Just off our deck, on a south facing slope that gets sun from 9ish to 1 - 3 PM depending on location, we have a three-tiered raised bed. The top bed has four hostas. This is about the easternmost one - which means it gets a lot of sun.

You know the classic American cowboy stereotype the strong and silent type. I used to smoke Marlboros, but it didnÂt work. I remained a man of many words. It seems the name or nature of many hostas send me off on tangents. I suspect H. ÂMister Watson will do the same.

For example, since Mister Watson is a sport from King Tut, some might speculate there a connection between a person named Watson and the opening of King Tut's tomb  perhaps a victim of the infamous ensuing curse. No such luck. Googling that only shows that when you download King Tut's Tomb in Las Vegas you also get the screensaver of Emma Watson's bikini lingerie.

One might jump to the Sherlock Holmes connection... and why, pray tell, is there no series of hosta names dedicated to the master sleuth? There are so many names there... SH, of course, but also Hound of the Baskervilles, Study in Scarlet, Sign of Four, Baker Street, Baker Street Irregulars... oh so many names...

but, of course, no one ever referred to the esteemed Doctor John Hamish Watson as "Mister." As a retired veteran, they could rightfully have used his army rank and called him Surgeon Watson... he certainly earned the military notation, being almost killed in action in Afghanistan and returning to England injured, physically debilitated, and probably suffering from PTSD - indicated by his memory lapses and marriage difficulties.

Some years ago Dr. Robert Olson (dentist and editor of the AHS Journal) gave me his namesake hosta through a mutual friend. It was labelled "Dr. Bob." When I emailed him about the name, and my inability to find the plant in any listing, he told me that he wanted the hosta named "Dr. Bob" but that titles, like Dr., were not allowed by the naming conventions. It's registered name is H. 'Bob Olson.' I wonder if that rule still holds true... and whether it would apply to a famous fictional character like "Dr. Watson."

But no - Mister Watson can most certainly not be derived from the esteemed physician and author. Perhaps another hosta will honor Holmes' Boswell.

One would naturally look to the most famous "Mr. Watson" - Thomas A. Watson.

He is famous not so much for his deeds but for those of his employer. Alexander Graham Bell had been working for several years on a device he called "the multiple telegraph" that would allow the sending of more than one telegraph message on the same line at the same time. The work took a sharp turn when he discovered that sound - in fact, the sound of a twanging clock spring - could be transmitted over an electrical wire. The multiple telegraph was scrapped in favor of perfecting a machine to carry the sound of the human voice over a wire.

Bell's journal for March 10, 1876 indicates his first success was communicating with his assistant, Watson, in the next room, uttering the famous words "Mr. Watson -- come here -- I want to see you."

So we could imagine a hosta named for that famous Mr. Watson... but why the assistant? Why not A.G.B. or some reference to Bell's beloved home in Baddeck, Nova Scotia, or his beloved wife Mabel Hubbard Bell, whose deafness - Bell tutored deaf students in several different schools and it was as a tutor that he met Mabel - influenced much of his work with the telephone and microphones. Why Mr. Watson?

And what's more, the name of the hosta is not H. 'Mr. Watson' but H. 'Mister Watson.' The use of "Mister" with the word spelled out implies some formality, perhaps even a reference to status.

I'd like to think the hosta is named for Edgar Artemas Watson... aka Edgar Jack Watson, aka Edgar J. Watson. Award-winning author Peter Matthiessen wrote a fictionalized oral history entitled Killing Mister Watson that draws on the plethora of stories about this Everglades pioneer.

As a successful plantation owner in the late 1800s in Florida, he would most certainly have been referred to most often as "Mister Watson." His name would likely have faded into obscurity had he not had the deadly combination of good looks, magnetic personality, and lethal temper that eventually resulted in a reputation for multiple murders. Though he was never convicted of killing anyone, he was reputed to have killed many - perhaps dozens. In particular, he is usually named as the killer of Belle Star, the famous female outlaw.

Perhaps the long arm of the law would have landed on Mister Watson's shoulder, but the legal process was cut short by a fusillade of gunfire. A group of Chokoloskee, Florida residents - perhaps as many as 20 - apparently decided to short-circuit the legal process by applying lead to the problem. As Mister Watson stepped from a ferry, he was met with a greeting reminiscent of the climactic scene in Sam Peckinpah's Bonnie and Clyde.

Now that's a name worthy of a fine hosta!

Mister Watson is a sport from King Tut. That makes it a Tokudama... a cupped gold, with a dark green margin and excellent character to the leaves. It should be a slow grower - the Tokudamas are notoriously slow. King Tut is slow. But Mister Watson has been a pretty good grower for me - moderate growth rate, I'd say.

Pretty plant!