Punctuation
Q. Where does punctuation fall in the context of botanical varieties, which are treated with single quotation marks? I have been assiduously changing commas that are inside the final single quote, moving them outside: Excellent garden varieties include Ceanothus ‘dark star’, ‘Yankee Point’, and ‘Joyce Coulter’. But I’m now starting to have doubts.
A. Doubt no more. Please see CMOS 8.138, Horticultural cultivars: “Such names should be enclosed in single quotation marks; any following punctuation is placed after the closing quotation mark. If the English name follows the Latin name, there is no intervening punctuation. . . . For impeccable usage, consult any issue of the magazine Horticulture.”
