Following a recent discussion on Twitter about how we should name birds at species level, a thread about orchids and their names.

Here's a Heath Spotted Orchid. Or should that be heath spotted orchid... Which do you prefer, and why?

A caveat - it has other names... (1/5)

According to some authors lately, it's a Heath Spotted-orchid. It's similar to another 'Spotted-orchid' - this one, a Common Spotted-orchid.

Capital letters aside, are they Heath or Common Spotted Orchids, or Spotted-orchids? Does the hyphenation matter? (2/5)

Those hyphens are being thrust into other orchid species names. Here's an Early Purple Orchid - or, as some now say, an Early-purple Orchid. Why the hyphen? What's it distinguishing? There's not a similar, confusing, 'Late-purple Orchid' we need to beware of, after all. (3/5)

It all seems a bit arbitrary, and a mess. Early and Late Spider Orchid happen to have 'spider' in their name, and are now dubbed 'Spider-orchid'. But closely related Bee Orchid isn't now called Bee Spider-orchid. Maybe we should just use scientific names? (4/5)

The scientific, Latin names mostly stay the same - here's Cypripedium calceolus. But if we use English names in conversation, or fieldguides, surely we should use names that are clear - whether or not they're capitalised is the least of our problems... #eatsshootsandleaves (5/5)