Hi GG, intriguing subject, lol. My sister has a gorgeous purple daylily called "Little Wart".

I just thought of another one. In a former garden I had an evergreen azalea called "I'll Be Damned" which I mailordered from a big rhody specialist somewhere in the Northwest (and I'll be ...well, you know.... if I can remember the name of the nursery!). Anyway I do remember that the flowers were very variable, some pink some white, some striped both colors, some with picotee edges, all on the same shrub. Maybe that's why the name...???

Come to think of it, it was really pretty. I wonder if it's still being sold somewhere... hmm...

The climbing rose called "Golden Showers" usually makes me titter.

Clitoria vine drives my friend crazy when she says it. I just tell her to call it Blue Pee (oops) I mean Blue Pea vine.

I like Hosta 'Pineapple Upside Down Cake'. Very descriptive, too.

Wendy, I just Googled that hosta and sure enough, as I suspected, it's offered by Plant Delights too. (figures that any nursery that would offer 'OutHouse Delight' and 'Elvis Lives' would have a hosta named after a dessert, right?!) Great photo of it... wow, that really IS yellow!! Do you have it in your garden? And if so, it is really as yellow as it looks in the picture?

I have stayed away from golden hostas because so many of them are creamy rather than yellow, but if that's really the color... hmmm.... yummy! (but maybe I'll wait till the price comes down a teeeny bit)

I always thought "fothergilla" was a poor choice for a name. Sounds like a monster in some B movie.

Astilbe is another one.

GibsonGirl,

I'm sorry to say that I don't have Hosta 'Pineapple Upside Down Cake' in my garden (yet). I've just ogled it for a while in magazines and on the web. I wonder if it really is as yellow as it looks in the photos.

Wendy

On the annuals forum I just read about a plant called Lobelia siphilitica. I call that pretty strange.

A rhododendron hybrid grown in the Seattle area has the name 'Woody's Friggin Riggin', I think that's an odd choice.

I just adore the rose named "Tipsy Imperial Concubine" - this rose is flat-out gorgeous and she really does look a bit tipsy :)

Daylilies have a corner on the market for strange names:

ode to happiness
cheers for now
old time rock n roll
rooster rush
honey bee good
carrots forever
do my best
new clown face
help other people
ruffles ah go go

Here is a link that might be useful: www.songsparrow.com

Howsabout "Conocarpus erectus". Ewww, sounds like a dreadful disease of the ewwwww!;)

Then there's the didymocarpus and the streptocarpus, ewwww.

Hosta 'Outhouse Delight', bred by Tony Advent of Plant Delights - warning, it ain't too pretty :-)

Here is a link that might be useful: out house delight

oops - I hadn't noticed the previous post on outhouse delight...the picture's worth the repeat, though...

How about Salvia guaranticia "black and blue" - Tony Advent got some slack from catalogue readers about this one sometime back...

Here is a link that might be useful: black and blue sage

Although a common name rather than a cultivar name, "TEXAS MUD BABY" (ECHINODORUS CORDIFOLIUS RADICANS) has always made me chuckle.

rosa crepuscule.

sounds like a sore.

Heronswood lists a spotted-leaf Arum called 'Dick and Dot.' I have no intention of being thrown off GW by elaborating any further!

I bought Naked Ladies (Belladonna lily) just because someone on the forum said their husband loved to look out the window in the morning and announce, "I see the naked ladies out by the pool."

Plus, they're beautiful!

Here is a link that might be useful: Naked Ladies

My boyfriend just asked if I was OK -- I was laughing so hard from reading this post! I always thought Voodoo lilies were a little odd, though I can't remember the proper name.... Then there's the rose called Voodoo.
As for the clitoria vine... I had a friend suggest that we plant some by our pond.... One must understand, the pond is a work in progress, and at this point it is oval with a narrow channel (someday to be a stream bed) curving back and forth away from it, just like a giant ummm rhymes with worm....

This thread had me laughing out loud! I just read somewhere that there is an Echinacea called 'Paranoia'. I could never bring myself to buy the rose Golden Showers because of the name. HMMMMM which came first the rose or the act?? I want a job naming paint colors, race horses and daylilies!!

How about Tetrapanax "Steroidal Giant"?

One I saw somewhere on Gardenweb just the other day, someone looking for 'hoary puccoon'. Terrible name for a plant.

If you don't like 'hoary puccoon', how about 'viper's bugloss'?

LOL!! I loved that link to the Sparrow's Nest,had no idea there were so many names for daylilies!

This isn't a "weird" name, but I like "Envy" for the green zinnias.

We used to sell a variegated thistle called 'Silybum marianum." Though I wrote the Latin name prominently on the sign, only children enjoyed its moniker as much as I did. And of course, once they figured out how to sound it out, you'd hear them shrieking the name all over the market. "Silly bum. Silly bum!"

How about the rose called "Happy Butt"?

What about Virginia Creeper? An over -emphasis on one of the "i" and you have a whole new meaning!

There's an iris named Baboon Bottom, a daylily named Crotchless Panties and a hosta named Bridegroom ... not so funny until you see the plant.
Linda

Try looking at the Shady Deals nursery website. I had trouble keeping up with some of the American domestic politics humour but even so, it was funny!

My grown daughters think my clethra has the funniest name and like to comment that I have a plethora of clethra.

I can't believe I didn't see Wandering Jew in the whole list! It might just be particularly funny to me, living in a very Jewish neighborhood and with a Jewish boyfriend. I always get this image of some guy with the black pants, white shirt and yarmulke just kind of wandering the streets of LA aimlessly.

I know that there is this whole tale about a Jew that Jesus cursed to wander the earth. But most people I know have never heard the story. Every time I offer a cutting of the plant to one of my co-workers (yes, she's jewish) we are reduced to giggles.

I also think cheese plant is funny. I think the fact that it got it's name only because the seed pods look like cheese wheels is just... well... cheesy.

African violets and other gesneriads get some pretty odd names too:

Achimenes 'Caligula'
Aeschynanthus 'Hot Flash'
Chirita 'Vertigo'
Kohleria 'Ampallang' (I politely suggest you do not look up that word on the internet).
Sinningia speciosa (florist gloxinia) 'Ugly Girl'
Sinningia 'Sweet Patootie'
Smithiantha 'Sassy Redhead'
Streptocarpus 'Gator's Tail'
Streptocarpus 'Purple People Eater'

I'll leave the violets alone, they're just too weird :)

Vincent

Three of my favorite rose names are Rosa Horrida, Rosa Foetida and the cultivar L'Ouch.

I ask you ... would you buy based on those names? :-)

Not really funny, but possibly the longest name in the history of plants: Rhododendron 'The Honorable Jean Marie de Montague'

Lynn (BeigestoneHill), how about adding 'naming Championship Show Cats' to your future career? I like 'Mittenspaws Maxa-Milion of Karactorz'.

Here is a link that might be useful: kitties

MY GRANDMOTHER USED TO GROW A 'CHENNILE FIRETAIL' PLANT THAT HER NEIGHBOR GAVE HER. THE THREE OF US DIDNT KNOW WHAT IT WAS SO MY GRANDMOM ENDED UP CALLING IT A (HOPE I DONT OFFEND ANYONE) 'DICK PLANT'. SHE PASSED AWAY A LITTLE OVER A YEAR AGO, SHE WAS ILL AND NOT WATERING HER PLANTS AND THE PLANT DIED WITH HER. THIS YEAR I WILL BE GETTING THE SAME PLANT AND CALLING THE SAME NAME.

Klehm Nurseries came up with a peony cultivar (Wayside carried it for awhile) named "Shaggy Dog." It was pretty ugly, too, at least in my opinion.

There is a hosta called "Outhouse Delight"

I read somewhere that Hippeastrum (amaryllis) sounds like a hippo with a back end problem. I laughed quite a bit with that one.

It doesn't exist, but if anyone makes a cultivar of Penstemon whippleanus I sure hope they call it Charmin.

I have an acer palmatum called 'Bloodgood', have to stop myself adding a 'y' after the Blood!!!

In the Michagen bulb catalog there is a"Purple People Eater", horrible name for a beautiful flower.
Also, whenever I see Amaranthus Giangaticus with its one finger in the air ( finger ? ) pointing up and then Amaranthus Cruentus, same finger ( finger ? ) pointing down, I always have myself a good laugh.
Before and After!

Rubus cockburnianus -- beautiful, thorny, white branches. Great plant for hedging, but a must-have for the name alone!

I ordered "Phlox of Sheep" from T & M - that name just cracked me up!