At intervals it hands down decrees, declaring that Zauschneria californica (a common plant in rock gardens) is to be known henceforth as Epilobium canum or that Aglaothamnion tenuissimum may now be regarded as conspecific with Aglaothamnion byssoides, but not with Aglaothamnion pseudobyssoides. Normally these are small matters of tidying up that attract little notice, but when they touch on beloved garden plants, as they sometimes do, shrieks of outrage inevitably follow. In the late 1980s the common chrysanthemum was banished (on apparently sound scientific principles) from the genus of the same name and relegated to the comparatively drab and undesirable world of the genus Dendranthema.

Chrysanthemum breeders are a proud and numerous lot, and they protested to the real if improbable-sounding Committee on Spermatophyta. (There are also committees for Pteridophyta, Bryophyta, and Fungi, among others, all reporting to an executive called the Rapporteur-General; this is truly an institution to cherish.) Although the rules of nomenclature are supposed to be rigidly applied, botanists are not indifferent to sentiment, and in 1995 the decision was reversed. Similar adjudications have saved petunias, euonymus, and a popular species of amaryllis from demotion, but not many species of geraniums, which some years ago were transferred, amid howls, to the genus Pelargonium. The disputes are entertainingly surveyed in Charles Elliott's The Potting-ShedPapers.