Color Names

Syringa vulgaris

With the lilacs oddly in bloom now, I started thinking about the word lilac. Not all lilac blooms are, in fact, lilac. I recall fondly the big trusses of lilac, white, and deepest purple wafting sweet scent above my head at a property down the street. So of course, it doesn't bother me that lilacs can be another color.

Why, then, do I find myself convinced that lavender blooms should be lavender, not pink, not white?

Lavandula 'Hidcote'

I feel the same way about gentians, they should be gentian blue. Yet, I don't need roses to be rose colored.

Canadian Explorer series rose 'John Cabot'

I can handle differently colored pinks.

Dianthus

I'm crazy about primroses that aren't primrose,

Primula hybrid

 and I don't need my fuchsias fuchsia.

Fuchsia hybrid

I'm worried about being inconsistent, but then, as Emerson said "[a] foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."