Do NOT sound it out
Monday, 22 January 2018
I “knew” this plant long before I remember hearing its name. I knew it had nice red berries come autumn. And some bright red leaves. I knew it had stiff woody branches, and no thorns. I knew that the branches were quite rigid, far more than most shrubs.
When I heard the name, I heard coh…toh…neee…assss…ter. Sure, fine. Then, sometime later, I saw the name spelled out, and I tried not to sound it out (as I was told to do, over and over; and over) because I found sounding it out to be misleading.
This is an artistic rendering of a section of an autumnal branch of a cotoneaster. So, again, it’s a distortion of reality…?
Then again, cotoneasters are taxonomically related to photinias. 😎