@fs.fed.us

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