There is no wrong way. Either way and any way is fine. If anyone tells you differently explain to them that scientific nomenclature is a written system of names and was never intended to be corrected if pronounced wrong, there is no wrong way. To be more precise, officially you are to use the type of latin pronunciation used in the church, in the region, at the time of Carolus Linnaeus the person who thought up the system. And there are rules about accenting the third from the last syllable and such, but few people obey them anymore. One point to be made is that this system of names is used for all living things, not just plants. So it should never be called botanical name or botanical latin name. They use this same system to name fossils and bacteria and fungus and animals, etc. Personally I prefer to come up with the most obscure pronunciation as possible just to throw people off. Always good for a laugh.

Yup, Denise has it exactly how I meant it! Denise -- Remember Jeff H (of course)? I learned & said Kalan choe like you did, he said Kalanko ee, we never corrected each other & always knew what the other meant. Eventually I switched over as the Calif folks said it more his way & my older NY C&S colleagues say it w/ the CH. Huernias are fun (fellow Asclepiads & thereby cousins to Hoyas), can come out as Hernia (you know, like a man's ailment)? Hey Kelly, No, sorry, the Hoya fest was a great one-time deal hosted by Norma (aka Dufflebag). I had turned her on to Hoyas & she started collecting them like mad -- & subsequently invited a bunch of us out, mostly folks who don't post here anymore & we all provided abt 10 cuttings to swap w/ each other. Participants who are rarely here anymore, Sylvia Marie (who I believe I recently saw at our Gallery nearby, a really nice Patricia, a Robyn (later banned I think) & OkieDeb, who may still post at some of the other Hoya places & became close w/ Norma, & of course I met Cena (she of the current & spectacular outdoor hanging Orchids & Hoyas), who also lives in San Diego as did Jeff; we had a blast!!! Norma also invited both Michael Kartuz & Dale Kloppenburg to the event. I bought a small Incurvula from Kartuz which never did anything & finally died last winter. I still have Kloppenberg's Pubicalyx Fresno, a big pot of which he'd given Norma who shared some w/ me, hasn't bloomed yet. BTW, I shared around a Hoya Crassipes (orig. from Norma) which I adored & recently lost, if anyone here, Denise Oojenn, I think, maybe even Cena still have Crassipes, I'm eager & crazed even to get some back, I just LOVED it, even without blooming yet. Pls. let me know if anyone has it or knows of it, I've never seen it elsewhere or known anyone else to have it. I believe Norma recently said she no longer collects Hoyas (her real & extraordinary expertize is in Crassulas, hence her prior handle 'Crassulady' & Sansvierias, w/ which she helped me greatly in researching for a Sans. talk & I gave at my C&S Society abt 2 yrs. ago. Norma still posts at C&S & at Sans. under the handle Dufflebag. Denise -- I'd sure love to see your talk -- November did you say? You're in Omaha, I have kin in Lincoln & have never been there ... hum ... we'll have to talk in future.

Actually there is a continuum from p to b with the voicing cutting out at different places in the vocalization depending on the accent, and aspiration playing a part in the perception of the sound as well. Alex, I don't know what is "right", but German does cut the voicing of voiced stops at the ends of words. I'm not so sure about internal sound, but compare Liebherr with Liebchen and Liebling on the same site (Forvo) and it does seem that there's much more of a "b" sound if it's followed by voicing, rather than voiceless. Listen closely to what you're actually hearing and render it in IPA. In the sound clip you provided there's more voicing carrying through from the vowel into the "b" than you'd hear in an English "p", but it has more of a "p" sound to my American ears than it does a "b" sound. That is, the voicing cuts out before the "b" ends and the "h" starts. It does seem more voiced than the American "leap" or the "pp" in Firmengruppe, however. (BTW, we say "Shee-luh" for Shiela.)

Same here = )