The Nomenclature (Clutter) of Crassula Gollum
Foreword
“… it seems your mother kept the plants in ordinary pots, not in good or expensive pots to draw special attention, not labelling and naming the plants with Latin name(s).”
That’s a direct quote from email to me by Nerissa Poon, the estate administrator in Marina’s probate file at the British Columbia Public Guardian and Trustee. An obvious attempt to diminish to zero the value of Marina’s plant collection which disappeared from the estate without an accounting.
Laws in British Columbia and elsewhere require a trustee to account for all of the assets of an estate. For Marina’s estate, the trustee has refused to account for her 28-year publishing business (it vanished in their hands together with all her work copyrighted by law in Canada for 50 years after her death); while lying to me about the contents of Marina’s two greenhouses (all of which are also “missing”).
The administrator has alleged to me that Marina’s plants were left behind by them (abandoned!) in her two greenhouses, for the “new owners” to enjoy. Realtor’s photos, however, employed to sell the property behind my back (more theft) show both greenhouses are empty.
Nonetheless, an administrator has no right to abandon or “give away” parts of an estate.
The administrator’s pretext that Marina didn’t keep her plants in “good or expensive pots” (to evade liability for them eby suggesting they were worthless) has been countered by Marina’s former subscriber, a gentleman with his own greenhouse who kindly excavated today’s article by Marina from his own copies of her journal. In his email to me received March 28, 2021, the gentleman took care to note:
“Attached is a newsletter from a group I belong to with a short piece by yours truly. It shows a couple of frames (of plants). One point to notice is that all the pots are plastic, i.e. ‘ordinary’. The plants in them have been mostly grown from habit collected seed and all have reference numbers as to which particular part of S. Africa they came from. These plants are not easily available commercially, if at all, so none could be considered ‘ordinary’. So they are special plants in ordinary pots because plastic pots are fine.”
At last, my treat for you today: Marina’s “The nomenclatureclutter of Crassula gollum” is from 2002, from an issue of hers that I don’t yet have a copy of. Marina’s former subscriber, mentioned above, was kind enough to send camera shots of the pages. The article is footnoted in an English-language journal, Crassulacea, No. 1, January 2013, see page 5; and cited in a German forum by fellow plantophiles.
You can download that issue of Crassulacea for the one or two color photos to enjoy of the plant Marina talks about in her own black & white piece featured here today.
Source: Welham, M. (2002) “The nomenclatureclutter of Crassula gollum.” The Amateurs’ Digest 14(2): 9-10. Marina Welham, Sidney, BC, Canada.
