Note: Names for which I have no derivations or about which I have further questions are being put on a separate page here and will be investigated further at a later date. I have included names which are no longer current because the individuals which these names commemorate nevertheless contributed to Southern African flora and deserve to be recognized and remembered. Also included here are the generic names of invasive species. Many of my entries have been added to and fleshed out by additional information from David Hollombe and from Hugh Clarke from the work which we have published, An Illustrated Dictionary of Southern African Plant Names, and I thank them greatly for the work they have done.

Labourdonnaisia: for Count Bertrand François Mahé de La Bourdonnais (1699-1753), French naval officer and administrator for the French East India Company, French Governor of Mauritius and Réunion, a patron and promoter of botany, and originator of the idea for the National Botanic Garden of Mauritius, also known as the Jardin Botanique des Pamplemousses or the Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam Garden, which was actually built by Pierre Poivre and is the oldest botanical garden in the southern hemisphere. While part of the French East India Company, he became a lieutenant in 1718, a captain in 1824, and participated in the capture of Mahé, also known as Mayyazhi, off the Malabar coast (Southwestern India). He quarreled with Joseph-François, Marquis Dupleix who was in charge of all French possessions in India, over the surrender terms and also learnt Dupliex had been appointed Governor of Mauritius. He returned to France but was arrested in 1748 on a charge of gubernatorial wrongdoing and spent two years as a secret prisoner in the Bastille, after which despite being acquitted his health was broken and he died of ill health. The genus Labourdonnaisia in the Sapotaceae was published in 1841 by Bohemian naturalist and botanist Wenceslaus Bojer. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Lachenalia: for Professor Werner de Lachenal (1736–1800), eminent Swiss botanist and professor of botany and anatomy at the University of Basel 1776-1780, known for his knowledge of European plants. He obtained his Ph.D in 1763. He was a pupil of Haller who was one of his main correspondents providing him with details of flora and their location around Basel, Jura and Alsat. He was a friend of Linnaeus, and authored several monographs in Acta Helvetica. While at the University, he substantially improved the University’s botanical garden, the oldest in Switzerland, which had fallen into disrepair. He continually strived to obtain funds to reconstruct and develop the garden and to pay for the gardener, opening the garden to the public to cover expenditures. The genus Lachenalia in the Hyacinthaceae was published in 1784 by Austrian chemist and botanist Joseph Franz von Jacquin. The CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names, Tropicos and the Harvard University Herbarium database of botanists all give his birth year as 1736 although PlantzAfrica records it as 1739. (PlantzAfrica; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

lacourtianum: the taxon Dialium lacourtianum, now synonymized to Dialium englerianum, was collected by Justin Gillet in 1900 in the Congo, but I have no information on its derivation except that JSTOR records do show a V. Lacourt as having been a plant collector in the Congo and Rwanda around 1907. Works entitled La Culture Potagére au Congo (1895), A Propos du Congo (1908), and Agriculture of the Congo were published by V. LaCourt, so this seems the likely derivation. Dug up by David Hollombe: Full name Victorien-Joseph-Prosper Lacourt (1861-1922), agronomist.

Lafoensia: for João Carlos de Bragança e Ligne Sousa Tavares Mascarenhas da Silva (1719-1806), Duke of Lafões (Lafoens), Portuguese noble, politician, traveller, and founder of the Royal Academy of Science of Lisbon. When his elder brother died in 1761, King José I refused him succession to the duchy of Lafões. Such was the king's enmity that in 1757 João Carlos, aged 38, left Portugal, and did not to return for 21 years. He visited England, becoming a member of Royal Society of London, took part in the seven year Austro-Prussian war, and between 1763-1777 visited most eastern and western European countries, parts of Asia, and North Africa. In 1778 he returned to Portugal, aged 59, on the death of José I. The new Queen Maria I restored his title. With the help of the young scientist José Correia da Serra, he founded the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon and later became Portugal's army marshal. The genus Lafoensia in the Lythraceae was published in 1788 by Italian naturalist Domingo Vandelli. (Hugh Clarke)

Lagerheimina: for Nils Gustaf Lagerheim (1860-1926), Swedish botanist and plant collector who lived three years in Quito from 1889 to 1892 where he was appointed Professor of Cryptogamic Botany and Director of the Botanical Garden. He was President of the Botanical Society in Stockholm, 1915-1919. He was curator at the Natural History Museum in Lisbon, Portugal in 1889 and held the same position at the Museum in Tromsö, Norway. He was the author of Ein Beitrag zur Schneeflora Spitzberg (1894) (A contribution to the snow flora of Spitsbergen). Mainly a mycologist and phycologist, he was also one of the founders of pollen analysis. Lagerheimina is a genus of fungi in the family Thelotremataceae that was published in 1891 by German botanist Carl Ernst Otto Kuntze.

Lagerstroemia: for Carl Magnus von Lagerström (1691-1759), Swedish-Pomeranian Director of the Swedish East India company. Hugh Clarke adds: "He worked in various jobs before he became an accountant and treasurer (1731) for the Swedish East India company, being promoted to the positions of secretary (1743) then junior director (1746). Between 1743-1745 he took a trip to China bringing back for Carl Linnaeus plants that were hitherto unknown. Carl Magnus had a good knowledge of science and worked for the Swedish Academy of Sciences where he translated texts into Swedish. In 1748 and 1750 he gave his natural history collection to Linnaeus who named Lagerstroemia in honour of him on his death. (Hugh Clarke)

Laggera: for Dr. Franz Josef Lagger (1802-1870), Swiss physician and botanist who collected plants in Germany, Austria, France, Switzerland and Italy. The genus Laggera in the Asteraceae was published in 1841 by German botanist Christian Ferdinand Friedrich Hochstetter. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Lagunaria: the genus Laguna was named for Andrés Laguna de Segovia (1499–1559), Spanish physician, pharmacologist and botanist, about whom Hugh Clarke says: "He studied the arts and medicine at the Universities of Salamanca and Paris and practiced medicine in Spain, France, England, the Netherlands and Italy. Wherever he went he collected herbal remedies and not only verified all the prescriptions of Dioscorides - he was fluent in Greek and Latin - but wrote Annotations on Dioscorides of Anazarbus (Lyon, 1554), a much expanded version of Dioscorides' Materia Medica (c .65 AD). He became Pope Julius III's (1487-1555) personal physician while in Italy (1545-1554), as well as doctor to Charles V (1500-1588), Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, and his son Phillip 11 (1527-1598). He returned to Spain in 1557 where he created the Botanical Garden of Aranjuez." The genus Lagunaria in the Malvaceae was originally published in a different genus by Alphonse Louis Pierre Pyramus de Candolle and revised and published by Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach in 1828. According to George Don in A General History of the Dichlamydeous Plants (1: 485. 1831) the genus Lagunaria was named due to its similarity to Laguna, and therefore is not really named for the above individual (Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.; José Mari-Mutt, pers. comm.))

lalandii: for Pierre Antoine Delalande (1787-1823), French naturalist, explorer and painter from Versailles. He worked at the Musée d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris and accompanied Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire in 1808 to Portugal to collect zoological specimens. In 1816 he went with botanist Auguste Saint-Hilaire to Brazil and in 1818 journeyed to southern Africa where he made three trips into the interior, bringing back to Paris over 13,000 zoological specimens, 10,000 insects, a mineral collection and an extensive herbarium. . Hypericum lalandii is the only southern African botanical taxon with this name, but he is also commemorated in the names of a crab, a lobster and a shark. (Elsa Pooley; JSTOR)

Lamarckia/lamarckiana: for Jean Baptiste Antoine Pierre de Monnet de Lamarck (1744-1829), the great French scientist, soldier, biologist, naturalist, paleontologist, conchologist, botanist at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, professor of zoology at the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, author of Système des animaux sans vertèbres, Flore françoise and Philosophie Zoologique. As a young man he fought in the Pomeranian War with Prussia. After leaving the army he studied medicine for several years, worked in a bank office, and then became interested in botany and the natural sciences. He gaiined membership to the French Academy of Sciences and was appointed a Royal Botanist, a position that enabled him to visit foreign botanical gardens. He was an early evolutionist and his theory was that organisms evolved from the simple to the more complex first through a complexifying  force that transmuted them in a steady predictable manner, and then secondly through an adaptive force that operated on certain 'use' and 'disuse' characteristics of the organism. He  named  and his name is on many species of plants, and marine organisms. The genus Lamarckia in the Poaceae was published in 1794 by German botanist Conrad Moench. There is also an Aspalathus lamarckiana published in 1963 by Rolf Martin Theodor Dahlgren, and I assume thatthat was named for him as well. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Lambertia: for Aylmer Bourke Lambert (1761-1842), British botanist. Hugh Clarke provides the following: "He studied at Oxford University for three years, and thereafter he devoted himself to the study of natural history which he could do as he became financially independent when he inherited estates in Jamaica and Ireland. He developed one of the largest herbaria and libraries of its time. He published A description of the genus Cinchona (1797), A description of the genus Pinus (1803, 1824) and was a contributor to Botanist’s guide through England and Wales (1805) by Dawson Turner and L. W. Dillwyn and English Botany (1790-1814) by J. Sowerby and J. E. Smith. Thanks to James Edward Smith and Joseph Smith, he became one of the first Fellows of the Linnean Society (1788), was appointed Vice-President of the Society (from 1796-1842) and became a Council member of the Royal Society in 1810." The genus Lambertia in the Proteaceae was published in 1798 by British botanist James Edward Smith. (Hugh Clarke)

lambii: almost certainly for Ivan Mackenzie Lamb (later Elke Mackenzie) (1911-1990), born London, graduated Edinburgh University, in 1935 appointed Assistant Keeper of the Department of Botany in the British Museum of Natural History, participated as a botanist on a secret British expedition to the Antarctic in 1943, Professor of Cryptogamic Botany at Tucuman University in Argentina 1946-1950, Curator of Cryptogams at the Canadian National Museum in Ottawa 1950-1953, Director of the Farlow Library and Herbarium at Harvard 1954-1972, and an authority on marine algae and Antarctic lichens. After her gender reassignment in 1971 she began translating German botanical textbooks into English. From 1976 to 1980 she lived in Costa Rica after which she moved back to Cambridge where she took up woodwork and started making pieces of furniture, most especially whalers' sea chests. She began getting sick in 1983 and finally died of Lou Gehrig's disease. She was an eminent and highly respected lichenologist and collector. The lichen taxon Placopsis lambii was published by Hirtel and V. Wirth in 1987. (Dictionary of British Botanists and Horticulturists; Harvard University Herbaria; "I. Mackenzie Lamb, D.Sc. 1911-1990" by George Llano in The Bryologist 94(3):1991)

Landolphia: for Jean Francois Landolphe (1747-1825), French naval officer and business owner, and commander of an expedition to the Niger delta. He made a fortune with cargoes, contraband and privateering in the Caribbean, and spent many years trading in the Benin area of West Africa. Hugh Clarke adds: "He got involved in a fight against the British in 1792 who wished to prevent progress in the colony and was captured, but later released. In 1795, he was raised to the rank of Captain and participated in the capture of 63 ships in the Caribbean. During the Napoleonic wars (1799), he commanded a French cruising squadron which was defeated by the British navy. He was captured, but released in 1802 with the signing of the Peace Treaty of Amiens, and returned to France, retired, and published his memoirs in 1823." The genus Landolphia in the Apocynaceae was published in 1806 by French naturalist Ambroise Marie François Joseph Palisot de Beauvois. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Landtia: for Jørgen Landt (c. 1751-1804), a Danish priest, botanist and author of A Description of the Faroe Islands. He was a private teacher with a special interest in botany, in Copenhagen and Frederiksborg. In 1791, he was appointed Pastor of the Faeroe Islands where he worked for the Nordstreymoy municipality. On behalf of the Natural History Society of Denmark, he gathered details about the natural history of the Faroe islands. After seven years work there, in 1798, he left the islands as a result of a knee injury. He wrote A description of the Faroe Islands, containing an account of their situation, climate, and productions, together with the manners and customs of the inhabitants, their trade, etc. published in 1800 in Denmark and 1810 in English. The genus Landtia in the Asteraceae was published in 1832 by German botanist Christian Friedrich Lessing. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

langii: for Herbert Otto Lang (1879/1880-1957), German-born plant collector who emigrated to the United States and was associated with Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History, and then moved to South Africa, first to Cape Town and then to Pretoria. He was a major botanical and zoological photographer whose collection of photographs was acquired by the Transvaal Museum shortly before his death. He collected Hoodia langii (now synonymized to Hoodia gordonii) in South Africa in 1933 and Ritchiea langii (now Thilachium africanum) in 1932. Wikipedia says that a Karl Heinrich Lang (1800-1843), German botanist and professor, is commemorated with Caralluma langii (now synonymized to Orbea knobelii), Urgininea langii (now Albuca seineri) and Berkheyopsis langii (now Hirpicium gorterioides), but since those taxa were published in 1933, 1933, and 1935 respectively, it seems much more likely that they were named for Herbert Lang. (JSTOR; Gunn & Codd)

Lapeirousia: for Philippe-Isidore Picot de Lapeyrouse (Lapeirouse), Baron de Bazus (1744-1818), French botanist and minerologist, professor of natural history at Toulouse University, foreign member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences, and not as is sometimes stated for the French mariner and explorer Jean-François de Galaup, Comte de Lapérouse. He was also a geologist and first Dean of the Faculty of Science at Toulouse University, Mayor of Toulouse (1800-1807) under Napoleon, Secretary of the Academy of Sciences of Toulouse (from 1811), and creator of the Natural History Museum. He explored the entire Pyrenees twice, the second time with Déodat de Dolomieu (1750-1801), and was the author of papers on public education, geology, mines, and agriculture, and of Histoire abrégée des plantes des Pyrénées et itinéraire des botanistes dans ces montagnes (1818) (Brief history of the plants from the Pyrenees and botanists route in the mountains). The genus Lapeirousia in the Iridaceae was published in 1800 by the great Swedish naturalist and 'Father of South African botany' Carl Peter Thunberg. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia)

Laportea: for François Louis Nompar de Caumat de Laporte Castelnau (1810-1880), English-born French naturalist, entomologist, plant collector in Texas, Canada and South America, spent a couple of years at the Cape, then was French Consul in Australia. Gledhill gives an M. Laporte, 19th century entomologist, who is likely the same person. The genus Laportea in the Urticaceae was published in 1830 by French botanist Charles GaudichaudBeaupré. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; The Names of Plants)

Larochea: for Daniel Delaroche (de la Roche) (1743-1813), who received a medical degree with a botanical thesis from the University of Leyden in 1766, practiced as a physician in Geneva for ten years, then moved to Paris where he became physician to the Swiss Guards. In 1792 during the Revolution he left Paris for London and then Lausanne. He maintained his interest in botany and aided the young Swiss botanist A.P. de Candolle. In 1798 he returned to Paris. The genus Larochea in the Crassulaceae was published in 1805 by South African mycologist Christiaan Hendrik Persoon. The genus Rochea in the Fabaceae which does not appear in southern Africa was also named for him and his botanist and physician son François (1780-1813). (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Larryleachia: for Leslie Charles (Larry) Leach (1909-1996), British-born amateur botanist who moved to Rhodesia in 1938, collected in Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe, awarded the Harry Bolus Medal by the Botanical Society of South Africa, interested particularly in succulents such as Stapeliads, Euphorbias and Aloes. The genus Larryleachia in the Asclepiadaceae was published in 1996 by South African botanist Darrel C.H. Plowes but has been been synonymized to Lavrania which was published by Plowes in 1986. See also Leachia/leachii.

Lasallia: for a gardener-botanist named Lasalle at Fountainebleau and the Botanical Garden of Corsica. This genus of fungi in the family Umbilicariaceae was published in 1821 by François Victor Mérat de Vaumartoise. (Dictionnaire classique des sciences naturelles by August Drapiez; David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

lastii: for Joseph Thomas Last (1847-1933), student of the Swahili language, naturalist, traveller, appointed Commissioner of Slavery for the Island of Zanzibar, made expeditions to Madagascar and Portuguese East Africa, sent many specimens of new plants, especially orchids, to Kew, member of the Royal Geographical Society, plant collector in Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique and Madagascar, author of Grammar of the Kamba Language, Eastern Equatorial Africa. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Lastrea: for Charles Jean Louis Delastre (1792-1859), French lawyer, botanist, and plant collector. Mayor of St. Benedict and Sub-Prefect of Loudun of Gien and Melle; author of Flore analytique et descriptive du département de la Vienne. He corresponded a great deal with the South African-born mycologist Christiaan Hendrik Persoon. The genus Lastrea in the Thelypteridaceae was published in 1824 by French naturalist Jean Baptiste Geneviève Marcellin Bory.

lateganiae: for Mrs. J. Lategan (fl. 1937), a farmer's wife in the Western Cape, who is commemorated with Haworthia lateganiae. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

latimerae: for Marjorie Eileen Doris Courtenay-Latimer (1907-2004), South African plant collector, biologist and ichthyologist, first curator of the East London Museum which has the only extant dodo egg, discovered the coelacanth, excavated the fossil skeleton of the dicynodont Kannemeyeria simocephalus. She is commemorated with Lachenalia latimerae which she collected in Humansdorp in 1949. (JSTOR)

Launaea: for Jean Claude Mien Mordant de Launay (c.1750-1816), French lawyer, librarian at Museum d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, and editor and author of horticultural works. The genus Launaea in the Asteraceae was published in 1822 by French botanist and naturalist Alexandre Henri Gabriel de Cassini. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Elsa Pooley)

Laurembergia: for Peter Lauremberg (1585-1639) (also called Petrus Laurembergius), German botanist, Rector of the University of Rostock, and professor at one time or another of subjects such as philosophy, mathematics, physics, poetry and medicine. He wrote a work called Horticultura published in 1631 which described what was probably the first experiment in allelopathy, the biological phenomenon by which an organism produces one or more biochemicals that influence the growth, survival, and reproduction of other organisms. He also wrote Apparatus Plantarius Primus (1632), a work on bulbous and tuberous plants and their medicinal and culinary uses and their care and propagation, and was primarily responsible for Acerra Philologica, a 2,000 page reference work on the ancient world. His brother John (1590-1658) was a Greek and Latin poet, historian and mathematician. The genus Laurembergia in the Haloragaceae was published in 1767 by Swedish physician and professor of natural history Peter Jonas Bergius. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Laurentia: for Marco Antonio Laurenti (1678-1772), Italian physician and botanist, professor of medicine and philosophy at University of Bologna, according to David Gledhill's The Names of Plants. The genus Laurentia in the Lobeliaceae or Campanulaceae was published in 1763 by French botanist Michel Adanson based on an earlier publication by Italian botanist Pier Antonio Micheli. Jose Mari-Mutt has provided the additional information that "the author took the name from Micheli, who provides the etymology (Novarum plantarum genera, 1729, p. 18." Tropicos lists Laurentia as an illegitimately published taxon, and it is now considered a synonym of Lobelia.

Laurera/laureri: for Johann Friedrich Laurer (1798-1873), German botanist, pharmacologist and lichenologist, professor at the University of Greifswald, visited South Africa. The genus of lichenized fungi Laurera in the Trypetheliaceae was published originally by Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach in 1841 and revised by French lichenologist Marie-Agnès Letrouit-Galinou in 1957. He was honored as well by the genus name Laureria which does not appear in southern Africa. There is also a species Catinaria laureri which was probably named for the same person. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Flora of Australia, Vol. 57: 2009)

lavallei: the taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is Crataegus x lavallei which is a hybrid species. Wikipedia says that one of the common names for this taxon is Lavallée's hawthorn and there is a Pierre Alphonse Martin Lavallée (1836-1884), French botanist and horticulturist, in the Harvard University Herbaria database of botanists. The University of Sussex Bulletin for 14 January 2011 states that "It was first discovered in about 1880 in the Segrez arboretum just outside Paris, and named in memory of the arboretum's founder, Pierre Alphonse Martin Lavallée." The Arboretum de Segrez with its herbarium and botanical library was founded by Lavallée in 1857 and by 1875 contained one of the largest collections of woody plants in the world. He collected on Madagascar and Réunion. (Wikipedia)

Lavatera: for the Lavater brothers, Johann Heinrich Lavater (1611-1691), Swiss physician, professor of medicine and natural history at the Collegium Carolinum, Zurich, and Johann Jacob (1594-1636), also a physician and naturalist, and about whom little else seems to be known. Their father, Heinrich Lavater (1560-1623), was a physician, and professor of physics and mathematics in Zurich. Hugh Clarke adds: "Johann Heinrich obtained his doctorate in Basel in 1647, became town physician in Bern in 1653 and later worked in Zurich where he drew up the Zurich Ordinance in 1668 relating to the plague." The genus Lavatera in the Malvaceae was published by Linnaeus in 1753. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

lavisiae/lavisianum: for Mary Gwendolene Lavis (1903-1992) (later Mrs. O'Connor-Fenton), a friend and assistant of Louisa Bolus, worked at Kew, Kirstenbosch and the Bolus Herbarium, commemorated with Delosperma lavisiae and Conophytum lavisianum. (Elsa Pooley; Women and Cacti; JSTOR; Gunn & Codd)

lavisii: for Sidney Warren Lavis (fl. 1927-1928), South African bishop and father of Mary G. Lavis (see previous entry), collected on a small scale, commemorated with Lampranthus lavisii, Ruschia lavisii and Drosanthemum lavisii. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

lavrani/Lavrania/lavranosii: for John Jacob Lavranos (1926-2018), Greek-born South African botanist and plant collector. The genus Lavrania in the Apocynaceae (formerly Asclepiadaceae) was published by Darrel C.H. Plowes in 1986. Lavranos is also commemorated with Euphorbia lavrani, Eriospermum lavranosii, the former Conophytum lavranosii (now C. taylorianum) and probably Bulbine lavrani. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; JSTOR; Gunn & Codd)

lawsonii: another example of confused records, to wit: Eggli & Newton say Antimima (Ruschia) lawsonii is for George M. Lawson (1865-1945), British missionary interested in succulent plants, and the JSTOR list of collectors does include an Archdeacon George Merwyn Lawon with those dates. But a JSTOR specimen record has Antimima lawsonii having been collected by a G.L. Lawson in South Africa in 1912. Probably just a typo. Oxalis lawsonii was also collected by a Lawson with no initials in 1913, probably the same person. There is as well an Erica lawsonii listed in southern Africa, but that taxon was published by Sims in 1815 and it is said to be named for Sir Wilfrid Lawson (1764-1806), 10th Baronet of Isell Hall, Cockermouth, Cumberland, patron of the fine arts and a botanist of some repute who took a general interest in collecting rare and curious plants, possessor of one of the most extensive libraries in the North of England, with particular reference to Natural History, reputed to be second only to that of Joseph Banks, one of the finest collections of military armor in England, and an estate including some 350 acres of botanical gardens. Having no issue, he was the last Baronet and the Baronetcy expired upon his death. (Gunn & Codd; Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Ted Oliver, pers. comm.; Wikipedia)

Leachia/leachii: for Leslie (Larry) Charles Leach (1909-1996), British-born taxonomist, botanist and explorer who moved to Rhodesia in 1938, plant collector in Angola, South Africa, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Mozambique, and Zambia, electrical engineer, awarded the Harry Bolus Medal by the Botanical Society of South Africa, interested particularly in succulents such as Stapeliads, Euphorbias and Aloes. In 1981 he settled in South Africa, working at the National Botanic Garden at Worcester from 1982-89, and later was Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Botany at the University of the North near Pietersburg. He was a Fellow of the Cactus and Succulent Society of America, and was honored with the generic names Leachia and Larryleachia (both in the Apocynaceae), which have been synonymized to Lavrania, published by South African botanist Darrel Charles Herbert Plowes in 1986. He was also honored by the species name Eulophia leachii. (Elsa Pooley; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia)

lealii: for Lt. Col. Fernando da Costa Leal (1846-1910), 19th century Portuguese army officer, geologist, botanist, poet, cartographer and administrator in Angola whose maps greatly assisted Friedrich Welwitsch in his travels. The problem is that there were two men of the same name, an uncle and a nephew. The nephew was born in 1846, and his uncle in 1825, they both were administrators in Portuguese Africa and they travelled together, but it appears that the species Pachypodium lealii was named for the younger Leal. That taxon was published in 1869 by Welwitsch. (Wikipedia; Succulent Flora of Southern Africa)

leari: for a plant collector named Lear who sent the seeds of Ipomoea leari to England from Ceylon. (Paxton's Magazine of Botany and Register of Flowering Plants, Vol. 6)

Lebeckia: for a Mr. H.J. Lebeck (1772-1800), Dutch botanist, traveller, merchant, plant collector in Indo-Malaya, and a student of Carl Peter Thunberg. The genus Lebeckia in the Fabaceae was published by Thunberg in 1800. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; PlantzAfrica)

Lecomtedoxa: for Paul Henri Lemcomte (1856-1934), French botanist, professor at Lycée Saint-Louis in Paris, worked in the botany laboratory at the French Natural History Museum and eventually became Head of the Spermatophyte Division, took part in scientific expeditions to North Africa, Egypt, the Antilles, French Guiana and French Indo-China, and authored some fifteen books including works on the trees of Indochina and the trees and flowers of Madagascar. The genus Lecomtedoxa in the Sapotaceae was published in 1914 by French botanist Marcel Marie Maurice Dubard. He is also honored by the genera Lecomtea and Lecomtella which do not appear in southern Africa. (Wikipedia; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Ledebouria: for Carl Friedrich von Ledebour (1785-1851), German botanist and professor of botany in the University of Tartu, Estonia, traveller and plant collector. His most significant works were Flora Altaica, the first flora of the Altay Mountains (1833), and Flora Rossica (1841-1853), the first complete flora of the Russian Empire. One of the new species he discovered was Malus sieversii (described as Pyrus sieversii) which is considered to be the sole ancestor of the cultivated apple. The genus Ledebouria in the Hyacinthaceae was published in 1828 by German botanist and ornithologist Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Ledermanniella/ledermannii: for Carl Ludwig Ledermann (1875-1958), Swiss horticulturist, traveller and explorer, plant collector in West Africa. The genus Ledermanniella in the Podostemaceae was published in 1909 by German botanist Heinrich Gustav Adolf Engler. There are two taxa in southern Africa with this epithet, the former Aristolochia ledermannii, published in 1923 (now A. albida), and Trichodesma ledermannii, published in 1912 (now T. ambacense), but I can only guess that they are named for the same individual. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

ledienii: for Franz Carl (Karl) Christoph Ledien (1859-1912), head gardener at the Dresden Botanical Garden, brought back taxa such as Eulophia ledienii from the Congo, commemorated with Euphorbia ledienii. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

leeana: for James Lee (1715-1795), Scottish nurseryman, senior partner in the Vineyard Nursery, the famous firm of nurserymen Lee & Lewis Kennedy of Hammersmith, London, the largest commercial distributor of protea plants during the late 18th and 19th centuries, which occupied the same site from 1745 to 1890. Lee walked from his home in southern Scotland to London in 1732, began the nursery in 1745 and published in 1760 An Introduction to Botany. He became an international figure in horticulture and was widely known for introducing many new plants. He was friends with Sir Joseph Banks, and his daughter Ann became a botanical artist of note. His second partner was named John Kennedy. There were at least four generations of Lees that ran the nursery, first James Lee, then his son James Lee, third John and Charles Lee, and fourth William Lee. He is commemorated with the former taxon Philippia leeana, now Erica exleeana. (James Lee and the Vineyard Nursery, Hammersmith, by E.J. Wilson; Journal of Horticulture and Practical Gardening, Vol. 3)

leendertziae: for Reino Leendertz (later Mrs. Pott) (1869-1965), Dutch botanist and the first official botanist employed at the Transvaal Museum, author of Plantengids voor den Hortus Botanicus te Amsterdam. She is commemorated with Stapelia leendertziae, Blepharis leendertziae, Delosperma leendertziae, Indigofera leendertziae, Tapinanthus leendertziae, Polygala leendertziae, Triaspis leendertziae (now synonymized to T. glaucophylla), Carallula leendertziae (now Orbea melanantha), Lotononis pottiae, Thesium pottiae and probably for Lissochilus leendertziae (now Eulophia tuberculata). (Elsa Pooley; Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

Leersia: for Johann Georg Daniel Leers (1727-1774), German botanist and apothecary, author of Flora herbornensis (1775). The genus Leersia in the Poaceae was published in 1788 by Swedish botanist and taxonomist Olof Peter Swartz. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names;CRC World Dictionary of Grasses)

Lefeburea/Lefebvrea: for Charlemagne Théophile Lefebvre (1811-1860), French explorer and writer who participated in a voyage from 1838 to 1844 to study the natural history, geography, anthropology, linguistics, archeology and customs of Abyssinia. He published Voyage en Abyssinie exécutés pendant les années 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842, 1843 ... in 1845 with co-author Achille Richard, one of the leading botanists of his day, and the person who named this genus in the Apiaceae for Lefebvre in 1840. Stephan Friedrich Ladislaus Endlicher apparently changed the spelling of the name to Lefeburea in 1842 with no explanation, and then John Lindley published it as Lefeburia in 1847 leading to confusion resulting in W.P.U. Jackson's mistaken attribution of the genus to Louis-François Henri Lefébure (1754-1839), a French botanist, co-author of Album floral des plantes indigènes de France. Lefeburia is considered to be an orthographic variant and the correct spelling of the genus is Lefebvrea. (Wikipedia; Tropicos)

legatii: for Charles Edward Legat (1876-1966), Scottish-born Conservator of Forests in Pretoria, Transvaal, came to South Africa in 1898, became Chief Conservator of Forests for South Africa from 1913 to 1931, after which he returned to England. He is commemorated with Syzygium legatii, Maerua legatii (now synonymized to M. parvifolia) and probably Searsia legatii (now S. chirindensis). (Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

lehmannii/lehmanniana/lehmannianus: for Professor Johann Georg Christian Lehmann (1792-1860), a German botanist and plant collector who published the genus Encephalartos and described several cycad species in 1834, and was founder and director of the Hamburg Botanic Garden. He was a professor of physics and natural sciences at the "Gymnasium Academicum" in Hamburg and its head librarian. He also wrote many monographs, and is commemorated with Eucalyptus lehmannii, Corpuscularia lehmannii, Encephalartos lehmannii, Erica lehmannii, and possibly also for Schoenoxiphium lehmannii and Polygala lehmanniana. (Wikipedia; PlantzAfrica; Ted Oliver, pers. comm.)

leichtlinii: for Maximilian Leichtlin (1831-1910), German plant collector and botanist. He cultivated rare plants of which bulbs and tubers were his favorites, founded a botanical garden in Baden-Baden, and was one of the first to systematically hybridize orchids. Freesia leichtlinii is one of the taxa which bear his name. He is also commemorated with the former Haplocarpha leichtlinii (now H. lyrata) and probably Gladiolus leichtlinii (now listed as G. dalenii). (JSTOR)

Leightonia: for the Rev. William Allport Leighton (1805-1889), British botanist and lichenologist, son of a hotel-keeper, author of Flora of Shropshire (1841) with his own etchings, The British Species of Angiocarpous Lichens elucidated by their Sporidia (1851), and his major work Lichen Flora of Great Britain (1871). He was Curate of St Giles' Church in Shrewsbury from 1846 till 1848, but then resigned to devote himself again to botany - principally to cryptogams and especially lichens. He gave his collection to the herbarium at Kew. The lichen genus Leightonia in the Trypelethiaceae was published in 1861 by Italian botanist Vittore Benedetto Antonio Trevisan de Saint-Léon. (Journal of Botany, British and Foreign, Vol. 27 by Berthold Seemann; JSTOR; Wikipedia)

leightoniae: for Miss Francis Margaret Leighton (later Mrs. William Edwyn Isaac) (1909-2006), botanist at the Bolus Herbarium at the University of Cape Town 1931-1947, daughter of horticulturist James Leighton (See next entry). She prepared monographs revising the genera Ornithogalum and Agapanthus. She moved to Nairobi with her husband Professor W.E. Isaac, and later to Victoria, Australia. She is commemorated with Lampranthus leightoniae, Delosperma leightoniae, Bergeranthus leightoniae and the former taxa Ruschia leightoniae (now synonymized to Phiambolia unca), Psilocaulon leightoniae (now P. junceum) and Conophytum leightoniae (now C. piluliforme). (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

leightonii: for James Leighton (1855-1930), Scots-born horticulturist who came to South Africa in 1881, Curator of the King William's Town Botanic Garden, father of Francis M. Leighton, see above. He is commemorated with Haworthia leightonii. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; JSTOR; Gunn & Codd)

Leipoldtia/leipoldtii: for Christian Frederik Louis Leipoldt (1880-1947), South African physician, poet, author, journalist and writer, editor of the South African Medical Journal, traveller and plant collector especially of aloes and succulents, friend of Dr. P.L. Nortier, chief medical inspector of schools in the Transvaal, and war correspondent. He is commemorated in the current taxa Lampranthus, Sphalmanthus, Conophytum, Aridaria, Antimima, Ruschia, Drosanthemum, Podalyria, Serruria, Polycarena, Nemesia, Babiana, Geissorhiza, Ixia, Romulea, Oxalis, Pelargonium, Gemmaria, Strumaria, Lachnaea, Lachenalia and Phylica, as well as many others that have since been synonymized. The genus Leipoldtia in the Aizoaceae was published in 1927 by South African botanist Harriet Margaret Louisa Bolus. (Gunn & Codd; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

leipzigiae: the taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is the former Indigofera leipzigiae, now synonymized to I. hilaris. The 'ae' ending usually indicates that it is named after a woman, but in this case, according to David Hollombe, it may be a name derived from a place, either a farm or a community or both, in Limpopo Province, which is the northernmost province of South Africa.

leistneri: for Otto Albrecht Leistner (1931- ), an emigre at a young age from Germany, living first in Tanzania and Zimbabwe before settling in South Africa, worked at the Botanical Research Institute in Pretoria and at Kew, was Head of Publications and scientific editor of Bothalia, Flora of Southern Africa, Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa and later Strelitzia, author of The Plant Ecology of the Southern Kalahari and Seed Plants of Southern Tropical Africa: Families and Genera, and collector of Dicliptera leistneri in South Africa in 1962. He is also commemorated with Euphorbia leistneri and Dicliptera leistneri. (Kevin Balkwill, pers. comm.; Gunn & Codd)

Lejeunea: for Dr. Alexandre Louis Simon Lejeune (1779-1858), Belgian pharmacist and botanist of Verviers, sometimes called the 'Father of Belgian Botany.' He studied pharmacology and botany at Liege, then enrolled in medical school in 1801 at Paris. His medical studies were interrupted as a result of his conscription as a health officer into the 13th Regiment of Dragoons, during which time he was stationed in Holland, Pas-de-Calais (northern France) and Hanover (Germany), afterwards returning to civilian life as a doctor first in Ensival and then in Verviers, and conducting extensive botanical researches and writings. He was a member of the Belgian Royal Academy of Sciences and Letters and the Linnean Society of Paris, and was the author of several publications, Methodique of regne végétal Tableau du Département de l'Ourthe (1806), La flore de Spa (1811), and Revue de la flore des environs de Spa (1824), and the 3-vol. Compendium Florae Belgicae (1831) published with Belgian botanist Richard Joseph Courtois. The genus Lejeunea in the Lejeuneaceae was published in 1820 by Belgian mycologist Marie-Anne Libert. (Wikpedia; Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.)

Lellingeria: for David Bruce Lellinger (1937- ), American botanist, specializing in ferns. Hugh Clarke adds: "He obtained a B.A. degree from the University of Urbana and obtained an M.Sc. (1960) and Ph.D (1965) from the University of Michigan. He joined the staff of the Smithsonian Institution in 1963 and became Curator of Pteridophtes at the institution which houses the largest and most diverse collection of ferns in the Western Hemisphere, in excess of 20,000 species. Among his many publications, he authored A Field Manual of the Ferns & Fern-Allies of the United States & Canada (1985), The Ferns and Fern-Allies of Costa Rica, Panama, and the Choco (1989) where he conducted field work in various years from 1967-1987, and A Modern Multilingual Glossary for Taxonomic Pteridology (2002) among others." The genus Lellingeria in the Polypodiaceae was published in 1991 by American botanist Reid Venable Moran and British botanist Alan Radcliffe-Smith.

Lenormandia: for Sébastien-René Lenormand (1796-1871), French botanist, algologist and plant collector who had a particular interest in the Pacific flora. Another source described him as a lawyer by profession but a keen amateur botanist. The genus Lenormandia in the Poaceae was published in 1855 by Ernst Gottlieb von Steudel. (CRC World Dictionary of Grasses)

Leobordea: for Léon-Emmanuel-Simon-Joseph (Marquis de) (Comte de) Laborde (1807-1869), son of French archeologist Alexandre Louis Joseph Comte de Laborde, French politician, art historian, and explorer of the Middle East. Hugh Clarke provides the following: "In 1824, when just seventeen he travelled from France to Cairo with his father who turned back there. Léon explored further, with a friend, Linant de Bellefonds, as described in A Flora of Arabia and Voyage dans Arabie-Pétrée (1830). Later, Léon joined the diplomatic corps becoming private secretary to Tallyrand at the French embassy, London. With his deep interest in art and historical research, he became Conservateur des Antiques at the Louvre, founder of the Archive Museum, and was elected to the Academy Française. In 1968, he ‘inherited’ his father's Parliamentary seat and was elected to the Senate." He was also the author of Voyage de la Syrie (1837), Voyage de l'Asie Mineure (1838), and a number of other works. The genus Leobordea in the Fabaceae was published in 1830 by French botanist Alire Raffeneau Delile. (Stoddart's Encyclopaedia Americana; Hugh Clarke)

leopoldii: for Leopold II of Belgium (1835-1909). The taxon in southern Africa with this specific epithet is Dirinaria leopoldii, a species of fungus. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

leprieurii: for François Mathias René Leprieur (1799-1869), French navy pharmacist, who was stationed and collected in Senegambia. Based on his collections and observations he began a flora which was finished by Jean Baptiste Antoine Guillemin, George S. Perrottet and Achille Richard and published as Florae Senegambiae tentamen in 1831-1833. From 1830 until his death he lived in French Guiana. He is commemorated with the taxon Zanthoxylum leprieurii and Enteropogon prieurii. (Flora of Zimbabwe; JSTOR)

lerouxiae: Eggli & Newton list a Mrs. Olive le Roux (fl. 1923) for Ruschia lerouxiae (= Mesembryanthemum lerouxiae and Lampranthus lerouxiae), while the Women and Cacti website lists Annelise Le Roux (1950- ), botanist and plant collector, technician in the Botanical Research Institute, later with Cape Nature Conservation Department, for this taxon. Clearly the Women and Cacti entry cannot be correct because M. lerouxiae was published in 1924, Lampranthus lerouxiae in 1930 and Ruschia lerouxiae in 1950. There is however a JSTOR specimen record of Trichogyne lerouxiae (now synonymized to Ifloga lerouxiae) in the Asteraceae being collected in 1982 by an A. Le Roux which refers to Annelise Le Roux, and that taxon was published in 1995. To further complicate matters, there is a JSTOR isotype specimen record of Erica lerouxiae being collected at Franschhoek in 1886 by an E. Le Roux, which specimen was housed at the Huguenot Seminary Herbarium at Wellington. E. Le Roux was possibly a lecturer at or was associated in some other way with the Huguenot Seminary which was established in 1874 and which subsequently evolved into Huguenot University College. This last is confirmed by a website called Haute Espoir which says that E. Le Roux brought the species to the attention of Harry Bolus in 1887. That was the year that it was published by Bolus. The Journal of the Linnean Society in London: Botany Vol 24 (1888) has the following note regarding Erica lerouxiae: "Hab. In French Hoek, legit Domina E. Le Roux, in 'Herb. Huguenot Seminary,' No. 303." This was the specimen number of isotype specimen collected by E. Le Roux, and the term Domina meaning 'lady' or 'mistress of the household' was possibly a Dutch or Protestant church title which also indicates that she may have had some association with the seminary. There are frequent references turned up by internet searches of various members of the Le Roux family having been associated with Huguenot Seminary. The name Le Roux is not an uncommon one in South Africa, and there are at least three others named Le Roux who are mentioned in Gunn & Codd, a Petrus Jacobus Le Roux (1928- ), a Pieter Marthinus Le Roux (1933- ) and a Stephanus François Le Roux (1915-1976), none of whom are mentioned as being related to any of the others, and in any case the 'ae' ending indicates that the epithet honors a woman. (JSTOR: Ted Oliver, pers. comm.)

leschenaultii: probably for Jean Baptiste Louis (Claude) Théodor Leschenault de la Tour (1773-1826), French doctor who served as a naturalist to Kings Louis XVII and Charles X, sailed to Australia and was the first scientist to observe the Aboriginal people of south-west Australia. He was a plant collector in South Africa and Mauritius among other places. The taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is the former Potamogeton leschenaultii, now synonymized to P. nodosus. He was also honored with the genus Lechenaultia which does not appear in southern Africa and which was misspelled by Robert Brown in his 1810 publication. Leschenault de la Tour's name frequently comes up in connection with other taxa with this epithet that do not appear in southern Africa, and he seems to be the only botanist or collector with this name. (JSTOR)

Leskeella: for Nathanael Gottfried Leske (1751-1786), German naturalist, economist and geologist. Hugh Clarke adds: "He studied at the Bergakademie of Freiberg, Saxony, under Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749-1817) and the Franckeschen Stiftungen in Halle. He became professor at the University of Leipsig teaching natural history in 1775 and economics from 1777-1786. In 1786 he accepted the chair of financial science and economics at Marburg University, but died shortly thereafter in an accident. His large mineral and natural history collection was sold after his death to the Dublin society in 1792 and is now housed in the National Museum of Ireland. He wrote on diverse topics and was a co-editor with other of Leipziger Magazin zur Naturkunde, Mathematik und Oekonomie from 1781." The genus Leskeella in the Leskeaceae was published originally by German botanist and bryologist Karl Gustav Limpricht and revised and published in 1903 by German amateur bryologist and journalist Leopold Loeske.

lesliei: for (1) Dr. Thomas Nicholas Leslie (1858-1942), English-born builder, plant collector and photographer who emigrated to South Africa in 1881, commemorated with Stomatium lesliei, Thesium lesliei, Lithops lesliei, Rabiea lesliei and the former Argyroderma lesliei, now synonymized to A. delaetii. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Gunn & Codd); (2) Dr. Leslie Edward Wastell Codd (1908- 1999), South African botanist, director of the Botanical Resarch Institute in Pretoria from 1963-1973, described many new taxa, published Trees and Shrubs of Kruger National Park, edited the journal Bothalia (1958-1974), helped to found and became president of the South African Association of Botanists, amassed a collection of plant specimens that numbered over 11,000, and co-author with Mary Gunn of the major biographical work Botanical Explorations of Southern Africa (1981), commemorated with Helichrysum lesliei (David Hollombe, pers. comm.); (3) J.B. Leslie, who collected Tritoniopsis lesliei in South Africa in 1927. (JSTOR)

Lespedeza: for Vicente Manuel de Céspedes y Velasco (?-1794), appointed Spanish Governor of Eastern Florida 1784-1790, patron of botany. The genus Lespedeza in the Fabaceae was published in 1803 by French botanist and explorer André Michaux. Apparently the genus name Lespedeza was the result of a spelling error. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia; Hugh Clarke)

Lessertia: for Jules Paul Benjamin delessert (De Lessert)(1773-1847), a French industrialist, banker, amateur botanist and conchologist, owner of an important private herbarium used by Swiss botanist Augustin Pyramus De Candolle and editor of the Icones selectae (1820-1846). He was an artillery officer in the Army, founded the first cotton factory, developed the manufacture of sugar from sugar beets, sat in the Chamber of Deputies, and helped to found the first savings bank in France. He had a botanical library containing some 30,000 volumes, and was the author of Des avantages de la caisse d'épargne et de prévoyance (1835), Mémoire sur un projet de bibliothèque royale (1836), Le Guide de bonheur (1839), and Recueil de coquilles décrites par Lamarck (1841–1842). The genus Lessertia in the Fabaceae was published in his honor by de Candolle in 1802. (PlantzAfrica; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia)

lessingii: for Christian Friedrich Lessing (1809/10-1862), German botanist and physician, authority on the Asteraceae, author of Synopsis generum Compositarum, brother of painter Carl Friedrich Lessing, died in Siberia. Senecio lessingii is the only southern African taxon with this specific epithet, but there are quite a few other taxa with this epithet that do not appear in southern Africa. He was also honored with the genus Lessingia which does not appear in southern Africa. (Wikipedia)

Letestuella: for Georges Marie Patrice Charles Le Testu (1877-1967), French colonial administrator. He collected in Mozambique, Congo, Benin, Central African Republic and Gabon. The genus Letestuella in the Podostemaceae was published in 1953 by British botanist George Taylor. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Letrouitia: for Marie-Agnès Letrouit-Galinou (1931- ), French lichenologist, Vice-President and President of the Association Française de Lichénologie, Research Director at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique held at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris. She retired in 1999 and donated her library to the Musée Nationale d'Histoire Naturelle. The lichen genus Letrouitia in the Letrouitiaceae was published by Josef Hafellner and André Bellemère in 1982.

lettyae: for Cythna Lindenberg Letty (later Mrs. Forssman) (1895-1985), school teacher, plant collector, studied nursing, worked as a botanical artist for the Botanical Research Institute in Pretoria, produced over 700 illustrations for Flowering Plants of Africa, and revised the genus Zantedeschia for Bothalia. She was also co-author of An Introduction to Botany and to a Few Transvaal Veld Flowers (1920) and Wild Flowers of the Transvaal (1962) and author of Trees of South Africa (1975) and More Trees of South Africa (1976). She also did the illustrations for L.E.W. Codd's Trees and Shrubs in the Kruger National Park, White & Sloan's The Stapelieae, and Lucy K.A. Chippindall's Grasses and Pastures of South Africa. She designed the floral motifs for the 10 cent, 20 cent and 50 cent coins for the new decimel currency of South Africa, and for the Rhodesian sixpence, and was honored by the Botanical Society of South Africa in the naming of the 'Cythna Letty Medal' awarded for significant contributions to the promotion of South African flora through the medium of published botanical paintings or drawings. In 1974 she was awarded an honorary LL.D. degree from the University of Witwatersrand and in the same year was selected as Woman of the Year by the Johannesburg newspaper The Star. She was regarded as the preeminent botanical artist in South Africa, and she is commemorated with Aloe lettyae and the former taxon Crassula lettyae (now C. barbata). She is also remembered with the Cythna Letty Nature Reserve in the mountains above Barberton. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Wikipedia; New Dictionary of South African Biography)

leubnitziae/leubnitziana: for Elsbeth Leubnitz (fl. 1884-1885), wife of German naturalist, geographer, ethnologist, painter, traveler, author, plant collector and professor of geography Moritz Eduard Pechuël-Loesche (Lösche) (1840-1913). She explored with him in Namibia and is commemorated with the name Pechuel-Loeschea leubnitziae, a possibly unique case of genus and species names honouring a husband and wife respectively. She is also remembered in the name Arthraerva leubnitziae and probably for Crotalaria leubnitziana. (Gunn & Codd; Wikipedia)

Levierella: for Émile (Emilio) Levier (1839-1911), Swiss botanist, algologist and mycologist who collected extensively across Europe, western Asia, New Guinea, Madagascar, Central America and Mexico. Hugh Clarke adds: "As a result of botanical explorations in Spain between 1878-1879 with Swiss botanist Louis François Jules Rodolphe Leresche (1808-1885), they published A voyage botanique en Espagne in 1878 and under the guidance of Pierre Edmond Boissier (1810-1885), who had extensive knowledge of Spain and who described some 6,000 species, they published Deux excursions dans le nord Bota de l'Espagne et le Portugal" (1880). He also collected in western Asia, New Guinea, Madagascar, Central America and Mexico. The genus Levierella in the Fabroniaceae was published by Johann Karl August (Friedrich Wilhelm) Müller Halle in 1897.

levisanus: for Rev. George J. Lewis (fl. 1690-1702) who sent plants that eventually became known as Leucadendron levisanus to apothecary-botanist James Petiver around 1698 from Madras. Petiver proposed the generic name Lewisanus, which was subsequently changed to Levisanus. Linnaeus included these plants in Brunia and retained the name as a specific epithet with B. levisanus, which was then transferred to Leucadendron. David Hollombe found the following: "A clergyman of this name was appointed chaplain of St. Mary's, Fort St. George, by the Honourable East India Company in 1692, in succession to the Rev. J. Evans (afterwards Bishop of Bangor). He returned to England in 1714." (Gunn & Codd; David Hollombe, pers. comm.; JSTOR)

levyi: for a Benjamin Levy (1896-?), American-born pharmaceutical chemist and stapeliad collector who resided in Rhodesia and collected there and in South Africa. He is commemorated with Huernia levyi which he collected in 1936 in Wankie, Rhodesia, where he lived. (Flora of Zimbabwe; Gunn & Codd)

levynsae/levynsiae/levynsiana: for Dr. Margaret Rutherford Bryan Levyns (née Michell) (1890-1975), prominent phytogeographer, botanist and taxonomist, lecturer in the Botany Department at the University of Cape Town between c.1955 and 1970, published A Guide to the Flora of the Cape Peninsula in 1929 and major sections of Flora of the Cape Peninsula by Adamson & Salter in 1950. She was the first woman to receive a D.Sc. degree from the University of Cape Town. In 1923 she married John Edward Philpott Levyns (1897-1984), later Assistant Provincial Secretary of the Cape Province who was on the council of the Botanical Society of South Africa. She is commemorated with Psilocaulon levynsiae, Ruschia levynsiae, Wahlenbergia levynsiae, Selago levynsiae, Nivenia levynsiae, Thamnochortus levynsiae, Calopsis levynsiae, Crassula levynsiae (now synonymized to C. natans), Mesembryanthemum levynsiae (now Antimima pumila), Isolepis levynsiana, Nestlera levynsae (now Rosenia oppositifolia), and probably also for Phylica levynsiae, Ficinia levynsiae and Polygala levynsiana. (Gunn & Codd; Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; JSTOR; Wikipedia)

lewisiae/lewisiana: for Dr Gwendoline Joyce Lewis (1909 –1967), South African botanist and illustrator, an authority on the Iridaceae, assistant at the Bolus Herbarium, curator of the South African Museum Herbarium for 18 years before being transferred with the herbarium to Kirstenbosch as Senior Research Officer. Her personal collection exceeded 8000 specimens from Cape Province, and her revision of Gladiolus was published posthumously in 1972. She is commemorated with Diascia lewisiae, Chlorophytum lewisiae, Geissorhiza lewisiae, Gladiolus lewisiae, Muraltia lewisiae, Psilocaulon lewisiae (now synonymized to P. junceum), Moraea lewisiae, Babiana lewisiana and the former Thamnochortus lewisiae (now T. guthrieae). (Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

leylandii: for Roberts Leyland (1784-1847), British printer plant collector whose herbarium is deposited at the Belle Vue Museum in Halifax, one of the founders of the Halifax Literary and Philosophical Society and its Curator of Botany. He was a lichen collector and a member of the Botanical Society of London. He also formed collections in conchology, mineralogy and ornithology. He is commemorated with the taxon Erioderma leylandii. (JSTOR; Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturists; "The Early Bryologists of South West Yorkshire" by Tom Blockeel in Bulletin of the British Bryological Society Vol. 38 1981)

Leysera: for Friedrich Wilhelm von Leysser (1731-1815), German botanist, mycologist and Army officer, author of Flora Halensis. He was also a minerologist and and worked as a mineral collector, carried on a lively correspondence with Carl Linnaeus, and was the first president of the Natural History Society of Berlin. The genus Leysera in the Asteraceae was published by Linnaeus in 1763. Because his name was spelled with a double 's' the generic epithet is often recorded as Leyssera, but that is incorrect. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia)

l'heritieri: for Charles Louis L'Heritier de Brutelle (1746-1800), French botanist and magistrate who had a herbarium of 8,000 specimens and a large botanical library. He was Superindent of Parisian Waters and Forests, a position he gained through family connections at the age of 26, but a position which allowed him to undertake a serious study of the native French trees and shrubs. As a botanist he was self-trained but had made numerous acquaintances with botanists who frequented the Jardin du Roi, among whom were the Linnean botanist Pierre M. A. Broussonet who had studied with Joseph Banks. In 1775 he was appointed a judge in the Cour des Aides in Paris, one of the oldest courts in France. His most important botanical work was one which was never finished, Stirpes novae aut minus cognitae (New and Lesser-Known Plants), perhaps because of his involvement in the Dombey affair, and then due to the political upheavels taking place in France at the time. The so-called Dombey affair involved a collection of plants made by the French botanist Joseph Dombey in the Spanish colonies of South America. When they gave permission for the collection, Spanish authorities had imposed the restriction that half the collection would be turned over to Spain and that the plants would be published by Spanish botanists. The ship carrying the collection was seized by the British and some samples lost due to customs delays at Cadiz. French botanists were eager to publish the new species and L'Héritier offered to describe and publish them at his own expense. When the Spanish requested the remaining collection be turned over to them, the French agreed to do so, but L'Héritier packed it up and took it to England where he remained for 15 months, eventually returning to Paris and publishing in 1789 his Sertum Anglicum (An English Garland). The Dombey collection remained in his herbarium until his death, and the Spanish botanists were never given what they were entitled to. L'Héritier was murdered near his home by an unknown attacker and the crime was never solved. His collections of specimens was sold to the Swiss botanist A.P. Candolle, and is now at the Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques in Geneva. The taxa in southern Africa named for him is the former Monsonia l'heritieri (now synonymized to Sarcocaulon l'heritieri). He was also commemorated with the genus L'heritieria which does not appear in southern Africa. (Wikipedia; Rare Books from the MBG Library)

Lichtensteinia/lichtensteiniana/lichtensteinii: for Martin Heinrich Karl von Lichtenstein (1780-1857), German zoologist, herpetologist and botanist, naturalist, traveller, surgeon, director of the Zoological Gardens in Berlin, author, botanical explorer in the Cape, friend of Poleman, and brother of August Gerhard Gottfried Lichtenstein (1780-1851) who produced an index of plant genera called Index alphabeticus filicum in Caroli a Linné Specierum plantarum. After travelling to southern Africa, He became the personal physician to the Dutch Governor of the Cape of Good Hope. He published Reisen im südlichen Afrika (Travels in Southern Africa) in 1810. In the fields of herpetology and ornithology he described many new species of amphibians, birds and reptiles. He supposedly died at sea of wounds received as a consequence of a duel. He was commemorated with the taxa Barleria lichtensteiniana, Trigonocapnos lichtensteinii, Solanum lichtensteinii, Metalasia lichtensteinii, Gazania lichtensteinii, Anthospermum lichtensteinii (now synonymized to A. ericifolium), Ornithoglossum lichtensteinii (now O. undulatum) and probably for Adenogramma lichtensteiniana. The genus Lichtensteinia in the Apiaceae was published in 1826 by French botanist Ludolf Karl Adelbert von Chamisso (born Louis Charles Adélaïde de Chamissot) and German botanist Diederich Franz Leonhard von Schlechtendal, and the genus Lichtensteinia in the Colchicaceae was published in 1808 by German botanist Carl Ludwig von Willdenow. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Gunn & Codd; Wikipedia; IPNI)

Lidbeckia: for Eric Gustav Lidbeck (1724-1803), Swedish botanist, plant collector, student and companion of Carl Linnaeus. He was Lecturer in Medicine at Lund University and was from 1752 the head of the Botanical Gardens, then later a professor of natural history. The genus Lidbeckia in the Asteraceae was published in 1767 by Swedish physician and botanist Peter Jonas Bergius. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

liebenbergii: for Louis Christiaan Cronje Liebenberg (1900-1985), plant collector in South Africa, Lesotho, Namibia, Uganda and Madagascar, geneticist, Department of Agriculture (Barbados), botanist, Department of Agriculture (Uganda), worked in National Herbarium, Pretoria, and did botanical surveys of several national parks. He is commemorated with Adromischus liebenbergii and Delosperma liebenbergii. By coincidence there was a botanist named Cornelius Dawid Bam Liebenberg in South Africa who was born in the same year, but I have found no evidence of a relationship between them. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Gunn & Codd)

liebertiana: for Eduard Wilhelm Hans von Liebert (1850-1934), a Prussian general of infantry, Governor of German East Africa in the 1890's, member of the Reichstag and an early supporter of the German racial theories that were propounded by the Nazis. He is commemorated with Cryptocarya liebertiana. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Lightfootia: for Reverend John Lightfoot (1735-1788), British botanist, conchologist and lichenologist, Fellow of the Royal Society, one of the original Fellows of the Linnean Society, author of Flora scotica. The genus Lightfootia in the Campanulaceae was published in 1788 by French botanist and magistrate Charles Louis L'Héritier de Brutelle. There are also genera Lightfootia in the Rubiaceae and Flacourtiaceae, but not in South Africa. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

lightfootii: for Robert Mark Lightfoot (1864-1921), clerk, handyman, and technical assistant at the South Africa Museum, collector of spiders, insects and scorpions. He is commemorated with the former taxon Oxalis lightfootii (now synonymized to O. heterophylla). (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; Gunn & Codd)

liltvedianum: for William Liltved, co-author with Stevn Johnson of The Cape Orchids. Satyrium liltvedianum is a newly discovered orchid species found by Dr. Timotheus van der Niet in the Kogelberg in 2009. (Geoffrey Andrew, pers. comm.)

Linconia: I have no information regarding the derivation of this epithet. It may or may not be named for a person. The genus Linconia in the Bruniaceae was published by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in 1771.

lindaviana: the taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is Oxalis lindaviana, with no information as to its derivation. It was collected by Friedrich Richard Rudolf Schlecter at Piqueniers Kloof, South Africa in 1896. There are almost 20 other taxa with this specific epithet. It might not commemorate a person at all.

Lindbergia: some confusion has arisen regarding this epithet. The genus Lindbergia in the Leskeaceae was published in 1897 by the Swedish bryologist Nils Conrad Kindberg. In 1968 the Irish botanist Norman Loftus Bor published the epithet Lindbergia in the Poaceae, but probably because the name had already been used he changed it to Lindbergella the following year. Tropicos now considers Lindbergia Bor to be an illegitimate name. What was called for a time Lindbergia Bor was named in honor of Harald Lindberg (1871-1963), Finnish/Swedish botanist, taxonomist and entomologist, author of Enumeratio plantarum in Fennoscandia orientali sponte et sunsponte nascentium and many other publications, younger brother of the famous pomologist Björn Lindberg (1860-1954), and an authority on Mediterranean plants. He was the son of the noted bryologist and Professor of Botany Sextus Otto Lindberg (1835-1889). He was accepted as a member of the Societa pro Fauna et Flora Fennica in 1889 (aged 18). His career at the University of Helsinki spanned some 44 years. He had a collection of 50,000 herbarium sheets, representing 13,000 taxa which he deposited at the herbarium in Helsinki. He was awarded the Linnaeus Medal in 1926 by the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences. This genus (currently Lindbergella) does not appear in South Africa. The genus Lindbergia which does appear in South Africa is the one in the Leskeaceae which was named for Harald Lindberg's father, the great Swedish physician and bryologist Sextus Otto Lindberg (1835-1889), specialist on mosses and hepaticae (liverworts). He worked in the Grand Duchy of Finland, then part of the Russian Empire, then became professor of botany, and dean of the physics-mathematics faculty, at the University of Helsingfors. He made two trips to England in 1872 and 1873, visiting Kew and Oxford, and spent time collecting hepaticae in Ireland. He published numerous papers in Swedish, Latin, English, French and German. He succeeded William Nylander to the chair in botany at the  Botanical Museum in Helsingfors and was also appointed Director of the Botanical Gardens there. (Bryophyte Flora of North America; Mosses of North America by Howard Alvin Crum and Lewis Edward Anderson; An etymology of Australian bryophyte genera by David Meagher; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; JSTOR; Wikipedia; Journal of Botany: British and Foreign)

lindenbergiana/lindenbergianus/lindenbergii: for Johann Bernard Wilhelm Lindenberg (1781-1851), German botanist, co-author of Synopsis Hepaticarum (1844-47), which was a landmark work in the field of hepaticology. He is commemorated with Setaria lindenbergiana and probably also for Radula lindenbergiana and Frullania lindenbergii. (CRC World Dictionary of Grasses)

lindequistii/lindquistii: possibly for Friedrich von Lindequist (1862-1945), German administrator and first civilian Colonial Governor of German South-West Africa, carried out repressive measures in the wake of the Herero and Nama uprisings including concentration camps and forced labor, but was responsible for setting aside and preserving large areas that became national parks. Hermannia lindquistii (which IPNI lists as H. lindequistii and which is now H. demarana) was collected by Dinter in 1907 and there is also in southern Africa a former taxon Psilocaulon lindequistii (now Aridaria noctiflora), but I cannot confirm that they are named for the above individual. However, according to JSTOR records, one of the taxon mentioned here, Hermannia lindquistii, was collected in an area called Damaraland, which was a region of South-West Africa.

linderi/linderiana: for Hans Peter Linder (1954- ), South African botanist, renowned orchid expert, and a lecturer in plant systematics formerly at the University of Cape Town (1987-2001), has published many articles especially about the genus Disa. He has collected in tropical Africa, Australia and New Zealand, but the majority of his collections have been from the southwestern Cape Province, mostly orchids, restios, and grasses. He is the co-author with Hubert Kurzweil of The Orchids of Southern Africa (1999), and has been a full professor at the University of Zurich since 2001. He was also a researcher at the Botanical Research Institute, the forerunner of SANBI, from 1981 to 1986, which included a three-year posting to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The species Disa linderiana and Moraea linderi are named after him. (JSTOR; Gunn & Codd)

Lindernia: for Franz Balthazar (Balthasar) von Lindern (1682-1755), German botanist, author and physician. The genus Lindernia in the Scrophulariaceae was published in 1762 by Italian physician and professor of botany Carlo Allioni. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

lindheimeri: for Ferdinand J. Lindheimer (1801-1879), German botanist who later lived in Texas. He was known as the Father of Texas botany because of his work as the first permanent resident plant collector in the state. He had emigrated to the United States as a political refugee, joined a group of German expatriates in Belleville, Illinois, then travelled to another German settlement near Vera Cruz, Mexico, where he lived for a year. When the Texas Revolution broke out, he went to New Orleans and joined a group of Kentucky volunteers. He spent several winters in St. Louis with the well-known botanist, fellow German George Engelmann, and arranged to collect plants for him and his partner, Asa Gray at Harvard, which he did for the next nine years. Later he joined a German community called New Braunfels, Texas, became editor and then publisher of the Neu Braunfelser Zeitung, ran a school for gifted children, became a justice of the peace, supported the Confederacy during the Civil War, and devoted the remainder of his life to his work as a naturalist. His name is on many species but in southern Africa the taxa that bear his name are Opuntia lindheimeri (Lindheimer's prickly-pear) and Gaura lindheimeri (Lindheimer's beeblossom). (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Handbook of Texas Online; Wikipedia)

lindleyana/lindleyanum/lindleyi: for John Lindley (1799-1865), one of the giants of British botany, colleague of Hooker, Banks and Bentham, and the first professor of botany at London University and later professor of botany at Cambridge University, specialist in orchid classification and plant systematics in general, author of numerous botanical and horticultural publications, regarded as the foremost British orchidologist of the nineteenth century having established some 120 genera of orchids. He was also an administrator, professor, horticulturist, taxonomist, editor, journalist and botanical artist. His "Report to Treasury and Parliament" was largely responsible for the saving of the Royal Garden at Kew from destruction in 1838. He was the author of Rosarum monographia; or a Botanical History of Roses (1820), An Outline of the First Principles of Horticulture (1832), The Genera and Species of Orchidaceous Plants (1835), The Theory and Practice of Horticulture (1840), Pomologia Brittannica (1841), The Vegetable Kingdom (1846), and many other significant works. He was elected a fellow of the Linnean Society of London at the tender age of 21, and he was the editor for many years of The Botanical Register. I can find reference to only a single trip abroad, to Vichy in France toward the end of his life for health reasons, but JSTOR records list him as a plant collector in Mexico and Madagascar. His name was placed on hundreds of species, and it seems reasonable to assume (but it is only an assumption) that he is the one honored by the orchid taxa in southern Africa such as Disperis lindleyana, Holothrix lindleyana (now H. parviflora) and Satyrium lindleyanum (now S. retusum). (Australian National Herbarium Biography; Cambridge University Herbarium; History of Horticulture; Wikipedia)

Lindneria: I have encountered references that say that this genus is named either for a Paul Lindner (1861-1945) or a Dr. E. Lindner, but David Hollombe has provided me with a definitive source that gives a Mr. O. Lindner of Brussels as the individual honored with the name, probably Otto Lindner (1852-1915), German-born agent for Leopold II of Belgium. This individual was travelling in an area of Namibia called Damaraland, and brought back live specimens of a Hyacinth genus that when it flowered was recognized by Théophile Alexis Durand and Louis Lubbers as new, and was in their 1890 publication named by them in Lindner's honor. ("Un Nouveau Genre de Liliacées [Lindneria Th. Dur. et Lubbers]", by Théophile Durand and Louis Lubbers, in the Bulletin of the Botanical Society of France, 1889; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Lindsaea: although the CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names attributes this generic name to a Jamaican botanist, John Lindsay (1785-1803), this is a mistake with regard to his nationality and also to his date of birth. The birth date of 1785 given by this source is also given by the Harvard University Herbarium Database of Botanists which specifically notes: "Died at age 18!" This seems difficult to credit. He was a British surgeon, writer on ferns, correspondent of Sir Joseph Banks, and author who worked in Jamaica. The Botanical Electronic News source referred to below says that in 1794 "John Lindsay, a British surgeon, showed that ferns reproduced from their dust." If the 1785 birthdate were correct, he would have then been only 9. Hugh Clarke adds: "While working in Jamaica in 1794, he observed that ferns produce seed in the form of tiny dust-like round or bean-shaped bodies (spores). He grew full-sized ferns from a mote of fern dust to prove it. When Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, asked Lindsay to collect Jamaican plants, especially ferns, for the Kew Gardens, Lindsay he replied that he would send seeds along with instructions for their sowing. Banks was astonished as the mechanism by which ferns reproduced was hitherto unknown. James Edward Smith, a leading pteridologist, commemorated Lindsay for his discovery by naming a genus of tropical ferns after him." Smith's original commemoration was revised and republished by Jonas Carlsson Dryander in 1793. Another source I found (A Treatise on the Management of Insects) states: "We cannot dismiss those instructions for the preservation or transportation of seeds, without taking notice of a very interesting discovery which Mr. John Lindsay, a surgeon in Jamaica, communicated to Sir Joseph Banks, Bart. in the year 1789, relative to the germination and raising of Ferns from the seed. We shall not presume to follow this gentleman through the whole of his very pleasing discourse, but refer our readers, if they desire a farther account, to the thirteenth article of the Linnaean Transactions, Vol. II." This source says that Lindsay was an assistant to Dr. Clarke, botanist for that island. The source Hortus Jamaicensis by John Lunan says that Mr. John Lindsay was formerly a surgeon in Westmorland. David Hollombe has cleared up the matter by referring me to the source  Eighteenth-century medics: subscriptions, licenses, apprenticeships  (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1985) by P.J. Wallis, which states that his birth date was 'before' 1750. (Botanical Electronic News No. 121 December 9, 1995;  Eighteenth-century medics: subscriptions, licenses, apprenticeships by P.J. Wallis; Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.; David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

lindsayanum: for William Lauder Lindsay (1829-1880), Scottish botanist, lichenologist and physician who collected Rhizocarpon lindsayanum near Dunkeld, Scotland in 1856. He authored the Popular History of British Lichens (1856) and Mind in the Lower Animals in Health and Disease, published in 1880. He also described significant new fungi from New Zealand. He was a physician in Murray's Institute for the Insane in Perth, and is commemorated with the former taxon Rhizocarpon lindsayanum (now R. geographicum). (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

lingelsheimii: for Alexander von Lingelsheim (1874-1937), German botanist and mycologist, professor in Breslau, authority on medicinal plants, commemorated with Bridelia lingelsheimii, now synonymized to Bridelia cathartica. (Wkipedia; JSTOR)

Lintonia: for a Mr. Andrew Linton, a plant collector in East Africa. David Hollombe sent me the following from Veterinary Medicine: A Guide to Historical Sources by Pamela Hunter: "The type of Lintonia was collected at Nairobi, most likely by "Andrew Linton of Gilmanscleugh, Selkirk, agriculturalist in the late nineteenth century before appointment at the School of Agriculture in Cairo. He appears to have worked as Director of Agriculture at government farms in Nairobi and Naivasha in the East Africa Protectorate during the early 1900's. He also researched, wrote and corresponded about veterinary medicine and animal disease. Linton died in 1951." The genus Lintonia in the Poaceae was published in 1911 by Austrian botanist and taxonomist Otto Stapf. JSTOR has a record of an A. Linton who collected 1904-1906 in Kenya, and also a letter from Andrew Linton to Otto Stapf in 1906. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Linzia: for Johann Michael Linz (Johannis Michaelis Linzius) (1771-1855), German entomologist and botanist of Speyer, Germany, with no further details. The genus Linzia in the Asteraceae was published in 1841 by German botanist Carl Heinrich 'Bipontinus' Schultz.

Lippia: for Augustin Lippi (1678-1705), French-born Italian naturalist, botanist, physician and traveller, botanical collector in Egypt, murdered in Abyssinia. The date of his death has been variously given as 1701, 1705 and 1709. The genus Lippia in the Verbenaceae was published by Linnaeus in 1753 and the name adopted from the work of British botanist William Houstoun. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia)

lisabeliae: for Lisabel Irene Hall (née Booysen) (1919-2008), South African botanist, teacher, specialist in Bulbine and wife of botanist Harry Hall (1906-1986) who was in charge of succulents at Kirstenbosch, commemorated with Ruschia isabeliae. See also booysenii. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

lisae-mariae: for Lisa Maria Stauffer (née Imhoof) (1931-2009), graphic designer, scientific illustrator and textile artist, wife of botanist Hans Ulrich Stauffer, one of the collectors of the isotype of Thesium lisae-mariae, and author of the taxon. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

listeriana: for Joseph Storr Lister, Jr. (1852-1927), South African botanist, Chief Conservator of Forests, born in Uitenhage, commemorated with Umtiza listeriana. . (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Listia: for Friedrich Ludwig List (fl. 1828-1837), German botanist and high school teacher at Tilsit, author of Spicilegium botanicum continens stirpes nuperrime in Lithuana detectas et observationes criticas ad cl. Hagenii chloridem Prussicam (1828) and Plantae Lithuanae, quae Chloridi Borussicae cl Hagenii inserendae sunt. Salicum, quae prope Tilsam sponte crescunt adumbrationes (1837), with no further details. The genus Listia in the Fabaceae was published in 1835 by German botanist Ernst Heinrich Friedrich Meyer.

littlewoodii: for Roy Charles Littlewood (1924-1967), British horticulturist, joined the staff of the National Botanic Gardens as Senior Horticulturist 1957, stationed at the Karoo Botanic Garden, Worcester, and collected many succulent plants, including ones in the following genera which bear his name: Ruschia, Trichodiadema, Dactylopsis, Leipoldtia, Lampranthus, Sphalmanthus, and Cephalophyllum, as well as these others which have been lost to synonymy: Drosanthemum (now D. albens), Dorotheanthus (now D. bellidiformis), Aridaria (now A. brevicarpa), Cheiridopsis (now C. denticulata), Crassula (now C. ausensis), Psilocaulon (now P. dinteri), and Conophytum (now C. marginatum). (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

Littonia: for Samuel Litton (1781-1847), Irish physician, professor of botany at Dublin, librarian of the Royal Dublin Society, and Honorary Fellow of the College of Physicians, Dublin. He collected plants in Ireland and the U.K. The Harvard University Herbarium database of botanists and JSTOR record his birth year as 1779. The genus Littonia in the Colchicaceae was published in 1853 by British botanist William Jackson Hooker. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

livingstonei: for David Livingstone (1813-1873), the great British explorer, commemorated with Garcinia livingstonei, for which he made one of the earlest records. There is also a Commelina livingstonii, see below. (Wikipedia; PlantzAfrica)

livingstonii: the taxon in southern Africa which has this epithet is Commelina livingstonii, and I have no information as to its derivation, except that since the common name of this species is Livingston's blue commelina, I assume that it is named for someone named Livingston, and possibly David Livingstone (1813-1873).

Lloydia: for Edward Lhuyd (Lhwyd, Eduardus Luidius) (1660-1709), Welsh naturalist, botanist, linguist, geographer and fossil collector. Hugh Clarke adds the following: "He studied at Oxford University in 1682 before being appointed in 1684, as assistant to Robert Plot, the Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum. Lhuyd took over this post in 1690 and held it until his death. In 1688 he visited Snowdonia and recorded the flora in that region which John Ray used in his Synopsis Methodica Stirpium Britannicorum. Among Lhuyd's many accomplishments, he wrote Lithophylacii Britannici Ichnographia (1699), the first illustrated catalogue of fossils to be published in England, and published the first volume of Archaeologia Britannica (1707), (An Account of the Languages, Histories and Customs of Great Britain, from Travels through Wales, Cornwall, Bas-Bretagne, Ireland and Scotland.) He also made a detailed study of Celtic language families. Lhuyd received an M.A. honoris causa by the University of Oxford (1701) and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (1708)." The genus Lloydia in the Liliaceae was published in 1830 by British botanist Richard Anthony Salisbury based on an original description by German botanist and ornithologist Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach.

Lobelia: for Mathias de L'Obel (1538-1616), Flemish botanist, traveller, plant collector, physician to William, Prince of Orange, and botanist and physician to King James I of England. The genus Lobelia in the Campanulaceae was published in 1753 by Linnaeus. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Lochnera: for Michael Friedrich Lochner von Hummelstein (1662-1720), German botanist, physician and writer. The genus Lochnera in the Apocynaceae was published in 1828 by German botanist and ornithologist Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

lockwoodii: for Stanley George Lockwood-Hill (1903-?), magistrate in the Western Cape, commemorated with Haworthia lockwoodii. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; JSTOR)

Loddigesia/loddigesianus/loddigesii: for Conrad L. Loddiges (1738-1826), British botanist, horticulturist, gardener and nurseryman, introduced many new American species to Great Britain, commemorated with Cyrtanthus loddigesianus and the former taxon Zamioculcas loddigesii (now Zamioculcas zamiifolia). The genus Loddigesia in the Fabaceae was published in 1808 by English physician and taxonomist John Sims. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

lodewykii: for Lodewyk van Heerde (fl. 1935-1947), commemorated with Antimima lodewyckii and the former Aloinopsis lodewykii, now synonymized to Aloinopsis luckhoffii. There is also a Pieter van Heerde (1893-1979) but I don't know if they are related. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; JSTOR)

loedolffiae: for Jeanette Loedolff, South African botanical artist, co-author of Discovering Indigenous Forests at Kirstenbosch and Indigenous Healing Plants of the Herb and Fragrance Gardens: Getting to Know Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, commemorated with Drimia loedolffiae. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

loeschiana/oeschianum: for Alfred Lösch (1865-1946), German succulent plant enthusiast, commemorated with Schwantesia loeschiana and Conophytum loeschianum. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

loeseneriana/Loeseneriella: for Ludwig Eduard Theodor Loesener (1865-1941), German botanist, friend of Friedrich Richard Rudolf Schlechter, commemorated with Huernia loeseneriana and the genus Loeseneriella which was published in 1941 by American botanist Albert Charles Smith. From Hugh Clarke: "He studied in Lausanne then Berlin obtaining a doctorate in 1890. In 1896 he became an Assistant to the Berlin-Dahlem Museum as a botanist and then curator in 1904 and in 1912 received the title of Professor. In 1920 he went into retirement for political reasons but worked without pay at the Botanical Institute. His activities included systematic work on phanerogams and the processing of Eduard Seler’s collections from Mexico and Guatemala. He also studied the flora in the German colony of Kiaochow in China (published 1920) and other areas in Europe. He wrote a number of obituaries for German botanists, such as Seler, Gustav Lindau and Otto Eugen Schultz." (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Hugh Clarke)

Loethainia: for Rudolf Benno von Römer (Roemer) of Neumark and Löthain (1803-1870), German botanist who maintained an extensive botanical library with valuable prints. The genus Loethainia in the Fabaceae was published in 1841 by Gustav Heynhold.

loganii: for James Douglas Logan (1857-1920), British-born railway entrepreneur, station master at Cape Town then a Railway District Superintendent before becoming one of the founders of the town of Matjiesfontein, and a plant collector in that area. Taxa collected by him include Aloinopsis loganii, Antimima loganii, Cotula loganii, Pleiospilos loganii, Stomatium loganii, and Erica loganii. His son Jimmy was also a botanist. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

longiana/longii: for Frank Reginald Long (1884-1961), British horticulturist, trained at Kew Gardens, became Superintendent of Government Plantations in Perak (Malaysia) and was in charge of the Hill Garden, Taiping (1908-1910), eventually settled in South Africa, appointed Director of the Departments of Parks, Beaches and Recreation, joined the South African Air Force during WWII and later was involved in building airports at Cape Town and elsewhere, had a herbarium named for him in Port Elizabeth. He is commemorated with Huernia longii, Orbea longii (formerly Tromotriche longii), Haworthia longiana, the former taxon Delosperma longii (now D. gratiae), and probably also for Tridentea longii and Gasteria longiana. (JSTOR)

Lonicera: for Adam Lonitzer (Lonicer, Lonicerus) (1528-86), German professor of mathematics at Nuremberg. Hugh Clarke adds: " [He] later obtained a medical degree from the University in Mainz and became city physician in Frankfurt. Lonitzer married Magdalena Egenolph, daughter of a Frankfurt printer who specialized in ‘herbals’ - books containing the names and descriptions of plants extolling their medicinal, culinary, aromatic qualities and virtues. When his father-in-law died (1533), Lonitzer inherited a substantial share of the business and ran it with his brothers-in-law. His interest in natural history grew and in 1555 he published his most famous Naturalis Historia, which went through several subsequent editions being published as late as 1783." The genus Lonicera in the Caprifoliaceae was published in 1753 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. (Hugh Clarke)

lorbeeriana: probably for Gerhard Lorbeer (1899-1945), German bryologist, commemorated with Targionia lorbeeriana, which is a species of liverworts.

lossowiana: for Dr. Otto von Lossow, physician from Luderitz, naturalist and mountaineer who documented the flora of the Luderitzbucht region, and friend of Adolar Gottlieb Julius (Hans) Herre, commemorated with Jensenobotrya lossowiana. (PlantzAfrica)

lotterii: for Mervyn C. Lötter, South African botanist for forest classification, Mpumalanga Tourism & Parks Agency, Lydenburg, South Africa, co-author with Ernst Schmidt and Warren McCleland of Trees and Shrubs of Mpumalanga and Kruger National Park, commemorated with Thorncroftia lotteri.

loubseri: for Johan Willem Loubser (1922- ), chief draughtsman of Fisheries Development Corporation of South Africa, interested in indigenous bulbs, secretary of the Indigenous Bulb Growers Association of South Africa, commemorated with Moraea loubseri. (Pacific Bulb Society; Gunn & Codd)

Loudetia: for Dr. Eduard Loudet (1811-1867), a German dentist and surgeon at Karlsruhe. The genus Loudetia in the Poaceae was published in 1841 by German botanist and minister Christian Ferdinand Friedrich Hochstetter. (Flowering Plants in West Africa; Etmological Dictionary of Grasses)

louisabolusiae/louisae: for Harriet Margaret Louisa Bolus (1877-1970), daughter-in-law of Harry Bolus, commemorated with Moraea louisabolusiae and Geissorhiza louisabolusiae. There is also an Oxalis louisae, but I don't know who that commemorates. It was published by Terence Macleane Salter in 1932, and he did work at the Bolus Herbarium at the time, so it probably honors Louisa Bolus as well.

louiseae: for Louise Guthrie (1879-1966), botanist, daughter of Francis Guthrie, commemorated with the former taxa Mesembryanthemum louiseae (now M. aitonis) and Gladiolus louiseae (now G. inflatus). (JSTOR)

louwalbertsii: for Dr. Louw Alberts, a well-known South African scientist, first chairman of Rand Afrikaans University which became the University of Johannesburg, Director-General of the Department of Mineral and Energy Affairs, commemorated with Rotheca louwalbertsii (formerly Clerodendrum louwalbertsii). (PlantzAfrica)

louwii: for (1) Dr. Wynand J. Louw (fl. 1975), botanist, herbarium curator and lecturer at the University of Potchefstroom, commemorated with Euphorbia louwii (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names); (2) Piet Louw (fl. 1980), a farmer, commemorated with Bulbine louwii. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

lowryensis: Erica lowryensis, named for the type locality at Sir Lowry's Pass, Stellenbosch District.

lubbersii: for George Elfried Kurt Lübbers (1912-1999) of Johannesburg, commemorated with Anacampseros lubbersii. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

lucasii: for a certain Mr. Lucas of Rondebosch who sent plants of Homeria lucasii (now Moraea ochroleuca) to Harry Bolus in 1925 where they flowered in his garden, and the taxon was named by Louisa Bolus. May have been William de Neufville Lucas, 1863-1950, a member of the Botanical Society of South Africa. (JSTOR)

luciae: for a Mlle. Lucy Dufour, an acquaintance of French botanist and physician Raymond Hamet who first described Kalanchoe luciae in 1908. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Women and Cacti; David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Luckhoffia: for both Dr. James Lückhoff, prominent physician of Cape Town, and his son Carl August Lückhoff (1914-1960), South African botanical artist, photographer, medical practitioner, naturalist, author and photographer of Table Mountain (1951) and Stapelieae of Southern Africa (1952), older brother of Hilmar Albert Lückhoff (see hilmarii), died Cape Town. Both father and son were for many years friends of Marloth and Louisa Bolus. The genus Luckhoffia in the Asclepiadaceae was published in 1935 by American botanists Alain Campbell White and Boyd Lincoln Sloane, and was named "In honor of father and son who have done so much for the Stapelia cause, alike in the fields of discovery, cultivation, description, revision, photography and painting." (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Gunn & Codd)

luckhoffii: for Dr. James Lückhoff (fl. 1925-1931, died 1973?), South African physician in Cape Town, father of Carl August Lückhoff and Hilmar Albert Lückhoff, accompanied Marloth on botany outings, collected Aloinopsis luckhoffii, Antimima luckhoffii, Conophytum luckhoffii, Delosperma luckhoffii and Gibbaeum luckhoffii. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Luderitzia: see Luederitzia.

Ludwigia: for Christian Gottlieb Ludwig (1709-1773), German botanist and physician, a plant collector and professor of medicine at Leipzig, who went on an expedition to North Africa. Hugh Clarke adds: "He studied medicine and botany from 1728 but was forced to discontinue as a result of a lack of funds and took a job as a botanist on an expedition to Africa under Johann Ernst Hebenstreit (1703-177). He resumed his studies in 1733 at the University of Leipzig obtaining his doctorate in 1737, becoming an associate professor (1740), full professor of medicine (1747), pathology (1755) and therapy (1758). Ludwig is remembered for his correspondence with Carl Linneus, often critical, particularly regarding discussions of the latter's classification system. He published works on both plants and mineralogy." Linnaeus published the genus Ludwigia in the Onagraceae in 1753. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Hugh Clarke)

ludwigiana/ludwigii: for Carl Ferdinand Heinrich von Ludwig (1784-1847), German-born pharmacist and patron of the natural sciences who came to South Africa in 1805. (Elsa Pooley; Etymological Dictionary of Grasses)

luebbertii/luebbertiana: for Dr. Friedrich Anton Lübbert (1859-?) of Windhoek, emigrated from Hamburg to Swakopmund at the age of 37. He was born in Silesia and came to Freiburg to study medicine, where he received his doctorate in 1883. He was the founder of the Freiburg Museum for Nature and Ethnology. Initially working as a medical duty officer in Würzburg (1885-1886), he eventually became a staff surgeon at the Kaiser Wilhelm Academy for military education in Berlin. He worked in the laboratory of operational hygiene (1889-1891). Until 1895, Dr. Lübbert was the director of the chemical laboratory of hygiene in Dresden, which had been provided by the War Ministry. In 1895, he concluded his post-doctoral work at the University of Breslau research in the field of hygiene and was employed as a lecturer there from 1896 for a year. Lübbert worked within the colonial service from 1 April 1897, rising to the rank of chief medical staff officer and senior physician in Windhoek in German South West Africa (present-day Namibia). He worked on combating malaria and the spread of rinderpest. In addition to his professional activities, he also wrote for colonial journals. In a travelogue from 1900 about the north of the country, he chronicles his efforts to contain plagues of mosquitos and to contain malaria infections. Lübbert also used his travels to collect natural history and ethnological objects, which he donated to various German museums and botanical gardens. He also studied local healing methods, especially the Herero use of snake venom. In an article published in 1901, he not only described indigenous healing techniques, but also fundamental concepts and ideas regarding death and illness among the local people, as well as sacrificial and burial rituals. He left the colonial service in 1902 and moved to Hamburg, where he worked as an assistant at the Institute of Hygiene. He also apparently took a trip to the Amazon region in 1907. His exact birth and death dates are unknown. (Information from a German website on Freiburg Museums and from David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Luederitzia/luederitzii: for August Lüderitz (Luederitz) (1838-1922), German merchant and collector who came to the Cape in 1884, younger brother of Franz Adolf Eduard Lüderitz (Luederitz) (1834-1886). Hugh Clarke provides the following: "In his younger days he farmed in the USA (1860-1863), travelled in Central and South America (1866-1867), lived in Columbia (1870-1878) and from 1882-1883 worked for his brother’s trading business in Lagos, Nigeria. In 1884 he moved to Walvis Bay, and tried to obtain trading concessions from the Herero chief, Kamaherero, but without success. He returned to Lübeck, Germany. It is thought that he collected plant specimens in Hereroland for his brother Franz Adolf Eduard Lüderitz, who sent them to the Berlin-Dalhem Museum. These were credited Adolf Lüderitz." The genus Luederitzia in the Malvaceae was published in 1888 by German botanist Karl Moritz Schumann. The specific epithet luederitzii in the genera Titanopsis, Drosanthemum, Oxalis, Acacia, Crassula and Trichocaulon refers either to the location where they were collected, Luderitz, Namibia, or to Franz Adolf Eduard Lüderitz, from whom the Bay got its name. It's difficult to say which. (Gunn & Codd; Hugh Clarke). See next entry.

luederitziana/luederitzianum/luederitzii: for Franz Adolph (Adolf) Eduard Lüderitz (Luederitz) (1834-1886), merchant and colonial pioneer, tobacco farmer and rancher, or his younger brother August (1838-1922). Of the two of them, August was the plant collector, but Adolf reportedly sent a collection of specimens to the Berlin Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum. Hugh Clarke adds: "In 1878 he inherited his father’s trading business and established a trading station at Lagos, later turning his attention to S.W. Africa (= Namibia). In 1883 he acquired land extending from the Orange River Mouth to latitude 26° south and 32 km inland which became known as Lüderitzland, and in 1884 concluded treaties with other Nama chiefs to acquire the whole Nama area to the Kunene river. He obtained support from Bismarck and the German government and protection for this territory which established German interests in S.W. Africa." He travelled extensively in the United States, and perished by drowning in the Orange River in Namibia. Franz's name is remembered on Luderitz Bay in Namibia, and also on the genus Neoleuderitzia. The taxa Vernonia luederitziana, Cleome luederitziana, Nesaea luederitziana, Monelytrum luederitzianum, Monsonia luederitziana, and Acacia luederitzii commemorate one or the other of the brothers, or the location where they were found. (Gunn & Codd; Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names). See previous entry.

lugardae/lugardiae/lugardiana: for Charlotte Eleanor Howard (Mrs. Edward James Lugard) (1859-1939), professional painter of miniatures and water colors, plant collector, commemorated with Ceropegia lugardae, Monadenium lugardiae, Aptosimum lugardiae, Crinum lugardiae and the former taxon Aloe lugardiana (now A. zebrina). (Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

lugardii: for Maj. Edward James Lugard (1865-1957), British-born plant collector, Indian Army, married Charlotte Eleanor Howard. His brother Lord Frederick John Dealtry Lugard (1858-1945), 1st and last Baron Lugard, was also a plant collector who worked with both Edward and Charlotte, and another Lugard named Cyril is also listed by JSTOR as a co-collector of Edward's. JSTOR and the National Register of Archives at Kew give his date of death as 1957 but Gunn & Codd, the Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturists, the Harvard University Herbarium database of botanists and Flora Zambesiaca all give it as 1944. That's quite a discrepancy which I have not resolved, but most likely results from a single error picked up by multiple sources. And curiously, a Yahoo message board on Stapeliads by Brian Bates which gives biographical information about botanists and collectors contains the following entry: "Lugard, Edward James [Major] (1865-1957) b. Worcester, 23 Mar 1865; d. (place? date?) 1944." However, a communication I have received from Mr. Jonathan Cates, Collections Knowledge Officer at the National Archives, in response to my inquiry and for which I thank him, absolutely lays the matter to rest. He provides the information that Maj. Lugard died in the first week of January, 1957, and that "Edward corresponded quite extensively with Margery Perham, Baron Lugard’s biographer, until at least 1954. Two catalogues of the papers and correspondence of Baron Lugard and Margery Perham (compiled by Oxford University) list letters by Maj. Lugard after the death of his brother [1945] and concerning his biography." According to the Abinger Common Parish records (Surrey), he was buried 8 January 1957 next to the grave of his wife Eleanor. In southern Africa Edward James Lugard is commemorated with Orbea lugardii, Sesamothamnus lugardii, Barleria lugardii, Agelanthus lugardii, former taxa Scirpus lugardii, Fockea lugardii, Hoodia lugardii, Albizia lugardii, Ipomoea lugardii and Hermannia lugardii, and probably for Tapinanthus lugardii and Pachycymbium lugardii. He collected extensively in Botswana and his name in on many taxa there. He and his wife also collected in Kenya and are commemorated either separately or together with the taxa Senecio lugardae, Swertia lugardae and Crotalaria lugardiorum which do not appear in southern Africa. (Gunn & Codd; JSTOR; Jonathan Cates, pers. comm.)

luisae: for Louisa Martha Derenberg (née Warburg) (1879-1973), wife of Dr. Julius Derenberg, succulent grower of Hamburg, and friend of Professor Kurt Dinter and Martin Heinrich Gustav Schwantes, the author of the taxon Derenbergiella luisae. Dinter and Schwantes also published the species Mesembryanthemum julii for him. (Women and Cacti; HUH)

luiseae: for Luise Meyer (1905-?), daughter of Luise Meyer and Rev. Louis Gottlieb Meyer, the pastor at Steinkopf & Komaggas, Republic of South Africa, who discovered a number of mesembs and is commemorated with the former Conophytum luiseae, now synonymized to C. bilobum. (Women and Cacti)

lujae: for Pierre Edouard (or Edouard-Pierre) Luja (1875-1953), plant collector in Mozambique but mostly in the Congo where he collected the former taxon Brachystegia lujae which is now B. spiciformis. (JSTOR)

Lumnitzera: for István (Stefani, Stefan) Lumnitzer (1750-1806), Hungarian botanist and physician. Hugh Clarke adds the following: "...[He] pioneered the systematic description of Central European plants. Author of De rerum naturalium adfinitatibus (1777) and  Flora Posoniensis exhibens plantas circa Posonium sponte crescentes secundum systema sexuale Linneanum digestas (1791)." The genus Lumnitzera in the Combretaceae was published in 1803 by German botanist and taxonomist Carl Ludwig von Willdenow. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Hugh Clarke)

lundgrenii: for Jan Lundgren (1941- ), Swedish botanist, who with his colleague Rune Bertil Nordenstam (1936- ), collected Anaxeton lundgrenii in 1974 in the Cape Province above Hermanus. Jan Lundgren was the author of Revision of the Genus Anaxeton (1972). (JSTOR)

lutwychei: for a Mr. Stanley George Lutwyche (1845-1919) of Kent, who is said to have cultivated Richardia lutwychei in 1893 from a plant imported from Lake Nyanza. He worked in leather and held a patent for improvements to saddles, later also a general merchant. (Kew Bulletin; JSTOR; David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

lutzeyeri: for Heiner Lutzeyer (fl. 1997), German-born plant collector who arrived in Cape Town in 1953, founder of the Grootbos Private Nature Reserve overlooking Walker Bay and co-author of Field Guide to the Flora of Grootbos Nature Reserve, winner of the Flora Conservation Award by the Botanical Society in 2008, commemorated with Lachenalia lutzeyeri and Conophytum lutzeyeri, two of the five new species he discovered on his Grootbos reserve.

lutzii: one source says this is named for Adolpho Lutz (1855-1940), Brazilian naturalist. The taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is the former Gasteria lutzii, now synonymized to G. excelsa. I would like some confirmation of this. (Encyclopédie des Cactus)

lyalli: possibly for (1) Dr. Robert Lyall (1790-1831), Scottish botanist who spent many years in Russia, plant collector in Madagascar where Indigofera lyallii was collected, or (2) David Lyall (1817-1895), plant collector. According to JSTOR records, an Indigofera bojeri was collected in Madagascar by someone named Lyall in 1848, and of the Lyalls listed by JSTOR only David Lyall's dates would fit with this. Of course it could be for a Lyall who is not listed in the JSTOR records. There is also an Asplenium lyallii native to South Africa and elsewhere. (Gledhill; HerbWeb)

lydiae: for Lydia Triebner (fl. 1948), wife of South African plant collector Wilhelm Triebner (1883-1957), commemorated with Conophytum lydiae, Ophthalmophyllum lydiae and the former Lithops lydiae, now Lithops fulviceps. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

lyellii: named for Charles Lyell (1767-1849), Scottish botanist and father of the famous geologist Charles Lyell. He was born in Scotland and educated at St Paul's School, London, the University of St. Andrews and Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1791, proceeding to an M.A. in 1794. He was a law student at Lincoln’s Inn, which was one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. He inherited the Kinnordy estate of his father in 1796 and gave up the law as a profession and subsequently married. From 1797 to 1825 he lived at Bartley Lodge near Cadnam in Hampshire, England, within the boundaries of the New Forest National Park in southern England. He became a fellow of the Linnaean Society in 1813 and in 1826 settled at Kinnordy in Scotland. He was drawn to the study of mosses and had several species named for him as well as the genus Lyellia published by Robert Brown. He also contributed lichens to James Edward Smith's English Botany, and while not publishing, he corresponded with William Jackson Hooker, James Sowerby and Brown. Before his wife died in 1850, she bore him three sons and seven daughters. He was also a devotee of the works of Dante, and wrote an English translation of Dante’s Inferno as well as translations of Dante’s poetic works. The taxon which bears this epithet is the liverwort species Pallavicinia lyellii, which was published in 1821 by the American botanist Asa Gray. Two other taxa which do not appear in southern Africa, Rosa lyellii and Blyttia lyellii, are apparently attributable to Charles Lyell, Sr.

lynchii: for Richard Irwin Lynch (1850-1924), English gardener and botanist, apprenticed with his father who was head gardener to the Earl of St. Germans, then went to Kew Gardens where he became Foreman of the Herbaceous Department and then Senior Foreman in the Tropical Department, appointed curator of the Cambridge Botanic Garden in 1879, author of The Book of the Iris, began the first crossing experiments with Gerbera jamesonii and other Gerbera species in 1890. He is commemorated with the former taxon name Gerbera lynchii which has now been synonymized to G. ambigua. (Wikipedia)

lynetteae: for Mrs. Lynette ('Lyn') Fish (née Smook) (1946- ), South African botanist who worked at the KwaZulu-Natal Herbarium, has collected over most of South Africa, also Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland, Malawi, co-author of Grasses of Southern Africa for the Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa, 58 (1990), and was scientific editor of the SABONET report A Checklist of Angola Grasses (2004), specializes in the Poaceae. She is commemorated with Asparagus lynetteae, which she was the first to collect. (JSTOR)

Lysimachia: for Lysimachos (360-281BC), a Macedonian by birth, and King of Thrace, Asia Minor and Macedonia. The genus Lysimachia in the Primulaceae was published by Linnaeus in 1753. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Macadamia: for John Macadam (1827-1865), Scottish-born Australian analytical chemist, medical teacher and politician, and was the first lecturer to teach at the University of Melbourne School of Medicine. Between 1857 and 1862 he was a member of the organization that later became the Royal Society of Victoria and was Honorary Secretary of the Exploration Committee that organised the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition. He became Vice-President in 1863. Two years later in died at sea after fracturing his ribs in a storm and developing pleurisy. The genus Macadamia in the Proteaceae was named for him in 1857 by his colleague Ferdinand von Mueller. He is not to be confused with John Loudon McAdam, the Scottish engineer and road-builder who invented the paving process known as macadamization, from which we have the term 'tarmac' shortened from 'tar macadam.' (Wikipedia)

macaulayae: for Mrs. Mary Adelaide Macaulay (née Gairdner) (1878-?) who collected in Zambia. Her husband was Frederick Charles Macaulay, a district commissioner for Northern Rhodesia who was involved in the suppression of the Matabele uprising against the British South Africa Company in 1893, killed in 1916 near Loos, France while serving with the 1st King Edward's Horse Regiment. His brother, Kenneth Zachary Pollack Macaulay, was killed in action during the South African War (1899-1902). Different sources spell his name variously, as McAulay, MacAulay, or Macaulay. Mary Adelaide's sister, Alice Elizabeth Gairdner, is also listed as a plant collector around 1910-1912. She was born in 1873 and never married. The taxa in southern Africa that had the specific epithet macaulayae are the former Mimusops macaulayae, now synonymized to Manilkara mochisia, and Crotalaria macaulayae, now C. distans. (JSTOR)

macclounii: for John McClounie (fl. 1893-1903), plant collector in Malawi and Zambia. He was a British forester who came to Malawi in 1893 and became Director of the Scientific Department in 1897. He was a co-collector of Alexander Whyte (1834-1908), and is commemorated with Eriochloa macclounii. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses; JSTOR)

macdougalii: for Daniel Trembly MacDougal (1865-1958), American botanist and plant collector, pioneer plant physiologist, worked at the New York Botanical Garden, also Director of Botanical Research at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C. until his retirement. He was "the leading American authority on desert ecology and one of the earliest botanists to research chlorophyll. He is also known as the inventor of the MacDougal dendrograph, an instrument used for recording changes in the volume of tree trunks." He is commemorated with the former taxon Geigeria macdougalii, now synonymized to G. alata. (New York Botanical Garden; JSTOR)

Macfadyena: for Dr. James Macfadyen (1798 [or 1800]-1850), Scottish botanist, physician, Fellow of the Linnean Society, and author of the incomplete Flora of Jamaica. The genus Macfadyena in the Bignoniaceae was published in 1845 by the French-Swiss botanist Alphonse Louis Pierre Pyramus de Candolle. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Mackaya: for James Townsend Mackay (1775-1862), Scottish botanist and gardener, first curator of the Trinity College Dublin Botanic Garden from 1804 until his death, and principal author of Flora Hibernica. He was also the author of A Systematic Catalogue of the rare plants found in Ireland (1806-7) in which he noted that up to this time botanists only recorded plants considered to be rare or of medicinal value, a practice that probably resulted in the loss of many records and locations of then common plants. The genus Mackaya in the Acanthaceae was published in 1859 by British botanist William Henry Harvey. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

mackenii: for Mark Johnston McKen (1823-1872), a pioneer collector in KwaZulu-Natal who became the first curator of the Natal Botanic Garden in Durban in 1851. He was born in Scotland and after spending some time in Jamaica came to Natal in 1850. He resigned as Curator and became the manager of a sugar plantation, and married the sister of John Medley-Wood. Later he became Curator of the Natal Botanic Garden again, and authored a small booklet The Ferns of Natal. He is commemorated with Barleria mackenii, Cyrtanthus mackenii, Periglossum mackenii, Oeceoclades mackenii, the former Apodolirion mackenii (now A. buchananii) and Haemanthus mackenii (now H. deformis), and possibly also for Erispermum mackenii, Peponium mackenii and Berkheya mackenii. (PlantzAfrica; Flora of Zimbabwe; Gunn & Codd)

mackenziei: a collection of Pyrenopsis mackenziei was made by a Miss Armstrong and a Mr. Mackenzie in the Port-Natal area (which is what the Port of Durban used to be known as) and sent to T.A. Jones of Dublin who named them for Mackenzie, about whom I have no further information.

maclayana: the type of Parmelia maclayana was collected by someone named Maclay. The Bulletin of the British Museum of Natural History states that: "Species of Parmelia subgenus Amphigymnia (Vainio) Dodge form one of the major dominant groups of lichens in East Africa. Being large and conspicuous they were frequently collected by both botanists and non-botanists on various expeditions during the 19th century. New species and infraspecific taxa now classified in Amphigymnia were described by contemporary lichenologists (names in parentheses) from material brought back to Europe by the following collectors: Hannington (Muller, 1890), Hildebrandt (Krempelhuber, 1877, Muller, 1884, 1885), Hoist (Muller, 1894), Liechtenstein & Pospischill (Steiner, 1897), Maclay (Muller, 1891), Meyer (Stein, 1888; Muller, 1890), Schimper (Muller, 1892), Scott Elliot (Vainio, 1898), Stuhlmann (Muller, 1893, 1894), Thomson (Stirton, 1877-78), and Volkens (Muller, 1894). Most of these new taxa, together with records of other lichens occurring in our area, were included in an account by Stizenberger (1890, 1891, 1893, 1895) of lichens known from Africa at that time." The only person I can find that might be related to this name is the Russian explorer, ethnologist, anthropologist and biologist Nicholas Miklouho-Maclay (1846-1888) who conducted botanical studies in New Guinea, the islands of the South Pacific, the Phillipines, the Malay Peninsula and other adjacent areas, a prominent figure of nineteenth century Australian science and one of the earliest followers of Charles Darwin, whose name is commemorated by the New Guinea tree species Pouteria maclayana, the taxon Illipe maclayana, and the banana species Musa maclayi, but this is just a guess, and frankly I think it's a long shot. (Wikipedia; National Herbarium of the Netherlands)

macleae/macleai/macleana/macleanum: for John Hunter McLea (1836-1878), Scottish-born horticulturist who came to South Africa in the 1850's, settled at Graaff-Reinet, established a forestry nursery and a municipal botanic garden of which he became curator, studied mosses, travelled and collected extensively, was appointed State Botanist of the Transvaal Republic, and established what became known as Burgers Park in Pretoria. His name is sometimes recorded as MacLea. He is commemorated wtth the taxa Polystichum macleae, Pterygoneurum macleanum, Orthotrichum macleai, and the former taxa Lophocolea macleana (now synonymized to L. difformis) and Sutera macleana (now Chaenostoma floribundum). (JSTOR; Gunn & Codd)

Macledium: probably for William Sharp Macleay (1792–1865), British scholar, diplomat, natural historian, entomologist, and prolific author, well known to Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) who was editor of Dictionnaire des Sciences Naturelles in which the genus Macledium is published. He followed his father's interest in entomology, corresponded with Charles Darwin although he disagreed with his theories of evolution, and was the author of Horae Entomologicae; or, Essays on the Annulose Animals, parts 1-2 (1819–1821) and Annulosa Javanica or an Attempt to illustrate the Natural Affinities and Analogies of the Insects collected in Java by T. Horsfield, no. 1 (London, 1925). He was born and educated in England, attended Trinity College, was apponted in 1818 attaché to the British Embassy in Paris and secretary to the board for liquidating British claims on the French government, then in 1825 moved to Cuba where he became British commissioner of arbitration to the conjoint British and Spanish Court of Commission in Havana for the abolition of the slave trade. He retired in 1836 and emigrated to Australia in 1839. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and a member of both the Linnean Society and the Zoological Society of London, and was elected President of the natural history section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. His brother was the Australian explorer and statesman Sir George Macleay (1809-1891) and his cousin was the Australian politician, naturalist, zoologist, and herpetologist Sir William John Macleay (1820 1891). He was also a member of the National Board of Education, and he served on its Executive Council. He never married. A second less likely possibility would be William's father, Alexander Macleay (1767-1848), Scottish entomologist and politician. After a classical education he became a wine merchant. When the Anglo-Boer war broke out (?) he was also appointed chief clerk in the prisoners of war office. After the war he became head of the correspondence department of the Transport Board  and by 1806 its secretary. Macleay's chief interest was entomology, principally lepidoptery. By 1825 was said to have the finest and most extensive collection of insects of any private individual in England and possibly the world. He was elected as a Fellow by the Linnean Society (1794), of the Royal Society (1809) and a foreign member of the royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (1813).  He served as secretary for the Linnaen Society from 1798-1825 and joined the Royal Society council in 1824. In 1825, he accepted an apointment as Colonial Secretary for New South Wales, Australia, and arrived in Sydney in January, 1826, residing there for the remainder of his life. His political career is too details to describe here. While there, for a while, the Sydney Botanic Garden was under his official care and he also developed on his own land an extensive botanical garden in Elizabeth Bay, Sydney.  After his death,  his scientific collection, augmented by his sons and nephew, was transferred to the Macleay Museum at the University of Sydney in 1890. He was honored by the generic epithet Macleaya, which does not appear in southern Africa. A third possibility is the suggestion by David Hollombe: "Possibly for John McLeod (1777?-1820), Scottish naval surgeon and author of a number of books including A Voyage to Africa, with some account of the manners and customs of the Dahomian people (1820)." After serving on ships in the English Channel, Africa, Jamaica and the Mediterranean, he was appointed to the frigate Alceste which carried Lord Amherst on a mission to establish commercial relations with China. Another person on board was Clarke Abel (see Abelia). who served as Chief Medical Officer and Naturalist to the British Embassy in Canton during the period when Lord Amherst was unsuccessfully conducting his mission. When the Alceste was wrecked on its homeward voyage in the Java Sea, McLeod along with Amherst, Abel and part of the crew managed to make it in ship's boats to Batavia, subsequently returning to England by way of St. Helena and the Cape of Good Hope. In 1818 he published Narrative of a Voyage in His Majesty's ship Alceste to the Yellow Sea, along the coast of Corea, to the Island of Lewchew. The derivation of this epithet is extremely uncertain, and although the website "Dictionary of Eponyms" says this epithet is named for one or the other of the Macleays, it is also possible that none of these individuals gave their name to the genus Macledium in the Asteraceae, which was published in 1825 by French botanist and naturalist Alexandre Henri Gabriel de Cassini, who did not explain the reason for his choice of the name. The Latin suffix '-ium' implies 'diminutive', 'the smaller', or in this case, 'the younger', which would point to William Sharp Macleay. (Hugh Clarke; Wikipedia; David Hollombe; Dictionary of Eponyms; Australian Dictionary of Biography; Dictionary of National Biography)

macloughlinii: for Major Alfred George McLoughlin (1886-1960), South African botanist and member of the Department of Native Affairs working mainly in the Transkei, life member of the South African Association for the Advancement of Science, who worked particularly on orchids and succulents, commemorated with Orbea macloughlinii and Stenoglottis macloughlinii. (Elsa Pooley; Gunn & Codd)

Maclura: for William Maclure (1763-1840), Scottish-born North American geologist, agriculturist, traveller, one of the founders and then President of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. The genus Maclura in the Moraceae was published in 1818 by British botanist and zoologist Thomas Nuttall. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

macmasteri: for Cameron McMaster (?-2018), amateur botanist, sheep breeding authority and manager of the Dohne Merino Sheep Breeders' Society of South Africa, bulb grower and nursery owner, botanical tour leader, author of Sheep in My Blood, wildflower authority, for his invaluable contributions to the Eastern Cape flora. He is commemorated with Cyrtanthus macmasteri and Ceropegia macmasteri as well as two butterfly species, Trimenia macmasteri and Aloeides macmasteri. Cameron McMaster did the follow-up work to locate where the Cyrtanthus grew and obtained specimens, so the necessary documentation could be done for verifying and naming this rarely seen species. (African Bulbs)

macnaughtonii: for C.B. MacNaughton (1895-1909), forester and woodcutter in the Knysna area, commemorated with Faurea macnaughtonii. (Trees and Shrubs of Mpumalanga and Kruger National Park)

macneilii: for Patrick Gordon McNeil (1908-1986), South African farmer interested in cultivating indigenous bulb plants, especially Gladiolus and Cyrtanthus. He is listed by JSTOR has having a co-collector named Anna Amelia Mauve, and their records also indicate that Gladiolus macneilii was collected by A.A. Mauve and Mrs. McNeil in 1969. (Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

macowani/Macowania/macowaniana/macowanianum/macowanii: for Dr. Peter MacOwan (1830-1909), professor of chemistry at Huddersfield College, moved to South Africa for his health, and became Principal of Shaw College. After taking up botany, he began collecting and corresponding with people like Asa Gray at Harvard and Sir William Hooker at Kew. He was one of the first professors of botany in Cape Town, Director of the Cape Town Botanic Gardens, later Professor of Botany at the South African College, and Government Botanist in charge of the Herbarium until 1905. He collected a specimen of Leucadendron macowanii in the Wynberg area in the southwestern Cape around 1883. He was an enormously productive plant collector and is also commemorated with names in the current genera Struthiola, Senecio, Muraltia, Buxus, Albuca, Erica, Apodolirion, Crinum, Cyrtanthus, Alepidea, Eulophia, Disperis, Solanum, Isoglossa, Ruschia, Merx-muellera, Heliophila, Crassula and Walafrida, and probably others plus many that have since been synonymized. The genus Macowania in the Asteraceae was published by British botanist Daniel Oliver in 1870. (Gunn & Codd; Wikipedia)

macrourum: the taxon in southern Africa that has this specific epithet is Pennisetum macrourum, and I was sure at first that it commemorated some person. But David Hollombe put me onto the right derivation, which is that it stems from the Greek makros, "long or large" and oura, "the tail." Stearn's Dictionary of Plant Names does list macrurus meaning "long-tailed," The Illustrated Dictionary of Gardening by George Nicholson, John Garrett and James William Helenus Trail has "long-tailed" in parentheses next to the name Polypodium macrourum, George Don's A General System of Gardening and Botany lists Linaria macroura as long-tailed toad flax, and there's a bird called the long-tailed hawk, Latin name Urotriorchis macrourus. So that's the answer. There are almost 20 taxa with this specific epithet (and almost 30 with the epithet macroura). (California Plant Names: Meanings and Derivations)

maderi: for Philippus Albertus Mader (1835-1904), South African land surveyor in the Cape Colony who collected Erica maderi in South Africa and whose name is commemorated by Oxalis maderi. He visited Kew in 1874 and gave them a collection of Namaqualand plants. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

magilliana: for Robert Earle Magill (1947- ), American botanist and bryologist, Director of Research at the Missouri Botanical Garden, co-author of Flora of Southern Africa, Part 1 - Bryophyta, and A Dictionary of Mosses. He is commemorated with the moss taxa Syntrichia magilliana and Astomiopsis magilliana.

magna: for Albertus Magnus, whose real name was Graf von Bollstädt, a famous German philosopher or theologian who lived between the 12th and 13th century and wrote De vegetabilus, a botanical work in seven volumes. The species Alberta magna is native to KawZulu-Natal and is commonly called Natal flame bush. This is one of the rare occurrences where both the genera and the species were named for the same person. German botanist and botanical historian Ernst Heinrich Meyer published both the genus and the type species (magna) in 1838. (PlantzAfrica)

Magnolia: for Pierre Magnol (1638-1715), French botanist, Professor of Botany and Director of the Royal Botanic Garden of Montpellier, and briefly a member of the Académie Royale des Sciences de Paris. Coming from a family of pharmacists, it is not surprising that he developed an interest in botany and was a practicing physician and doctor to the King's court, a position for which he was recommended by Guy-Crescent Fagon and Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, one of his students. He was a professor of medicine at the University of Montpellier, and one of the founding members of the Société Royale des Sciences de Montpellier. He was also a member of the Académie Royale des Sciences de Paris. Two of his other students were the brothers Antoine and Bernard de Jussieu. He was the author of the major work Prodromus historiae generalis plantarum, in quo familiae plantarum per tabulas disponuntur (1689) in which he described his concept of plant families, which was a classification based on combinations of morphological characters, and was a new idea. He also wrote Botanicum Monspeliense, sive Plantarum circa Monspelium nascentium index [Flora of Montpellier, or rather a list of the plants growing around Montpellier] (1676) and Novus caracter [sic] plantarum, in duo tractatus divisus: primus, de herbis & subfructibus, secundus, de fructibus & arboribus, published posthumously by his son, Antoine Magnol (1676-1759), [New character of plants, divided into two treatises: the first on herbs and small shrublike plants, the second on shrubs and trees]. Wikipedia describes the eponymy of this epithet as follows: "In 1703 Charles Plumier (1646–1704) described a flowering tree from the island of Martinique in his Genera. He gave the species, known locally as "talauma", the genus name Magnolia, after Pierre Magnol. The English botanist William Sherard, who studied botany in Paris under Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, a pupil of Magnol, was most probably the first after Plumier to adopt the genus name Magnolia. He was at least responsible for the taxonomic part of Johann Jacob Dillenius's Hortus Elthamensis and of Mark Catesby's Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands. These were the first works after Plumier's Genera that used the name Magnolia, this time for some species of flowering trees from temperate North America. Carl Linnaeus, who was familiar with Plumier's Genera, adopted the genus name Magnolia in 1735 in his first edition of Systema naturae, without a description but with a reference to Plumier's work. In 1753, he took up Plumier's Magnolia in the first edition of Species plantarum. Since Linnaeus never saw an herbarium specimen (if there ever was one) of Plumier's Magnolia and had only his description and a rather poor picture at hand, he must have taken it for the same plant which was described by Catesby in his 1730 Natural History of Carolina. He placed it in the synonymy of Magnolia virginiana var. fœtida, the taxon now known as Magnolia grandiflora. The species that Plumier originally named Magnolia was later described as Annona dodecapetala by Lamarck, and has since been named Magnolia plumieri and Talauma plumieri (and still a number of other names) but is now known as Magnolia dodecapetala." (Wikipedia)

mahonii: for John Mahon (1870-1906), Irish gardener at Kew, forester in Malawi, curator of Entebbe Botanic Garden in Uganda, died of sleeping sickness. He is commemorated with Delosperma mahonii, which he collected in Zimbabwe. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; JSTOR)

maidenii: for Joseph Henry Maiden (1859-1925), British-born Australian botanist who contributed significantly to knowledge of the flora of Australia and became a major authority on the genera Eucalyptus and , first curator of the Technological Museum in Sydney, consulting botanist to the Department of Agriculture and then Superintendent of Technical Education and Director of the Botanical Gardens, author of The Useful Native Plants of Australia, Sir Joseph Banks, the Father of Australia, Bibliography of Australian Economic Botany and many works on the plants of New South Wales. He is commemorated with Eucalyptus maidenii, which is now considered a synonym of E. globulus. (Wikipedia)

mairei/Mairia: for Herr Louis Maire (fl. 1815-1833), a Prussian plant collector and companion of Johannes Ludwig Leopold Mund who was sent by the Prussian government and the Berlin Museum to the Cape about 1816. They apparently did a lot of collecting at first and then their efforts diminished to the point where they were accused of living in 'sloth and gaiety.' They were recalled but refused to comply. Mund became a surveyor and Maire set up as a doctor. Maire also may have begun using the name Lemaire. Phylica mairei was collected in 1820 by Maire and Mund near Bredasdorp. The genus Mairia in the Asteraceae was published in 1832 by German botanist and physician Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck. (Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.; Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

maitlandii: for Thomas Douglas Maitland (1885-1978), British economic botanist on the gardening staff of the Royal Botanical Gardens, traveller and botanical collector in Africa. He collected Digitaria maitlandii in Uganda although JSTOR specimen records for this taxon record the collector incorrectly as T.W. Maitland. He collected in Cameroon, the Congo, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda, and is also commemorated with Melinis maitlandii, which has now become a synonym of Melinis minutiflora. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses)

malherbei: for a Mr. Marthinus Malherbe (1885-1976), South African nurseryman and amateur botanist born in Wellington who created the Sheilam Cactus Gardens nursery in Robertson, South Africa, commemorated with Aloinopsis malherbei which he collected in Calvinia in 1935. He discovered many new succulent species in the veld. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; GardenGuides.com; UBC Botanical Garden)

mallei: for Steven Allen Hammer (1951- ), American pianist, plant collector, horticulturist and specialist on Mesembryanthemums especially Conophytum, lecturer and research fellow at the University of Cape Town, author of The Genus Conophytum, Lithops - Treasures of the Veld, and a number of other works, regarded internationally as one of the foremost authorities on Mesembryanthemums, manages a "botanic garden disguised as a nursery," and has done extensive field work especially in Namaqualand. He was a consultant for the publication Mesembs of the World and he is a fellow of the Cactus and Succulent Society of America. The derivation of the name is the Latin 'malleus' for hammer. His name is also on the genus Hammeria and the taxon Conophytum hammeri, and he is commemorated additionally with Tylecodon mallei. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Steven Hammer, pers. comm.; Little Sphaeroid Press)

mallesoniae: for Una Malleson (probably Una Beatrice Malleson) (1898/1900-1978), born at Rosebank, Republic of South Africa, died in London; daughter of Percy Rodbard Malleson, commemorated with Ruschia mallesoniae which is now Esterhuysenia drepanophylla. She collected this taxon in the mountains near Ceres in 1921. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; JSTOR)

mallyi: possibly for Charles William Mally (1872-1953), American-born and educated entomologist who emigrated to the Cape, joined the Cape Department of Agriculture stationed in Grahamstown and Cape Town, lectured at Stellenbosch. The taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is the former Oxalis mallyi, now synonymized to Oxalis phloxidiflora. (Gunn & Codd)

Maltebrunia: for Konrad Malte Bruun (1775-1826), sometimes spelled Conrad Malte-Brun, Danish-born French geographer, cartographer and map publisher. He was considered one of France's foremost geographers. He was the co-author of Géographie Mathématique in 16 volumes (1803-1807) and the author of Atlas Complet (1812) and numerous other works. He was one of the founders of the Geographical Society of Paris. The genus Maltebrunia in the Poaceae was published in 1830 by German botanist Karl Sigismund Kunth. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses)

Mandevilla: for Henry John Mandeville (1773-1861), English diplomat, Minister Plenipotentiary to the Argentine Republic and keen gardener. Hugh Clarke provides the following: "He entered the Navy when quite a boy, after which he held a commission in a Dragoon Regiment. Little was discovered about his earlier life. He was attaché in Paris (1824), Secretary to the Embassy at Lisbon (1828), Minister to Constantinople (1831-33), and spent a decade as Minister in Buenos Aires (1835-45) where he mediated in the rivalry between the British merchants there and in Montevideo and managed relations with the Argentinian dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas, whom he saw as essential for maintaining stability in the country. He was responsible for introducing to Europe Ipomoea indica, commonly called Morning glory." The genus Mandevilla in the Apocynaceae was published in 1840 by British botanist John Lindley.

Mannia: possibly for Czech Bohemian lichenologist Wenzeslaus (Wenzel) Blasius Mann (1799-1839). The genus Mannia in the Aytoniaceae was published in 1829 by Czech botanist Philipp (Filip) Maximilian Opiz.

mannii: for Gustav Mann (1836-1916), German botanist, Kew gardener, plant collector, botanical explorer, Indian Forest Service 1863-1891, a member of William Balfour Baikie's Niger expedition 1859-1862, and British colonial representative in the Gulf of Guinea, where he collected plants including the type specimen of Sopubia mannii. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Flora of Zimbabwe; My Etymology)

manningiana/manningii: for Dr. John Manning, a highly respected research botanist at the Compton Herbarium, South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), Cape Town, world authority on the Iris and Hyacinth families, accomplished and knowledgeable plant collector and photographer, and prolific author of popular and scientific papers and wildflower field guides including Photographic Guide to the Wildflowers of South Africa, Field Guide to Fynbos, South African Wildflowers: Jewels of the Veld, and co-author with Peter Goldblatt of Cape Plants: A Conspectus of the Cape Flora of South Africa, The Color Encyclopedia of Cape Bulbs, South African Wildflower Guide No. 9: Nieuwoudtville, and Gladiolus in Southern Africa. Dr. Manning is commemorated with Villarsia manningiana and Scaraboides manningii. ("A New Species of Villarsia from South Africa" by Robert Ornduff)

maraisiana/maraisii: for Wessel R.B. Marais (1929- ), South African botanist on staff at the Botanical Research Institute, curator of the Albany Museum herbarium, curator of monocots at Kew Gardens, collected mainly in the Transvaal and Eastern Cape. He is commemorated with Heliophila maraisiana and Lithops lesliei var. maraisii, now a synonym of Lithops lesliei ssp. lesliei. (Gunn & Codd)

Marattia: for Giovanni Francesco Maratti (1723-1777), Italian professor of botany, clergyman and professor at Rome University, Director of the Botanical Garden of Rome for 30 years. The genus Marattia in the Marattiaceae was published in 1788 by Swedish botanist and taxonomist Olof (Peter) Swartz. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia)

Marcellia: possibly for Claudia Marcella, daughter of Roman Senator and Consul Gaius Claudius Marcellus Minor, sister of Emperor Augustus (Octavian), and wife of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, Augustus' close friend and lieutenant. The genus Marcellia in the Amaranthaceae was published in 1886 by French botanist and physician Henri Ernest Baillon. (W.P.U. Jackson)

Marchantia: for Nicholas Marchant (?-1678), French botanist and director of the ducal gardens at Blois. Linnaeus published the genus Marchantia in the Marchantiaceae in 1753. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; The Bahama Flora by Charles Frederick Millspaugh and Nathaniel Lord Britton)

margaretae: for (1) Margaret Elizabeth Dryden-Dymond (1909-1952), noted South African horticulturalist, who first collected Dymondia margaretae in 1933. She was on the horticultural staff at Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden and was honored with both the specific and generic epithet for this taxon (PlantzAfrica); (2) Margaret Goldblatt, wife of Peter Goldblatt who honored her in return for her invaluable assistance in his work, commemorated with Moraea margaretae. There are also taxa with this epithet in genera Lapidaria, Trachyandra, Lachenalia and Anacampseros, but I have been unable to find who they commemorate.

margarethae: for Mrs. Margaretha Wiese (1923- ), succulent plant grower and wife of Buys Wiese, owner of the farm Quaggaskop in Vanrhynsdorp. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Women and Cacti)

mariae: for (1) Mary Fraser Thompson (Rand) (1941-1982), South African botanist on the staff of the Botanical Research Institute first in Pretoria then at Stellenbosch, commemorated with Asparagus mariae; (2) Mrs. Mari Källersjö (1954- ), Swedish botanist and geneticist, commemorated with Cotula mariae in recognition of her contributions to the classification of South African Anthemideae. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; Bulletin of the Natural History Museum); (3) Mary E. Galpin (née de Jongh), wife of Ernest E. Galpin, commemorated with Delosperma mariae, and possibly with Erica mariae which Galpin collected. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names); (4) Mrs. M. (Mary?) Villet (fl. 1937), commemorated with Ruschia mariae. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names); (5) Mary Gwendolene Lavis (1903-?) (later Mrs. O'Connor-Fenton), a friend of Louisa Bolus, worked at Kew, Kirstenbosch and the Bolus Herbarium, commemorated with Lampranthus mariae. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Gunn & Codd); (6) Mrs. Maria Theresia Schiexl, singing and music teacher, commemorated with Wimmerella mariae and Laurentia mariae. (David Hollombe); (7) there are also other taxa with this specific epithet, specifically Asparagus mariae for which I have found no derivation.

marianae/marianiae: for Mrs. Marian Marloth (fl. 1923) (née Van Wyk), wife of German-born South African botanist and pharmacist Dr. Hermann Wilhelm Rudolf Marloth, commemorated with Ruschia marianae and Adromischus/Cotyledon marianiae. Some sources like IPNI list this as marianae, while others like the South African National Botanical Institute/POSA website lists it as marianiae. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Women and Cacti)

marincowitzii: for C. Pat Marincowitz of the farm Kleinsleutelfontein, Koup Karoo, plant collector "whose original knowledge and appreciation of this remarkable species [Nerine marincowitzii] led to its identification as new." (Botanicus Vol. 5 Number 1, 1995; Novon a Journal of Botanical Nomenclature from the Missouri Botanical Garden Vol. 5, 1995)

marionae: for Marion Emma Young (née Blenkiron) (1904-?), British-born botanist who taught in Johannesburg, lectured in botany at Witwatersrand University, assisted her husband, Ralph George Norwood Young (1861-1947) on extensive collecting trips in Angola, was a nurse during WWII. She lectured in botany at Witwatersrand University (1927-1928) and made collections with A.G. Grant. The taxa with this epithet in Southern Africa are Moraea marionae and the former Cissus marionae now synonymized to Cyphostemma subciliatum. At the moment I am not able to find the exact source I used for this piece of information so I can't say for sure that it's correct. JSTOR records her name as Marion Emma Blenkiron (later Marion Emma Young) and gives her collecting date as 1927, but by an odd coincidence (if it is a coincidence and not an error), JSTOR also has records for the holotype of Moraea marionae being collected in 1927 by an M.E. Blenkinson. I suspect some transcription mistake and consider this as some evidence for the correctness of this derivation. (Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

Markhamia: for Sir Clements Robert Markham (1830-1916), British traveller, botanist, geographer, explorer, prolific author of over two dozen books on history, biography and travel, plant collector, in the Royal Navy 1844-1851, went to the Arctic on one of the expeditions that searched for Sir John Franklin, Honorary Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society for 25 years and then President for 12, and introducer of Cinchona from Peru into India for the extraction of quinine, Fellow of the Linnean Society, Fellow of the Royal Society, played an active role in preparations for Robert Falcon Scott's Discovery voyage 1901-1904 and the expedition of 1910-1912, was honored by Scott in the naming of an Antarctic peak as Mt. Markham. His later life especially was not free of controversy and he was criticized for his manner of running the RGS and for other things. He remained close friends with Scott until the end of his life. The genus Markhamia in the Bignoniaceae was published in 1863 by German botanist Berthold Carl Seemann. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia)

marklundii: for George Gunnar Marklund (1892-1964), Finnish botanist and professor in Helsinki, author of Outlines of evolution in the pseudogamous Ranunculus auricomus group in Finland and other works, commemorated with Taraxacum marklundii. (JSTOR; Wikipedia)

markoetterae: for Erike Irene Markötter (Markoetter) (1905/06-1983), South African botanist associated with Stellenbosch University, commemorated with Conophytum markoetterae. (Gunn & Codd)

markwardii: possibly for Mark (C.?) Ward, botanist. The taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is Gymnosporia markwardii.

Marlothia/marlothiana/marlothianum/marlothianus/Marlothiella/marlothii/Marlothistella: for Hermann Wilhelm Rudolf Marloth (1855-1931), German-born South African botanist, pharmacist, chemist, botanical explorer and plant collector, author of the superb Flora of Africa in six volumes (1913-1932) and its supplement the Dictionary of the Common Names of Plants, professor of chemistry at Victoria College (later Stellenbosch University), Chairman of the Mountain Club of South Africa 1901-1906, made many collecting trips with the German botanist and phytogeographer Andreas Schimper. The genus Marlothia in the Rhamnaceae was published in 1888 by Heinrich Gustav Adolf Engler, Marlothiella in the Apiaceae in 1912 by Karl Friedrich August Hermann Wolff, and Marlothistella in the Aizoaceae in 1928 by Martin Heinrich Gustav Schwantes. Marloth is commemorated by dozens of species, too many to list. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names, Wikipedia; Gunn & Codd)

marnierana/marnierianum: for Julien (Julian) Marnier-Lapostolle (1902-1976), well-known French plant collector and owner of the Grand Marnier Company. At one time he had the largest private collection of bromeliads in France. He was the co-author of Bromeliads for Home, Garden, and Greenhouse and The Bromeliad Lexicon, and is commemorated with the former taxa Crassula marnierana (now C. rupestris) and Conophytum marnierianum (now C. ectypum), although Wikipedia says that the Conophytum was named in honor of his first wife Anne Therese Marnier-Lapostolle. There are also several taxa which do not appear in southern Africa with the specific epithet marnier-lapostollei. (Desert Tropicals website; Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Wikipedia)

Maronea: Hugh Clarke says this epithet is for Nicolai Marogna or Nicholas Maronae, a 17th century Veronese Doctor of philosophy and medicine. He was author of Commentarius in tractatus Dioscoridis et Plinii de amomo (1608), but I have no confirmation of this. The genus fungal Maronea in the Fuscideaceae was published in 1856 by Italian paleobotanist and lichenologist Abramo Bartolommea Massalongo.

Marsdenia: for William Marsden (1754-1836), Irish-born British traveller and plant collector, numismatist, first went to Sumatra as a member of the British East India Co., First Secretary of the Admiralty, prolific author about the history of Sumatra, the Malay language, Travels of Marco Polo, and member of the Royal Society, died of apoplexy. British botanist Robert Brown published the genus Marsdenia in the Asclepiadaceae in 1809. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names, Wikipedia)

marshalli: the taxon then called Aloe marshalli was collected by John Medley-Wood in 1893 in Natal and published by him and Maurice Smethurst Evans in 1897. The apparent honoree of this epithet was a cattle farmer of Dundee (Natal) named John Marshall (1836-1914) who also had a summer farm in the Drakensberg region. A geneological record online indicates that one of his six children, Amy Elizabeth Marshall, was born in Kelvin Grove, which is the type locality for this species. As an interesting side note, that geneology record also shows that one son, William Arthur Marshall, died 13 February 1880, a daughter, Katherine Bonner Marshall, died 16 February 1880, and another son, Ernest Edward Marshall, died 17 February 1880. That must have been a hard week for the Marshall family, and it would be interesting to know what was the cause of these three deaths. This is no longer a valid species name and has been synonymized to A. kniphofioides. (JSTOR; David Hollombe)

Marsilea: for Luigi Ferdinando Marsili (Marsigli) (1658-1730), noted Italian botanist and naturalist, mycologist, soldier and military engineer, surveyor, Fellow of the Royal Society, travelled throughout and studied the natural history and military organization of the Ottoman Empire, served the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, collected a vast amount of scientific information and specimens such as antiquities, fossils, and natural artifacts of flora and fauna, author of Histoire physique de la mer (1725), considered one of the founding works of modern oceanography, Danubius pannonico-mysicus (1726) in six volumes, and L'Etat militaire de l'empire ottoman (1732). The genus Marsilea in the Marsileaceae was published by Linnaeus in 1753. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names, Wikipedia)

marthae: for Mrs. Martha Erni, wife of Franz Sales Erni (1878-1952) who collected the taxon Lithops marthae. (Women and Cacti; Dave's Garden)

martiana: for Carl (Karl) Friedrich Philipp Martius (1794-1868), German botanist, naturalist, ethnographer, medical doctor and surgeon, professor of the University of Munich and director of the Munich botanical gardens, author of Historia naturalis palmarum and Nova genera et species plantarum Brasiliensium, explored the Amazon and brought back to Europe hundreds of preserved mammals, birds, amphibians, fish, insects, plants and seeds, and extensively studied the culture of Brazilian indians, wrote about potato diseases and aborigines, initiator of the Flora Braziliensis which described almost 23,000 species and which is still today the only complete flora of that country. He is commemorated with Struthiola martiana, Agathosma martiana and Lophocolea martiana, and also with the genus Martiella which does not appear in southern Africa. (Wikipedia; Chrono-Biographical Sketches; David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

martinae: for Bina Elizabeth Martin (1900-?), British-born horticulturist and botanical assistant, worked at Kirstenbosch, commemorated with Lachenalia martinae. (JSTOR)

martindalei: for Joseph Anthony Martindale (1837-1914), eminent British lichenologist. He was a schoolmaster in Staveley, County Westmoreland (now part of Cumbria), president of the Kendal Natural History Society and studied the flora of Westmoreland. He is commemorated with the former taxon Ephebeia martindalei, originally published by James Mascall Morrison Crombie then revised by William Nylander, and now synonymized to Ephebe lanata. (Botanical Society of the British Isles Report for 1914)

martinii: for (1) Jean Joseph Raymond Melisse Martin (1794-1867), cactus enthusiast in Toulouse, France and owner of a large cactus collection, commemorated with Harrisia martinii (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names); (2) John Dunwoody Martin (?-1941), assistant forester in Rhodesia, commemorated with Dalbergia martinii (JSTOR); (3) Martin C. Littlewood, commemorated with Dorotheanthus martinii, now a synonym of D. bellidiformis. (JSTOR)

martleyi: for J.F. Martley, a bulb-grower who, among other things, found a new Gladiolus at Banhoek, Stellenbosch in 1932 which he brought to the attention of Kirstenbosch botanists and which was published as Gladiolus martleyi. He was also commemorated with Lampranthus martleyi. (Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.)

Martynia: for John Martyn (1699-1768), British physician and botanist, professor of botany at Cambridge, Fellow of the Royal Society, founded the Botanical Society of London. His major works were Historia plantarum rariorum (1728-1737), and his translations of Virgil's Eclogues (1749) and Georgics (1741). Linnaeus published the genus Martynia in the Pedaliaceae in 1753. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

marxii: for Johan Gerhardus Marx (1956- ), botanical artist and illustrator, grower of Haworthias and other succulent plants whose work has appeared in numerous books and journals, on stamps, at museum exhibitions and in the collection of Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden, commemorated with Haworthia marxii. (All You Wanted To Know About Haworthias)

masonae/masoniae: for Marianne Harriet Mason (1845-1932), commemorated with Indigofera masonae and the former Watsonia masoniae, now a synonym of W. pillansii. See next entry. (The Biodiversity of African Plants)

masoniorum/masonorum: for Marianne Harriet Mason (1845-1932), Edwardian artist, and her brother Canon Edward Mason, of St. Bede's College in Umtata, who collected Crocosmia masoniorum (formerly Tritonia masoniorum) in 1911. Plants were cultivated at the Cambridge University Botanic Garden the following year from corms brought to Britain by Marianne Mason. Also honoring the brother and sister pair is Nerine masoniorum and the former taxon Gladiolus masoniorum, now a synonym of G. ochroleucus. The Nerine and the Crocosmia were named by Louisa Bolus, and were originally published with the specific epithet spelled 'masonorum,' but the Gladiolus was published by C.H. Wright with the name 'masoniorum.' (PlantzAfrica; Pacific Bulb Society; Gunn & Codd)

Massonia/massoniana/massoniella/massonii: for Francis Masson (1741-1805), a Scotsman from Aberdeen, gardener, first plant collector for Kew Gardens for which he added more than 400 new species, author of Stapeliae Novae, he was sent to the Cape by Joseph Banks with Captain Cook on his second circumnavigation of the globe. His two trips to South Africa resulted in his being there from 1772 to 1775 and then from 1786 to 1795. He also visited Madeira, the Canary Islands and Azores, West Indies, North America and North Africa, explored with Thunberg, sent specimens to Joseph Banks, Fellow of the Linnean Society, author of Stapeliae Novae (1796), died by freezing in North America. One source reported that he discovered more than 1700 species, including such familiar plants both to visitors to South Africa and to horticulturists everywhere as the arum and belladonna lilies, the bird of paradise, the king protea and the red hot poker. The genus Massonia in the Hyacinthaceae was published by 1780 by Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg. He is also commemorated by Metalasia massonii, Albuca massonii, Erica massonii, Thamnea massoniella, and the former taxa Crassula massonii (now C. alpestris), and probably for Wahlenbergia massonii and Lachenalia massonii. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia; Gunn & Codd)

Mastersiella: for Maxwell Tylden Masters (1833-1907), British botanist and physician, Fellow of the Linnean and Royal Societies, restio specialist at Kew Botanical Gardens for the latter half of the 19th century, and the son of the nurseryman William Masters (1796-1874). His major work was Vegetable Teratology [abnormal mutations], an account of the principal deviations from the usual construction of plants (1869), and he wrote several other books such as Botany for Beginners (1872), On the Conifers of Japan (1881), and Plant Life on the Farm (1885). He was editor of the Gardeners' Chronicle between 1866–1907 and corresponded with Charles Darwin. He also contributed monographs to the Flora of Tropical Africa by Daniel Oliver, the Flora of British India, and Flora Brasiliensis by Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius et. al. The genus Mastersiella in the Restionaceae was published in 1930 by German botanist Charlotte Gilg-Benedict. (Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Journal of Botany, British and Foreign)

mathewsii: for Mr. Joseph William Mathews (1871-1949), the first Curator of Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden, commemorated with Lachenalia mathewsii, Drosanthemum mathewsii, Hessea mathewsii, and the former taxa Ruschia mathewsii (now Antimimum mucronata), Mesembryanthemum mathewsii (now Braunsia geminata) and Geissorhiza mathewsii (now G. eurystigma). (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; PlantzAfrica; JSTOR)

Matthiola: for Pietro Andrea Gregorio Mattioli (c.1500/1501-1577), Italian botanist and herbalist, physician to Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor in Vienna, and to Ferdinand I, Archduke of Austria, prolific author including a work entitled Di Pedacio Dioscoride Anazarbeo Libri Cinque identifying the plant species described by Dioscorides, also described species not of medical value marking a transition to the study of plants for non-medical interest. He wrote many other works and was the first to describe a case of feline allergy. The genus Matthiola in the Brassicaceae was published in 1812 by British botanist William Townsend Aiton. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia)

maudiae: for Emily Maud Eastwood Saunders (?-1908), first wife of Sir Charles James Renault Saunders, commemorated with Angraecum maudiae, now synonymized to Bolusiella maudiae. (Gunn & Codd)

maughamii: for Reginald Charles Fulke Maugham (1866-1956), the British Consul at Lourenco Marques (now Maputu), who sent specimens of Balanites maughamii to Kew in 1911. (PlantzAfrica)

Maughaniella/maughanii: for Dr. Herbert Maughan-Brown (1883-1940), South African physician, son of a clergyman of Kuruman, plant collector and field botanist, Chief Medical Inspector of Schools of the Cape Province, and popular lecturer in school hygiene at the University of Cape Town. He authored Physiology and Hygiene for the Use of Students and Teachers. Dr. Maughan-Brown is commemorated by Dorotheanthus maughanii, Haworthia maughanii, Conophytum maughanii, and Pectinaria maughanii, and possibly for Polyxena maughanii and the former taxa Lithops maughanii (now L. julii) and Apatesia maughanii (now A. sabulosa). South African botanist Louisa Bolus published the genus Maughaniella in the Aizoaceae in 1961 to replace the illegitimate name Maughania. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; JSTOR; All You Wanted To Know About Haworthias; Obituary in S.A. Tydskrif Vir Geneeskunde; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Mauhlia: for Johannis (John) Mauhle, a patriotic Swede and zealous promoter of natural science, superintendent of Swedish mercantile affairs in China. Hugh Clarke provides this additional interesting information: "[He] tried to save Carl Linnaeus's collection of natural history, his herbarium, letters and manuscripts, from falling into foreign hands. When Linnaeus's son, Carl Linnaeus the Younger, died in 1783, his wife, desperate for funds, offered the entire collection to Joseph Banks who declined the purchase. Dr. James Edward Smith (1759-1828), a British naturalist, took up the offer and bought the collection for one thousand guineas. Mauhle, at that time in China on business for the Swedish East India Company, instructed a Dr. Dahl, a pupil of Linnaeus, to put in a counter-offer of up to two thousand guineas. Unfortunately for Sweden, this failed as Dr. Smith had first option, and by the time the matter had been appealed to the King to stop the transaction, it was too late. The collection had been shipped out of the country." The genus Maulia in the Liliaceae was published by Swedish botanist Andreas Dahl in 1787. (The Cyclopedia; or Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences and Literature; Observationes botanicae circa Systema vegetabilium divi a Linne; Hugh Clarke)

mauricei: for Maurice Smethurst Evans (1854-1920), British-born South African businessman, politician and plant collector in Kenya, Uganda and South Africa. He came to Natal in 1875 and was co-author with John Medley Wood of Natal Plants. He was a member of parliament and in addition to several taxa with the specific epithet evansii in genera Indigofera, Erica, Kniphofia, Euryops, Helichrysum and Senecio is commemorated with Senecio mauricei. (Elsa Pooley; JSTOR; Gunn & Codd; Trees and Shrubs of Mpumalanga and Kruger National Park)

Maurocenia: for Giovanni Francesco Morosini (1658-1739), Venetian Senator and a patron of botany. Hugh Clarke adds: "He was elected a Senator of the Great Council in 1690 and re-elected more than 30 times until 1738. He became Ambassador to the papal state in Rome from 1702-1706 under Pope Clement XI (1649 – 1721) and from 1709-1711 became Ambassador Extraordinary to the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph 1 (1678 –1711). He was elected reformer at the University of Padua on six occasions between 1719 - 1737 and made significant reforms to the University especially in regards to press law and the teachings of the University of Padua. He also developed a magnificent botanical garden in Padua which became famed throughout Europe." The genus Marocenia in the Celastraceae was published in 1754 by Scottish botanist Philip Miller. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Flora Domestica by Elizabeth Kent; Reiseskissen aus der Lombardei und Venetien by Adolph Senoner, 1860)

maxii/maximiliani/maximilianii: for Maximilian (Max) Schlechter (1874-1960), brother of Friedrich Richard Rudolf Schlechter, who came to the Cape with his brother in the 1890's and accompanied him on collecting trips, had a trading business and a good collection of succulent plants, mostly mesembryantemums. He is listed as the collector of Phyllopodium maxii (formerly Polycarena maxii), Jamesbrittenia maxii (formerly Sutera maxii), and Nemesia maxii. The epithet 'maximilianii' honors him as well and both Lampranthus maximilianii and Braunsia maximilianii were collected by his brother and presumably named in his honor. I'm not sure who collected Schlechteranthus maximilianii but the same may also be true for it. This last is another of those rare cases where both the specific and generic names commemorate the same person. Schlechter also collected Erica maximiliani so that may be for one or the other of them. (Gunn & Codd; JSTOR; Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

maxwellii: for Maxwell Bolus (1890-1956), South African agriculturist, son of Hermann Harry Bolus and grandson of Harry Bolus, commemorated by his aunt Louisa Bolus with Antimima maxwellii, Ruschia maxwellii, and Delosperma maxwellii, and the former taxon Cryophytum maxwellii (now a synonym of Mesembryanthemum guerichianum). The Delosperma is sometimes recorded as 'maxwilliae.' (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

maydae: for Mayda Doris Henderson (1928- ), South African plant botanical author, commemorated with Senecio maydae.

mclarenii: the taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is Haworthia mclarenii, with no information as to its derivation.

mcmurtryi: for Douglas M. McMurtry (fl. 1984), plant collector, curator of the Municipal Botanic Garden, Johannesburg, author of Field Guide to the Orchids of Northern South Africa and Swaziland, commemorated with the former Haworthia mcmurtryi, now a synonym of H. koelmaniorum var. mcmurtryi, collected by a D. McMurtry in 1983. (All You Wanted To Know About Haworthias; JSTOR)

mearnsii: for Edward Alexander Mearns (1856-1916), U.S. army surgeon, ornithologist, field naturalist and plant collector, mainly in Kenya and elsewhere, commemorated with Acacia mearnsii. He was assigned as a Medical Officer with the United States-Mexican International Boundary Survey. From 1892 to 1894, he explored the boundary line from El Paso, Texas, to San Clemente Island, and collected 30,000 specimens of flora and fauna which were deposited in the United States National Museum. From 1903 to 1907 he served two tours of duty in the Philippines. In 1909 he was invited by Theodore Roosevelt to accompany the Smithsonian Roosevelt African Expedition as a naturalist. From 1909 to 1910, Mearns explored parts of British East Africa from Mount Kenya to the White Nile. Mearns' last expedition was in 1911, when he served as a naturalist with the Childs Frick Expedition to Africa. He collected the type of Acacia mearnsii from a cultivated specimen in East Africa. (Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.; Wikipedia; Smithsonian Institution Archives)

mechowii: for Major Friedrich Wilhelm Alexandre von Mechow (1831-1890), Prussian officer, plant collector and explorer of Africa, commemorated with Hibiscus mechowii which he collected in Angola and the former taxon Vitex mechowii, now a synonym of Vitex mombassae. He led several expeditions to Angola 1873-1882. He was badly wounded in the Franco-Prussian War. Three birds and one mammal are named for him, and he was the author of Map Work of My Kwango-Expedition. (Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles; Wikipedia)

medley-woodii/medleyi: for John Medley Wood (1827-1915), Natal botanist, curator of the Natal Botanic Garden 1882-1903 and founder and director of the Natal Herbarium 1903-1913. From Wikipedia: "John Medley Wood was a South African botanist who contributed greatly to the knowledge of Natal ferns, and is generally credited with the establishment of Uba sugar cane in Natal and for his extensive collection of Natal plants. Wood was born in Mansfield to a lawyer James Riddall Wood and Hannah Healy Weaver. His father remarried Mary Haygarth and emigrated to Durban, and John, who had spent seven years at sea after leaving school, joined him there in 1852. He soon acquired his own property at the mouth of the Umdhloti River north of Durban. Here he experimented with new crop plants. In 1855 he married his stepmother's younger sister Elizabeth Haygarth. For health reasons he moved further inland to Inanda in 1868, where he ran a trading store and did some farming. Here he developed an interest in cryptogams and started collecting ferns, mosses and fungi as well as flowering plants. He began corresponding with M.C. Cooke and Kalchbrenner, the mycologists at Kew and in Hungary. The Rev. John Buchanan, a local fern expert who had published a list of Natal ferns in 1875, assisted Medley Wood in that group. In 1880 Anton Rehmann, the Austrian botanist, visited Natal and took over Wood's collection of mosses. As a result of his growing interest in botany, he accepted the post of Curator of the Botanic Garden in Durban in 1882. From his interest in crop plants, he established the suitability of Uba sugar cane (Saccharum sinense), for conditions in Natal. During these years he collected plants extensively throughout Natal and exchanged duplicates with foreign herbaria. He was preparing the seventh volume of his Natal Plants at the time of his death in 1915. He is commemorated in the genera Woodia, Woodiella, and a large number of species names including that of Encephalartos woodii, which he first discovered" in 1895 on a steep south-facing slope on the fringes of the Ngoye forest about 30 km from Mtunzini in KwaZulu-Natal. He is also remembered with Senecio medley-woodii and the former taxon Tephrosia medleyi (now synonymized to T. shiluwanensis) and probably for Hermannia medleyi (now H. auricoma). (Wikipedia; PlantzAfrica; JSTOR; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

meeuseana/meeusei: for Adrianus Dirk Jacob Meeuse (1914- ), Dutch botanist.He was assistant in the Rijksherbarium at Leyden and from 1952 to 1960 on staff at the National Herbarium, Pretoria. Beginning in 1960 he was a Professor of Systematic Botany and Plant Geography at the University of Amsterdam. He authored books on taxonomy, morphology and phylogeny, and while in South Africa wrote monographs on South African Convolvulaceae, Cucurbitaceae and Sapotaceae. He is commemorated with Cucumis meeusei, Hibiscus meeusei and Barleria meeuseana. (Gunn & Codd)

meintjesii: for C.C.C. Meintjes (fl. early 1960's) who was a South African architect interested in succulents. He is commemorated with Stapelia meintjesii and Tavaresia meintjesii. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

meisneri/meisnerianum: for Carl Daniel Friedrich Meisner (later Meissner) (1800-1874), Swiss professor of botany at the University of Basel, published a comprehensive work Plantarum Vascularum Genera and important monographs on several families such as the Polygonaceae, Lauraceae, Proteaceae and Thymelaeaceae, described hundreds of species of Australian Proteaceae and many Australian species from other families, spent many years in the study of the Polygonaceae. The genus Meisneria which does not appear in southern Africa was also named for him by de Candolle. Taxa in southern Africa with this epithet are Oxalis meisneri, Serruria meisneriana and Persicaria meisneriana. (Wikipedia; JSTOR)

meissneri: for Dr. Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Meissner (1792-1853), German chemist, botanist and alkaloid researcher, city councilman in his native Halle. He coined the term 'alkaloid.' and is commemorated with the former taxon Pyxine meissneri, now a synonym of P. cocoës). (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

mellei: for Henry Augustus Melle (1893-1957), South African agrostologist and plant collector, with the Department of Native Affairs and later Deputy Director of Native Agriculture, commemorated with Carpobrotus mellei and the former taxa Acacia mellei (now a synonym of A. hereroensis) and Ischaemum mellei (now I. fasciculatum). At the Department of Agriculture he was placed in charge of the Groenkloof Botanic Station. He had a farm at Zwartkop near Pretoria. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; JSTOR; Gunn & Codd)

melleri: for Dr. Charles James Meller (1836-1869), British botanist/naturalist and plant collector in Madagascar, Mauritius, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia, surgeon on David Livingstone's East Africa expedition, became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1857, was with Livingstone as medical officer aboard the survey vessel Pioneer and then on the Gorgon for the exploration of the Zambezi and its tributaries, published an account of the botany and geology of Madagascar in the Journal of the Asiatic Society, vol. 20, 1863, was British Vice-Consul in Madagascar then Director of the famous Botanical Gardens at Pamplemousses on Mauritius, Fellow of the Linnean Society, died in Sydney, Australia, at the young age of 33 while on a mission to procure healthy strains of Australian sugar cane to revitalize the Mauritius cane industry which had been devastated by disease, commemorated with Vernonia melleri, now synonymized to Linzia melleri, and the former taxa Albuca melleri (now A. abyssinica) and Asplenium melleri (now A. sandersonii), as well as the genus Mellera which does not appear in southern Africa. His name was also placed on the Meller’s duck, Anas melleri, an endemic Madagascar species, by ornithologist Philip Lutley Sclater in 1865. (JSTOR; Doryanthes, A periodic Southern Sydney Journal of Art, Heritage and Natural History)

mellissii: for John Charles Melliss (1835-1911), British engineer and amateur naturalist, author of St. Helena: A Physical, Historical and Topographical Description of the Island, including the Geology, Fauna, Flora and Meteorology (1875). He was born on the island of St. Helena, was a government surveyor 1860-1871 then went to London. He is commemorated with the lichen taxon Parmotrema mellissii and the genus Mellissia which does not appear in southern Africa. (JSTOR; Wikipedia)

Melpomene: after Melpomene, mythological songstress and the muse of tragedy. She was the daughter of Zeus and her sisters including Calliope (muse of poetry), Clio (muse of history), Euterpe (muse of flute playing), Terpsichore (muse of dancing), Erato (muse of erotic poetry), Thalia (muse of comedy), Polyhymnia (muse of hymns), and Urania (muse of astronomy). The genus Melpomene in the Grammitidaceae was published in 1992 by American botanists Alan Reid Smith and Robbin C. Moran. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia)

mendesii: for Eduardo José Santos Moreira Mendes (1924- ), Portuguese botanist, plant collector, Director of the herbarium at Jardim Botânico da Universidade de Lisboa, commemorated with Erythrina mendesii and Phyllanthus mendesii, both of which he collected in Angola. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; JSTOR)

mendoncae: for Francisco de Ascencão Mendonça (1889-1982), Portuguese botanist and explorer who made botanical studies of the flora of Angola and Mozambique and collected Xylopia mendoncae (now a synonym of X. tomentosa), Hibiscus mendoncae (now H. meyeri) and Abutilon mendoncae (now A. pycnodon). (JSTOR)

mennellii: for Brian T. Mennell who collected this Lithops taxon in April 1934. It has now been synonymized to L. bromfieldii. He is also probably commemorated with Piaranthus mennellii (now P. cornutus). (Au Cactus Francophone; Cactus Art)

menniei: for a Mr. A. Mennie (fl. 1937) who collected the type specimen of Antimima menniei. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Mentha: after the nymph or naiad Minthe, daughter of Cocytus and mistress of Pluto, who fell in love with her. The story is that Persephone (Proserpine), Pluto's wife, attacked her in a jealous rage and transformed her into a plant. According to this story, Pluto couldn't reverse the spell but gave her a lovely fragrance. Linnaeus published the genus Mentha in the Lamiaceae in 1753. (W.P.U. Jackson)

menyharthii: for Lászlò (or Ladislaus) Menyhárth (1849-1895/7), Hungarian cleric and Jesuit priest and missionary who collected in Mozambique, was in Africa from 1890 until his death, commemorated with Erythrococca menyharthii, Croton menyharthii, Viscum menyharthii, and the former taxa Sporobolus menyharthii (now S. festivus), Diplachne menyharthii (now Pogonarthria squarrosa) and Lonchocarpus menyharthii (now Philenoptera bussei). (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

menziesii: for Archibald Menzies (1754-1842), Scottish botanist, naturalist and naval surgeon, Fellow of the Linnean Society, taught botany at Edinburgh University, send seeds to Sir Joseph Banks, saw action in the final stages of the American revolution as a naval surgeon serving under Admiral George Rodney, sailed as naturalist on the Discovery under Captain George Vancouver, with two other men in 1794 made the first recorded ascent to the summit of Mauna Loa.in Hawaii, and spent time at the Cape. While returning on the Discovery, Captain Vancouver arrested him for insolence and contempt, charges stemming from his irritation at the presence on the quarterdeck of a wooden plant house devised by Menzies and Banks for the protection of the collected specimens and the necessity of assigning a seaman to assist Menzies. When the seaman's duties were withdrawn by Vancouver and some samples were damaged by rain and waves, acrimony ensued and Menzies no doubt lost his composure. The charges were withdrawn after a formal apology from Menzies. His first visit to South Africa was in 1789 while he was surgeon aboard the Prince of Wales which had sailed from England around Cape Horn and up into the north Pacific and on around the world via the Cape of Good Hope. He was at the Cape again for about five weeks in 1791 while aboard the Discovery. He is commemorated with Codonoblepharon menziesii and the genus Menziesia which does not appear in southern Africa. There are well over 100 taxa that bear the epithet menziesii but I cannot state that they all commemorate Archibald. (Wikipedia; JSTOR; Gunn & Codd; "The Perils of Plant Collecting" by A.M. Martin)

Merciera: for Marie Philippe Mercier (1781-1831), French botanist born on the island of Martinique, plant collector and traveller, later moved to Geneva and studied under de Candolle. After his death, his considerable herbarium of some 300,000 West Indian plants was purchased by the British naturalist Philip Barker Webb. He died before his work Choix de plantes exotiques rares ou novelles was completed and it was never published in its entirety. The genus Merciera in the Campanulaceae was published in 1830 by French-Swiss botanist Alphonse Louis Pierre Pyramus de Candolle. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; PlantzAfrica; Acta Botanica Venezuelica)

Mercurialis: presumably after the god Mercury. Linnaeus published the genus Mercurialis in the Euphorbiaceae in 1753. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

merenskyanum/merenskyanus: possibly for Hans Merensky (1871-1952), German-born South African geologist, prospector, scientist, conservationist and philanthropist? The taxa in southern Africa which bear this epithet are Amphiasma merenskyanum and the former Sesamum merenskianum (now S. rigidum) and Cryptostephanus merenskianus (now Cyrtanthus herrei).

meriana: for Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717), a German naturalist, botanical and entomological illustrator and painter of flowers. The following is quoted from a website of the Memorial Library at the University of Wisconsin, Madison: "Born in Frankfurt to an etcher and book publisher father who died when she was three, Maria Sibylla Merian first studied flower painting with her step-father, Jacob Marrel. She married in 1665 and began her own botanical and entomological work after she and her family moved to Nuremberg in 1670. To facilitate her studies, Merian raised and kept live specimens and was therefore able to show the insects at each stage of their development. Merian left her husband in 1685 and with her children joined a Labadist sect [a 17th century Protestant religious community] in Frankfurt. In 1699 she traveled with her daughter Dorothea to a Labadist mission in Surinam where she completed a series of paintings detailing the tropical flora and fauna. After a bout with yellow fever, she moved to Amsterdam in 1705 and published a series of engravings from her watercolors in Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium. Merian died in poverty in 1717." She is commemorated with the taxon Watsonia meriana. (Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.; Wikipedia)

merkeri: for Moritz Merker (1867-1908), German scholar, plant collector in Tanzania, author of Die Masai (1904), and military commander in the Kilimanjaro region. According to JSTOR records, the type of Commiphora merkeri (now considered a synonym of C. viminea) was collected by a 'Merker' in Tanzania, almost certainly Moritz Merker. A website called Mancala World states that "The first European to describe En Gehé [a mancala game played by warriors of the Loitha and Kisonga Masai in northern Tanzania] was the German Moritz Merker of the Imperial Protection Troops (Kaiserliche Schutztruppe) of German East Africa in 1904. He is also regarded to be the first ethnologue of the Masai."

Merremia: for Blasius Merrem (1761-1824), German naturalist and botanist, herpetologist, mathematician and professor of political economy and botany at Marburg (1804), particularly interested in zoology and ornithology, originally proposed the division of birds into ratites and carinates, author of Tentamen Systematis Naturalis Avium (1816). Another major work was Versuch eines Systems der Amphibien in which he for the first time separated amphibians from reptiles, and crocodilians from lizards, at the same time combining lizards and snakes together in a single order. He also wrote about Linnaeus’s classification system, and economic issues such as castles and the household economy. The genus name Merremia was originally published (illegitimately) in the Convolvulaceae in 1818 by German botanist August Wilhelm Dennstedt, and then was validly published in 1841 by Dennstedt based on a description by Austrian botanist Stephan Friedrich Ladislaus Endlicher. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia)

Mertensia: for Franz Karl Mertens (1764-1831), German botanist and algologist, and professor of botany at Bremen Polytechnic College. He took numerous scientific expeditions in different parts of Europe, described a number of species of algae, and with Wilhelm Daniel Joseph Koch, he published the third edition of Johann Christoph Röhling's Deutschlands flora, a five volume work on German flora. He participated in botanical explorations with the German botanist, Albrecht Wilhelm Roth, and described species and drew illustrations for Roth's Catalecta botanica. This genus Mertensia in the Gleicheniaceae was published in 1804 by German botanist and plant taxonomist Carl Ludwig von Willdenow. Mertens was also honored by genera Mertensia in the families Boraginaceae and Ulmaceae, but those genera do not appear in southern Africa. His son was the German botanist and naturalist Karl Heinrich Mertens (1796-1830). (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia)

Merwilla: for Frederick Ziervogel van der Merwe (1894-1968), a South African amateur botanist and physician who worked on the Hyacinth family. and collected plants in South Africa and Mozambique. He was medical inspector of schools in the Transvaal and Natal, published an authoritative glossary of African medical terms and described new species of Scilla and two new genera, Schizocarphus and Resnova. He was also a collector of sheet music and the author of a music bibliography Suid-Afrikaanse musiekbibliografie. The genus Merwilla in the Hyacinthaceae was published in 1998 by Austrian botanist Franz Speta, and he was also honored with the names Eucomis vandermerwei, Euphorbia vandermerwei, and Delosperma vandermerwei. (PlantzAfrica, Gunn & Codd)

Merxmuellera/merxmuelleri/merxmuelleriana: for Hermann Merxmüller (Merxmueller) (1920-1988), German systematic botanist. He studied botany and then became a professor of systematic botany at the University of Munich, also Director of the Munich Botanical Gardens, the Botanische Staatssammiung, a notable herbarium at the Gardens, and the Institut für Systematische Botanik (Institute of Systematic Botany) at the University of Munich. He conducted many expeditions to Africa, and discovered more than 100 species of flowers new to science. He made five collecting trips to Namibia mostly in the company of Willi Giess who is noted for having started an official herbarium at Windhoek. He collected some 32,000 specimens in the UK, Austria, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Greece, Portugal, the Netherlands, Romania, Sweden, Iran, Egypt, Morocco, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Canada, the U.S., Venezuela, Brazil and Chile, of which about 6,000 were from southern Africa. He edited and published the Prodromus einer Flora von Sûdwestafrika (Prodromus of the Flora of South-West Africa) from 1966-72. (A prodromus is a preliminary publication or introductory work.) He was also the co-author with Gustav Hegi of Alpenflora; die wichtigeren Alpenpflanzen Bayerns, Österreichs und der Schweiz. The genus Merxmuellera in the Poaceae was published in 1970 by Hans Joachim Conert. He is commemorated with Erica merxmuelleri, Hermannia merxmuelleri, Carex merxmuelleri, Hibiscus merxmuelleri, Suaeda merxmuelleri, Barleria merxmuelleri, Corchorus merxmuelleri and Jamesbrittenia merxmuelleri. There are other taxa with the epithets 'merxmuelleri" and "merxmuellerianum" in Gemmaria, Strumaria, Felicia, Ursinia, Eriocephalus, Salsola, Ornithogalum and Indigofera, but I can only assume that they honor the same individual. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names, JSTOR, Gunn & Codd)

metelerkampiae: for Frederick William Metelerkamp (1876-c.1946) and/or Mrs. F. Metelerkamp, plant collector in South Africa, commemorated with Sparaxis metelerkampiae, Ixia metelerkampiae, Hesperantha metelerkampiae (now synonymized to H. vaginata), Freesia metelerkampiae (now F. corymbosa) and Homeria metelerkampiae (now Moraea elegans), all of which they collected. JSTOR records note that Sparaxis (= Synnotia) metelerkampiae "Flowered in Mr. F.W. Metelerkamp's garden near Wellington," and for Hesperantha metelerkampiae "Fld. in Mr. Metelerkamp's garden at Tulbagh." For Ixia metelerkampiae and Freesia metelerkampiae it says "Fld. at Kirstenbosch," and for Homeria metelerkampiae, "Wellington. Fld. in Mr. Metelerkamp's Garden." But David Hollombe has uncovered one reference in Hardy Bulbs: Iridaceae by Mrs. Cecily Grey (1938) to some taxon with the specific epithet metelerkampiae that says "Collected by Mrs. Metelerkamp, near Nieuwoudtville," and The Flowering Plants of Africa, Vol. 3, contains this reference to Synnotia metelerkampiae: "The species is found near Eendekuil in the Clanwilliam Division, and the original description was prepared from specimens flowering in the garden of Mrs. F. Metelerkamp." This indicates that Mr. and Mrs. F. Metelerkamp were both involved as collectors and plant growers, were probably husband and wife, and were probably colleagues or at least friends of Mrs. Louisa Bolus, who published the names of all these taxa in 1921, 1927, 1928 and 1929. And this accounts for the 'ae' ending of the specific epithet, which is customarily used for a woman's name, or a name ending in 'a', and possibly indicates that Mrs. F. Metelerkamp was the one Mrs. Bolus intended to be commemorated. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; JSTOR)

mettinghii: for Sophia de Mettingh (Sophie Elisabeth Bethmann, sometimes recorded as de Bethmann or von Bethmann) (1774-1862), Mrs. Charles Henri de Luze (her first husband), Mrs. Peter Friedrich Freiherr von Mettingh (her second husband). The taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is the former Bulbine mettinghii, published by Italian botanist Michele Tenore, and is the sole taxon with this specific epithet. It is now synonymized to Bulbine asphodeloides.

Metzgeria: this genus in the Metzgeriaceae was published in 1818 by Italian botanist Giuseppi Raddi. Despite the reasonable assumption that the name was intended to honor Johann Christian Metzger (1789-1852), a German landscape architect of gardens and at one time Director of the Heidelberg Botanical Garden, an 1818 publication by Giuseppi Raddi, Jungermanniografia Etrusca. Memorie i Mathematica e di Fisica della Societa Italiana delle Scienze (Modena), 18: 14–56, clearly states that it commemorates his friend from Staufen, Breisgau (Baden-Wurttemberg), Johann Baptiste Metzger (1771-1844), a German copper engraver, art restorer and important art agent in Florence, and pupil of the great Florentine engraver Raphael Sanzio Morghen. My thanks to David Meagher at the University of Melbourne Department of Botany for providing this information. (Wikipedia; David Meagher, pers. comm.)

Metzleria: for Jacob Adolf Metzler (1812-1883), German landowner of Frankfurt, lichenologist, bryologist, and ‘man of independent means’ who worked at the Herbarium of the Senckenberg Naturmuseum in Frankfurt, Germany, and helped to created a Botany Hall there, collected mosses in southern France, northern Italy and the Alps. Hugh Clarke adds: "Theodor Geyler (1834-1889), the curator of the Senckenberg Naturmuseum, decided to rearrange the herbarium. He put Metzler in charge of the cryptogams section while he took charge of the phanerograms section. Together they added many specimens to the collections and in 1870 a new Botanical Hall in the museum was opened to the public. After Metzler’s death his personal lichen collection was given to the Senckenberg herbarium, making it even stronger." The genus Metzleria in the Dicranaceae was published in 1869 by French botanist Wilhelm Phillip Schimper based on a description by German bryologist and pteridologist Carl August Julius Milde. This name, Metzleria, is listed by Tropicos as an illegitimate name, possibly because it had already been published in the Campanulaceae by Otto Sonder (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

meyerae: for Luise Meyer (née Olpp) (1873-1956), daughter of Johannes Olpp and wife of Rev. Louis Gottlieb Meyer whom she often accompanied on his collecting trips. She is commemorated with Antimima meyerae. The Au Cactus Francophone website records Conophytum meyerae as being named for a Frau G. Meyer and Ruschia (Antimima) meyerae as being named for a Frau E. Meyer, however Gunn & Codd say they both commemorate Luise Meyer. She had a daughter who was also named Luise Meyer (1905-?) who is commemorated with Conophytum luisae. (Women and Cacti; Gunn & Codd)

meyeri/meyeriana/meyerianum/meyerianus: for (1) Heinrich Meyer (1836-1929), German medical practitioner who practiced at the Cape, commemorated in the former Mesembryanthemum meyeri, now a synonym of Antimima papillata (Gunn & Codd); (2) the Rev. Louis Gottlieb Meyer (1867-1958), German clergyman, explorer, and plant and insect collector in South Africa, father of Helmut Ernst Meyer. Hugh Clarke provides the following: "He was sent by the Rhenish mission to Kommagass, Namaqualand, in 1894 and later served in Steinkopf which also included the Richtersveld. An agriculturalist by training, he had a keen interest plant and insect collecting. When Hermann Wilhelm Rudolf Marloth (1855-1931) paid visits to his area they collected together. Meyer sent Marloth many of the plants he discovered as well as to Adolar Gottlieb Julius (Hans) Herre (1895-1979), Curator of the University of Stellenbosch Gardens." He is commemorated with Cheiridopsis meyeri, Conophytum meyeri, Aloe meyeri, Euphorbia meyeri, the former taxa Herreanthus meyeri (now Conophytum herreanthus), Nelia meyeri (now N. pillansii), Ruschia meyeri (now Antimima papillata), Lithops meyeri, Meyerophytum meyeri and Stomatium meyeri (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names); (3) Ernst Heinrich Friedrich Meyer (1791-1858), German professor and botanist whose herbarium of 24,000 specimens was largely destroyed during World War II bombing. He was professor of botany at the University of Konigsberg and Director of the Botanical Garden. His major work was Geschichte der Botanik (“History of Botany,” 1854–57). He is commemorated with Ceropegia meyeri, Asclepias meyeriana, the former taxon Crassula meyeri (now C. capitella), Hibiscus meyeri, Barleria meyeriana, Brachystelma meyerianum, and Eriochloa meyeriana. There are many other current and former taxa with these epithets and given the commonness of the name Meyer, I cannot confirm who they are named for. (Elsa Pooley; Trees and Shrubs of Mpumalanga and Kruger National Park; PlantzAfrica)

Meyerophytum: for Louis Gottlieb Meyer (1867-1958). See meyeri (2) above. The genus Meyerophytum in the Aizoaceae was published in 1927 by Martin Heinrich Gustav Schwantes. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Mezleria: derivation uncertain. David Hollombe suggests that the epithet possibly is for Franz Joseph Mezler (Metzler) von Andelberg (1787-1858), an Austrian Army surgeon who from 1833-1837 published a valuable collection of pediatric essays by the best medical writers such as Bischoff on the examination of the sick child, Fenner on pediatric etiquette, Billard on semieology of the infants cry, etc., in a 2-vol work titled Sammlung auserlesener Abhandlungen Kinder über-Krankheiten (1830-1839). WPU Jackson says that the author used both spellings, Mezleria and Metzleria, and both he and the JSTOR website give the derivation to Karl Ludwig Giseke-Metzler (1761-1833), born Johann Georg Metzler and later Sir Charles Lewis Giesecke, a German actor, librettist, polar explorer and mineralogist. Neither he nor Franz Joseph Mezler (Metzler) von Andelberg would seem to have had anything to do with botany. The genus Mezleria variously listed as being in the Lobeliaceae or Campanulaceae was published in 1836 by Bohemian botanist Carl Bořivoj Presl.

michelianus: for Pier Antonio Micheli (1679-1737), Italian botanist, curator of the Orto Botanico di Firenze (Florence Botanical Garden). In 1716 he assisted in founding what is possibly the world's first botanical society called the Società botanica Florentina. His major work was the Nova plantarum genera juxta Tournafortii methodum disposita (New Genera of Plants, Handled According to the Method of Tournefort, 1729) which dealt with about 1900 species, 1400 of them new. His interests included zoology, paleontology and geology. He is considered by many as the founder of scientific mycology and is commemorated with the former taxon Cyperus michelianus (now C. pygmaeus). Linnaeus aso named the plant genus Michelia after him. (SydneyFungalStudies.org)

middlemostii: for Alexander John Milner Middlemost (1902-1970), South African horticulturist at Kirstenbosch, eventually becoming Assistant Curator. He was also Secretary of the Cape Natural History Club, Honorary Member of the Botanical Society of South Africa, and Chairman of the Cape Horticultural Society. After his death his ashes were scattered at Kirstenbosch. He is commemorated with Lampranthus middlemostii, Ruschia middlemostii, and the former taxa Conophytum middlemostii (now synonymized to C. jucundum), Cephalophyllum middlemostii (now C. purpureo-album), Freesia middlemostii (now F. leichtlinii) and Watsonia middlemostii (now W. rogersii). (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; JSTOR)

Mielichhoferia: for Mathias Mielichhofer (1772-1847), Austrian mining engineer and director of mines, bryologist and botanist, and good friend of Alexander von Humboldt. Hugh Clarke adds: "He became interested in flora as a result of his walks in the Alps and in Saxony. In 1813 he was married and shortly thereafter he developed an interest in mosses. It was in this year that he discovered two new mosses (eventually called Mielichhoferia elongata and M. nitida) which led to the genus Mielichhoferia being named after him. Sauter (unidentified) called him a happy man “every new plant, each rare mineral filled him with great joy.” He collected a valuable collection of minerals. His moss herbarium, which was acquired by a landowner named Ratzesberger, is considered lost." The genus was published in 1831 by German botanists Christian Friedrich Hornschuch and Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck. (Bryophyte Flora of North America; Mosses of Eastern North America; Wikipedia)

miersiana: for John Miers (1789-1879), British botanist and civil engineer, member of the Linnean Society, Fellow of the Royal Society, Vice-President of the Botanical Society of London, produced a significant monograph of the family Menispermaceae and bequeathed his herbarium of 20,000 specimens to the British Museum. He was the author of Contributions to the Botany of South America (1870), On the Apocynaceae of South America (1878), and Illustrations of South American Plants, and is commemorated with Antizoma miersiana. (Wikipedia)

Mikania: for Joseph Gottfried Mikan (1743-1814), Bohemian (Austrian-Czech) physician, botanist and professor of botany and chemistry at the University of Prague, later rector of the University, author of Catalogus plantarum omnium (1776) dedicated to the Botanical Garden of Prague.. The genus Mikania in the Asteraceae was published by German botanist Carl Ludwig von Willdenow in 1803. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia)

mildbraedii: for Gottfried Wilhelm Johannes Mildbraed (1879-1954), German traveller, explorer, botanist who specialized in mosses and ferns, and plant collector on four German expeditions to Central Africa, specializing in bryophyes and pteridophytes. He was appointed Keeper at the Berlin Botanical Museum in 1913. He is commemorated with Celis mildbraedii, Jungermannia mildbraedii, Eragrostis mildbraedii, the former taxa Lasiodiscus mildbraedii (now L. pervillei) and Ekebergia mildbraedii (now E. capensis) and probably also for the former Hermannia mildbraedii (now H. tigrensis) and Urostachys mildbraedii (now Huperzia dacrydioides). He was the author of the most current monograph and taxonomic treatment of the family Stylidiaceae in 1908, and also had the genera Mildbraediodendron, Mildbraedia and Mildbraediochloa named for him, but those do not appear in southern Africa. His house and main collection of specimens at the Berlin Botanical Museum were destroyed during World War II. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses; JSTOR)

milfordiae: for Mrs. Helen A. Milford (1877-1940), British horticulturist who collected plants in the Drakensberg Mts region for introduction into England. She operated an alpine nursery in Gloucestershire. She is commemorated with Helichrysum milfordiae and the former taxon Crassula milfordiae, now synonymized to C. setulosa. (JSTOR)

Milicia: for a certain Senhor Milicia, an Administrator of Maganja da Costa in Mozambique, with no further details. The genus Milicia in the Moraceae was published in 1909 by Scottish-born botanist Thomas Robertson Sim. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Hugh Glen)

millarii: for Harold Millar who discovered the taxon Diaphananthe millarii, commonly called Millar's Diaphananthe, in the early 1900's. (Elsa Pooley)

milleri: for Major Oliphant Bell Miller (1882-1966) who was born in Scotland, fought in the Boer War, was a Forest Officer at the Cape, collected in South Africa, Swaziland, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia, and died at Bulawayo, Rhodesia. He is commemorated with Helichrysum milleri and Rhus milleri. (Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturists; Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

milleriana: for Allister Miller, a resident of Dalriach (Swaziland), who assisted Harry Bolus on his collecting trip and had a keen interest in the flora of Swaziland, commemorated with Berkheya milleriana. (Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society Vol. 16)

Millettia: for Charles Millett (1792-1873), plant collector for the East India Company in Canton, China. He was a member of an organization known as the Canton Factory established by Joseph Banks, a group of naturalists and collectors, and he was in regular communication with William Hooker, Director of Kew Gardens, and John Henslow, Professor of Botany at Cambridge University. He collected plants around Macau, and also in Ceylon, Malabar and Java. According to The Eponym Dictionary of Mammals by Beolens et. al., he may be the same individual as the French naturalist Charles Millett (no dates found) whose name is on the Millett's shrew (Sorex coronatus), but this seems unlikely given his mention in British Naturalists in Qing China by Fa-ti Fan and his correspondence with British botanists, as well as the fact that the French Charles Millet was involved with freshwater fauna and not flora. Also the French Charles Millet published Les Poissons in 1881 after the other Charles Millett was dead, and in 1831 the French Charles Millet was busy naming the freshwater shrimp Atyaephyra desmarestii having collected it in France while the British Charles Millett was in Canton at least as late as February, 1832 (as referred to in History 1793-1844 From the Newspapers, Chapter 31: China 1827-1832). Turnings, the journal of the Western Cape Woodturners Association, refers to him as Dr. Charles Millett, and this is repeated in What's in a Name: The Meanings of the Botanical Names of Trees by Hugh Glen, but I have no confirmation of that. Flora of Zimbabwe states that the genus Millettia is named for a "Dr. J.A. Millett, a botanist who worked in China in 1726," but this is incorrect. Another source identifies Dr. J.A. Millett as a French botanist, so there is a lot of confusion about this epithet. A Wikipedia article on Millettia describes the confusion and sets the record straight: "In the 1820s-1830s Charles Millett, a plant collector and an official with the East India Company, collected many samples of Millettia while living in Canton and Macao. He sent them to the University of Glasgow's Botanical Garden. In 1834, Robert Wight and George Arnott Walker-Arnott, both Scottish botanists, published Prodromus Florae Peninsulae Indiae Orientalis [1834] where the genus Millettia is first mentioned. The authors named the genus after Charles Millett, incorrectly referring to him as Dr. Charles Millett. This has been picked up by such sites as Flora of Australia Online and JSTOR and many lesser ones. Charles Millett of the East India Company has often been confused with Charles Millet, a French ichthyologist, who was active around the same time. In addition J. A. Millet, a French botanist from the 18th century, is often misattributed as the source." To cast further confusion on the record, I mention in passing the British foraminiferologist F.W. (Fortescue William) Millett (1833-1915), who was one of the leading micropalaeontologists of the late 19th century. The genus Millettia in the Fabaceae was published in 1834 by Robert Wight and George Arnott Walker-Arnott, both Scottish botanists. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; PlantzAfrica; JSTOR; Kew Gardens website; Wikipedia; Prodromus Florae Peninsulae Indiae Orientalis)

milneana/milnei: for Edgar Wolston Bertram Handsley Milne-Redhead (1906-1996), British botanist, and pioneer plant conservationist. He came from a botanical family with a father and grandfather and two cousins involved in botanical work. He went to Cambridge in 1925 and studied botany, then began working, at first in an unofficial capacity and later as an employee, at Kew Gardens. He was author of Flora of Tropical East Africa: Dioscoreaceae, collected extensively in many countries of tropical and southern Africa, commemorated with Zornia milneana. (Flora of Zimbabwe)

milnei: uncertain but according to David Hollombe in the case of Eulophia milnei probably for William Grant Milne (1829-1866), Scottish botanist born at Banff, Aberdeenshire. Wikipedia provides the following brief information: “A gardener at the Edinburgh Botanic Garden, Milne joined the Herald expedition to the southwestern Pacific (1852–1856) as a botanist. The expedition visited, inter alia, Lord Howe Island, New South Wales and Western Australia. Milne was initially accompanied by fellow Scots botanist John MacGillivray, who left the ship in 1855 after a dispute with Captain Henry Mangles Denham. Milne, the discoverer of several plants, including the rare New Caledonian tree Meryta denhamii which he found growing on the Isle of Pines in 1853 and sent to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew, had botanist Berthold Carl Seemann name the plant Meryta denhamii after Captain Denham (for whom the town of Denham, Western Australia was also named). The plant was described from specimens that had flowered in a greenhouse in Kew in 1860. W. G. Milne collected in South Africa (1852–1853) and in a later expedition in West Africa (1862–1866), where he was forced to sell his clothes when his funds ran out and walked naked for some two hundred miles. He died in Creek Town, Old Calabar (Nigeria).”

mirkinii: for a certain plant collector named Mirkin (fl. 1939). JSTOR has a specimen record for Pectinaria mirkinii having been collected by an L. Mirkin with no date. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

mitchellensis: Erica mitchellensis, named for the type locality near Mitchell's Peak, and not for a person.

mittenii/Mittenothamnium: for William Mitten (1819-1906), British pharmaceutical chemist and bryophyte collector considered the premier bryologist of the second half of the nineteenth century, according to the New York Botanical Garden. He began his bryological career under the tutelage of William Borrer and William Jackson Hooker, and passed up the curatorship of the Kew Herbarium in order to better support his family. His collection of bryophytes, the largest such in the world in private hands, consisted of some 50,000 specimens which was purchased at the time of his death by the NYBG. He was the father-in-law of Alfred Russel Wallace. He is commemorated with Selaginella mittenii. (William Mitten Papers, NYBG; website of the British Bryological Society; Flora of Zimbabwe; JSTOR)

Moenchia: for Conrad Moench (Mönch) (1744-1805), German botanist and pharmacist, chemist, professor of botany at the Collegium Medicum Carolinianum at Kessel, and founder of the Marburg Botanic Garden. He was an vocal critic of Linnaeus’s sexual system and strong opponent of Linnaean classification, generic concepts, and nomenclature. Hugh Clarke adds: "He wrote Methodus Plantas horti botanici et agri Marburgensis (1794), describing 674 species in the Garden and surrounding areas, restoring the names and genera of Tournefort wherever possible, as did his Supplementum ad Methodum plantas (1802) which added 634 more flowering plants." The genus Moenchia in the Caryophyllaceae was published in 1790 by Friedrich Kasimir Medikus. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

moenkemeyeri: for Wilhelm Mönkemeyer (1862-1938), plant collector in the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Nigeria, commemorated with Riccia moenkemeyeri. (JSTOR)

moeserianum: for Dr. Walter Möser (Moeser) (?-1913), German botanist who perished in the Arctic on the Svalbard expedition of Herbert Schröder-Stranz, commemorated with Helichrysum moeserianum. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Moesslera: for Johann Christoph Mössler (Moessler) (1770-1840). German botanist, author of Handbuch der gemeinnütziges Gewächskunde (1815)and co-author of Taschenbuck der Botanik (1805). The genus Moesslera in the Bruniaceae was published in 1827 by German botanist and ornithologist Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

moggii: for Albert Oliver Dean Mogg (1886-1980), South African botanist who saw active service in South-West Africa in WWI and in the medical corps in Egypt in WWII, ecologist and lecturer in botany, curator of the Moss Herbarium, commemorated with Moraea moggii, Combretum moggii, and the former taxa Acalypha moggii (now A. ornata) and Bulbostylis moggii (now B. pusilla). (Gunn & Codd)

Mohria: for Daniel Matthias Heinrich Mohr (1780-1808), German botanist from Schleswig-Holstein who began his career as a student of Johann Christian Fabricius in Kiel and Heinrich Adolf Schrader in Göttingen. The son of a pastor, he became a professor of philosophy and later assistant professor of zoology and botany at Christian Albrecht University of Kieland, an authority on algae and bryophytes, and a plant collector and author. He worked in the Botanical Garden at Kiel, and was commemorated with the genus Mohria in the Anemiaceae which was published in 1806 by Swedish botanist Olof (Peter) Swartz. Although he died at the early age of 28, he authored the cryptogamic directory Observationes botanicae (1803) and co-authored Handbuch der Enleitung in das Studium der kryptogamischen Gewãchse and Naturhistorische Reise durch einen Theil Schwedens with the German entomologist Friedrich Weber. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia)

Molendoa: for Ludwig Molendo (1833-1902), German botanist and muscologist, newspaper editor and writer in Bayreuth. Passau, Regensburg and Munich. He studied bryophytes in the Alps and with August Holler and Otto Sendtner and made the first comprehensive studies of the bryoflora there, worked  for German botanist Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius and Swiss botanist Karl Wilhelm von Nägeli, and collected for Paul Günter Lorentz (1835-1881) and others. He was the author of Moos-Studien aus den Algäuer Alpen: Beiträge zur Phytogeographie (1875) and Bayerns Laubmoose. Vorläufige Uebersicht mit besonderer Rücksicht auf Niederbayern (1875). The genus Molendoa in the Pottiaceae was published in 1878 by Swedish botanist Sextus Otto Lindberg but sold much of his herbarium because he lived under difficult financial circumstances. (A Guide to Bryologically Interesting Regions in Germany; Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.)

molleri: for Adolpho Frederico Möller (1842-1920), Portuguese botanist, commemorated with Sporobolus molleri and the former taxon Lophocolea molleri, now a synonym of L. difformis. He began his professional work as a sylviculturist (a person who cultivates forest trees) in the General Administration of the Kingdom Forests, later worked in the Botanical Gardens of the University of Coimbra eventually becoming the Inspector, and created a number of herbaria. He also wrote the Catálogo das Plantas Medicinais que habitam o continente português.” (JSTOR)

mollii: for Professor Eugene John Moll (1941- ), Rhodesian-born plant ecologist, appointed to the Botanical Survey Section of the National Botanical Institute, senior lecturer in plant ecology at Cape Town University, particularly interested in conservation of fynbos vegetation, author of Trees and Shrubs of the Cape Peninsula and co-author of Common Trees of Southern Africa. He is commemorated with Crotalaria mollii which he collected in South Africa in 1969. (JSTOR)

Monniera/monnieri: for Louis Guillaume le Monnier (1717-1799), French botanist and one of the original organizers of Louis XV's botanic collection at Petit Trianon. He was appointed professor of botany at the Jardin du Roi (later the Jardin des Plantes) in 1759, filling the void left by the death of Bernard de Jussieu's brother Antoine in April of the previous year. He additionally became a royal physician to Louis XV in 1761. In 1786 he was succeeded as professor of botany by René Louiche Desfontaines. A correspondent from Berlin provided some additional details, to wit: He was first interested in physics but then became a doctor at the Hospital in St.Germain-en-Laye. In his leisure time he was appointed a gardener and loved all botany. In 1739 he accompanied Alexandre Comte de Cassini in his travel and observations, which were described in "Observations d'histoire naturelle faites dan les regions meridionales de la France." As early as 1743 he was inducted into the Academie des sciences, and in 1745 into the Royal Society of London. From 1758 -1786 Le Monnier was professor of botany at the Jardin du Roi in Paris. He was associated there with the naturalists René Louiche Desfontaines and Jacques-Julien Houtou de Labillardière, and the horticulturist Pierre Poivre. He introduced new and rare plants into the Royal Garden at the Trianon at Versailles. He also knew Andre Michaux and sent seeds to Linnaeus with whom he had visited. He had made good contacts with Antoine and Bernard de Jussieu as well as Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Le Monnier was from 1761 personal physician to Louis XV, then to Louis XVI, whom he visited while he was in prison. The genus Monniera in the Scrophulariaceae was published in 1891 by German botanist Carl Ernst Otto Kuntze, and Louis Guillaume le Monnier is also commemorated with the taxon Bacopa monnieri. (Lotte Burkhardt, pers. comm.; David Hollombe, pers. comm.; Wikipedia).

monroi: for Claude Frederick Hugh Monro (1863-1918), collected Dyschoriste monroi, author of Some Indigenous Trees of Southern Rhodesia, also two papers on the grasses of Rhodesia, collected in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia. He is also commemorated with the former taxon Mimusops monroi, now a synonym of M. zeyheri, and probably for Lindernia monroi and the former Vellozia monroi. (JSTOR)

Monsonia/monsoniana: for Lady Ann Monson (née Vane) (1714-1776), daughter of Henry, Earl of Darlington, a prominent figure in Calcutta society, and great-granddaughter of Charles II, botanical collector at the Cape and in Bengal. Hugh Clarke provides the following additional information: "In 1774, aged sixty, she came to the Cape on her way to India. Carl Pehr (Peter) Thunberg (1743-1728), who arrived two years earlier to collect plant specimens and learn Dutch, took Lady Ann to a number of farms adjacent to Cape Town. She seemingly had more interest in the animal kingdom than the floral one. Lady Ann corresponded with Linneus who seemed besotted with her and he named the genus in her honour...” From Ted Oliver: "Her second marriage was to Brig. Gen. Hon. George Monson. En route to India she spent some time at the Cape and collected specimens. She went out on excursions with [Carl Peter] Thunberg and [Francis] Masson and charmed the former. She had correspondence with Linnaeus who was also much charmed by her correspondence, in fact smitten!  She died in Calcutta." She is commemorated with the taxon  Erica monsoniana. The Geranium genus Monsonia was published in 1767 by Linnaeus. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Montanoa: for Dr. Don Luis José Montaña (1755-1820), Mexican politician of Puebla, physician, naturalist and amateur botanist. The genus Montanoa in the Asteraceae was published in 1825 by Mexican botanist Vicente de Cervantes. Hugh Clarke adds the following: "He studied humanities and philosophy at Palafoxiano seminary, theology at St. Ignatius seminary, and obtained his medical doctorate at the Real y Pontificia Universidad de México in 1793, of which he became a professor in the Medical Faculty. He played a significant role in modernizing medical science in Mexico through his emphasis on using the latest research to improve medical practices and healing, the introduction of monitoring hospital boards, and by promoting herbal medication through research into the medicinal properties of plants. He also encouraged medical practitioners to adhere to the great aphorisims to which end he translated Anuce Foës' Latin version of the great Aphorisims of Hippocrates in his book Praelectiones et concertationes medicae pro Hippocratis magni Aphorismis (1817)." (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; David Hollombe, pers. comm.; Elsa Pooley; JSTOR; "The Systematics of Montanoa" by V.A. Funk in Memoirs of the New York Botanical Garden, Vol. 36)

Montbretia: for Antoine François Ernest Coquebert de Montbret (1781-1801), French botanist and plant collector, was with Napoleon's military and scientific expedition to Egypt in 1798 and studied the flora of Egypt. He was the first librarian of the Institute of Egypt in Cairo and died of the plague there at the age of about 20. He was co-author of Illustratio iconographica insectorum quæ in Musæis Parisinis with Johann Christian Fabricius. The genus Montbretia in the Iridaceae was published in 1803 by Swiss botanist August Pyramus de Candolle. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

monteiroae: for Mrs. Rose Monteiro (née Bassett) (1840-1897), botanist and plant collector, and wife of Joaquim John Monteiro (1833-1878), who collected in 1876 in South Africa, Angola and Mozambique among other places, commemorated with Stomatostemma monteiroae, Raphionacme monteiroae, Artabotrys monteiroae, and the former taxa Randia monteiroae (now synonymized to Catunaregam obovata), Oxyanthus monteiroae (now O. latifolius) and Ceropegia monteiroae (now C. sandersonii). (JSTOR; Gunn & Codd; Flora of Mozambique)

Montinia: for Lars Jonasson Montin (1723-1785), Swedish botanist and physician, botanical collector and pupil of Linnaeus. His specimens form the basis of the Swedish Academy of Sciences herbarium in Stockholm. Hugh Clarke provides the following information: "Aged 21, he studied mining engineering at the University of Lund for two years before moving to University of Uppsala, where he was inspired by Carl Linnaeus. He graduated as a medical doctor in 1751 and became the district medical officer for the County of Halland on the west coast of Sweden in 1756. Here, he met Pehr Osbeck (1723-1805) and together they made an inventory of flora of that area. While Osbeck went to China at Linneus's behest, Montin did botanical, zoological and ornithological research in Sweden. He discovered many new species and reported on the wild herbs in Halland. He was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1771 and given the title of 'Assessor' in 1782." The genus Montinia in the Montiniaceae was published in 1776 by Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

mooreanus: for Dr. David Moore? There are specimen records of Senecio mooreanus being collected by H. Bolus in 1905, and by Hilliard and Burtt-Davy in 1976. The name was published by John Hutchinson and Burtt-Davy in 1936.

moorei: for Dr. David Moore (1807-1879) who grew plants of Crinum moorei which were used to describe the species by 19th century botanist, Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, while he was director of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew in London. Dr. Moore, Director of the Glasnevin Botanical Gardens in Dublin (1838-1879), received the seed from a British soldier named Webb who collected it in KwaZulu-Natal during the 1860's. (PlantzAfrica) "David Moore's contribution to the Gardens, to its plant collections and to its reputation nationally and internationally is unsurpassed. His interests and abilities were wide ranging; he had studied the flora of Antrim and Derry, fungi, algae, lichens, bryophytes, ferns and flowering plants, before taking up his post at Glasnevin. While at Glasnevin he developed links with Botanic Gardens in Britain, in Europe and in Australia (his brother Charles became Director at Sydney). Moore used the great interest in plants that existed among the estate owners and owners of large gardens in Ireland to expand trial grounds for rare plants not expected to thrive at Glasnevin. The collections at Kilmacurragh, Headford and Fota, for example, attest to this. It was David Moore who first noted potato blight in Ireland at Glasnevin on 20th August 1845 and predicted that the impact on the potato crop would lead to famine in Ireland. He continued to investigate the cause of the blight and correctly identified it as a fungus but narrowly missed finding a remedy. David Moore was succeeded by his son Frederick, who was made Curator at the age of twenty-two. Some of the gardening establishment figures of the day were sceptical that such a young man would be up to the job. Frederick Moore soon justified his appointment and went on to establish Glasnevin as one of the great gardens of the world. In due course he was knighted for his services to horticulture." (website of Glasnevin Botanical Garden)

mooreiana: possibly for Spencer Le Marchant Moore (1850-1931), British botanist who worked at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the Natural History Museum. He is commemorated with the genus Spenceria which does not appear in southern Africa. The taxa with this epithet is Pteronia mooreiana. To my knowledge this is the only taxon with this epithet.

Moquinia/Moquiniella: for Christian Horace Bénédict Alfred Moquin-Tandon (1804-1863), French botanist, naturalist, pupil of A.P. de Candolle, Director of the Botanic Garden of Toulouse 1834-1853, professor of botany at the Faculté de Médecine at Paris, and one of the founders of the Société Botanique de France. He studied the flora of Corsica for the French government (1850-1852), became Director of the Jardin des Plantes and the Académie des Sciences. He was a specialist in seed plants and a prolific author. He wrote the 3-vol. Histoire naturelle des mollusques terrestres et fluviatiles de France (1855) and Natural History of the Canary Islands with Philip Barker Webb and Sabin Berthelot. The genus in the Moquinia in the Loranthaceae was published by Swiss botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle in 1838, while Moquiniella also in the Loranthaceae was named by Belgian botanist Simone Balle in 1954. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Moraea: the name Morea was originally intended by Philip Miller to commemorate the British amateur botanist and natural historian Robert More (1703-1780), traveller, friend of Linnaeus, and Fellow of the Royal Society of London, but the name was changed by either Linnaeus to Moraea apparently to honor either his wife Sara Elizabeth (Elisabeth) Moraea (1716-1806), and/or possibly also her father Dr. Johan Moraeus, the town physician of Falun. IPNI records the genus Morea as being published by More in 1758 in Fig. Pl. Gard. Dict. ii. 159, tt. 238, 239 [Figures of the most Beautiful, Useful, and Uncommon plants described in the Gardeners dictionary Vol. II], but then in the same year apparently in the same publication More published the name Moraea. In addition to this, there is an IPNI listing of Moraea published in 1762 with the author attribution Mill. ex. L. which indicates that Linnaeus used the name and was responsible for the change. Hugh Clarke adds: "When Carl Linnaeus proposed to Sara in 1735 Dr. Moraeus agreed but insisted that before any marriage took place, Linnaeus should get qualified. Four years later, in 1739, when they married, Linnaeus had obtained a Doctorate in Medicine “cum laude” from Hardewijk University, and published Systema naturae, his major work, and Fundamenta botanica, and so gained a reputation." Several sources such as Paxton's Botanical Dictionary, Loudon's Encyclopaedia of Plants and William Nicholson's The British Encyclopedia attribute Moraea to an R. (Robert) Moore, botanist of Schrewsbury, and very likely the same Robert More referred to above. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; PlantzAfrica; Hugh Clarke)

morganii: the holotype of Conophytum morganii was collected by someone named Morgan in South Africa. It has now been synonymized to C. truncatum. I haven't been able to find any certain information as to the derivation of this epithet. The Yearbook of the British Cactus and Succulent Society refers to a Hugh Morgan as the first British cactophile. Might this be a clue?

morrisiae: for Florence Nightingale Seller Morris (Mrs. Gilbert Charles Edward Morris) (c.1898-1985), mother of South African botanist Mrs. Doreen Court, commemorated with Haworthia morrisiae. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Mortoniopteris: this is an outdated genus name which has been recognized as being synonymous with Trichomanes in the Hymenophyllaceae. The genus Mortoniopteris was published in 1977 by Italian botanist Rodolfo Emilio Giuseppe Pichi Sermolli and was intended to honor Conrad Vernon Morton (1905-1972), American botanist, specialist in the Gesneriaceae and the Solanaceae, author of the 2-volume Studies of Fern Types (1967-1973) and A Revision of the Argentine Species of Solanum (1976). His career was spent at the Smithsonian Institution. He is also honored with the genera Mortoniella and Mortoniodendron, which do not appear in southern Africa. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

mortonius: for a certain Mr. Morton who sent plants of this species to Great Britain. Gladiolus mortonius has been called Mr. Morton's gladiolus. (www.safricanbulbs.org; Bulb Chat)

Morysia: for Charles-Étienne Bourgevin of Vialart, Count of Saint Morys (1772-1817), French Brigadier and Councilor of the Parliament of Paris serving King Louis XVIII. Hugh Clarke adds: "He was made a Knight of St. Louis and an officer of the Royal Order of the Legion of Honor. He was an aide de camp to the Duke of Broglie. He wrote many books including Voyage pittoresque de Scandinavie: Cahier de ving-quatre vues, avec descriptions (A Picturesque Journey in Scandinavia, 1802) and Aperçus sur la politique de l'Europe, et sur l'administration intérieure de la France (Insights into the Politics of Europe and the interior administration of France, 1815) in which he advocated abolishing the slave trade. He was killed by a Colonel Barbier Du Fay in a duel in 1817 in an argument over land rights. Cassine, the plant author, writes “he was preparing to write a monograph on his many observations [relating to the cultivation of willows taken from different parts of Europe.] This appeared as a ‘Memorial on the Means of Planting uncultivated plants’." The genus Morysia in thewas published in 1824 by French botanist and naturalist Alexandre Henri Gabriel de Cassini. (Hugh Clarke)

Mossia/mossiana/mossianum/mossianus/mossii: for Charles Edward Moss (1870/72-1930), British botanist, Curator of the Cambridge Herbarium (1908-1916), professor of botany at the South African School of Mines and Technology which later became the University of Witwatersrand, plant collector and botanical explorer, Fellow of the Linnean Society, died in South Africa. His collection of specimens from the Transvaal and neighbouring regions along with his own herbarium laid the foundation for the University of Witwatersrand herbarium which later was named the C.E. Moss Herbarium. He also played an important role in the formation of the British Ecological Society. He is commemorated with Carex mossii, Lepidium mossii, Polygala mossii, Lessertia mossii, Thesium mossii, Dierama mossii, and various other species that have been lost to synonymy. The genus Mossia in the Aizoaceae was published in 1930 by British botanist Nicholas Edward Brown. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; JSTOR; Gunn & Codd)

mostertiae: for Aletta Johanna Mostert, of the farm Claudskraal on the Bokkeveld escarpment near Nieuwoudtville. She sent the first recorded specimens of Gladiolus mostertiae to the National Botanical Garden at Kirstenbosch in 1920. (IBSA Bulb Chat June 2002)

mostertii: for Louis Mostert, a keen and interested landowner in the Wolseley area, commemorated with Ixia mostertii. (PlantzAfrica)

mougeotii/mougeotina: for Dr. Jean Baptiste Mougeot (1776-1858), French botanist, geologist, mycologist and physician, commemorated with Xanthoparmelia mougeotii and X. mougeotina.

moylei: probably for Rev. William Moyle Rogers (1835-1920), British botanist. The taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is the former Ornithogalum moylei now synonymized to Albuca rogersii. The fact that the species name was changed from moylei to rogersii seems a pretty good clue, and also that another taxon with this epithet is Rubus moylei collected in 1903 by W.M. Rogers, and William Moyle Rogers is the author of a book called Handbook of British Rubi. These two taxa are the only ones with this specific epithet. (Botanical Society of the British Isles)

muddii: for Christopher Mudd (1852-1920), Australian forest ecologist and botanist, commemorated with Argyrolobium muddii, Moraea muddii, and the former taxa Ilysanthes muddii (now synonymized to Lindernia wilmsii), Selago muddii (now Selago atherstonei), Orthosiphon muddii (now Syncolostemon transvaalensis), and Streptocarpus muddii (now S. wilmsii). He was Assistant Curator of the Cambridge University Garden, official botanist to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), went to South Africa in 1877 to collect seeds and bulbs, worked for four years on tree planting in the Canterbury District of New Zealand, and later was employed as Forester in the Ballarat Water Commission. (Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

muelleri/muellerianum: for (1) Baron Ferdinand Jacob Heinrich von Müller (Mueller) (1825-1896), a German-Australian physician, geographer and botanist, Government Botanist for Victoria, established the National Herbarium of Victoria, Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Melbourne, and was the author of the two-volume Plants of Victoria, the twelve-volume Fragmenta phytographica Australiae, Eucalyptographia (1879-1884), and The Iconography of Australian Species of Acacia and Cognate Genera (1887-1888). He was honored with the genera Muellerina which does not appear in southern Africa, and the journal of the Melbourne Royal Botanic Gardens Muelleria. He is commemorated with Ptychomitrium muelleri and possibly with some other taxa. There is an Atriplex muelleri and Baron von Müller did work on Atriplex species. He was decorated by many countries and knighted in 1879. (Wikipedia; JSTOR); (2) for a Mr. Müller (fl. 1914), commemorated with Ruschia muelleri. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Muellerella: for Jean (Johannes) Mueller (Müller), called Argoviensis (1828-1896), Swiss botanist and owner of a lichenological herbarium. He was from Aargau or Argovie in Switzerland and studied [botany] at the University of Zurich obtaining his Ph.D in 1857. He was the Curator of the Candolle herbarium from 1851-1869 and Curator of the B. Delessert herbarium from 1869 until the end of his life. He was also the Director of the Geneva Botanic Garden (1870-1874) and a professor of botany 1871-1889. He was the author of Monographie de la famille Résédacées (1857), Principes des classification des lichens et énumération des lichens des environs de Genève (1862), Lichenologische Beiträge in Flora: 69 (1886) and the first work entirely devoted to Puerto Rican lichens, Lichenes Portoricenses ab egregio Sintenis lectis (1888). He also wrote monographs for the Apocynaceae and Euphorbiaceae in A. P. de Candolle's Prodromus and Martius's Flora Brasiliensis. He was also honored with several taxa with specific epithet 'argoviensis.' The lichen genus Muellerella in the family Verrucariaceae was published in 1862 by German botanist Johann Adam Philip Hepp. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia; Josef Hafellner, pers. comm.; "Lichenological Studies in Puerto Rico" by Joel Mercado-Diaz and Eugenio Santiago-Valentin)

Muiria/muiriana/muirii: for Dr. John Muir (1874-1947), Scottish-born naturalist, physician, and cultural historian, an enthusiastic plant collector who came to the Cape in 1896, practiced at Worcester and other places, and finally settled in Riversdale, and who contributed greatly to our knowledge of the plants of this area, made the first collection of Salvia muirii in 1915. He was particularly interested in drift-seeds and wrote articles, many in Afrikaans, on botany, medicine and folklore. His collection of seashells was donated to the South Africa Museum, his drift-seed collection to Stellenbosch University and his personal herbarium to the National Herbarium, Pretoria. He was the author of monographs entitled Seed-drift of South Africa and Gewone plantname in Riversdal. The genus Muiria in the Aizoaceae was published in 1927 by British botanist Nicholas Edward Brown. He is also commemorated with species the genera Ruschia, Blaeria, Erica, Hermannia, Elegia, Euryops, Senecio, Oedera, Stoebe, Agathosma, Muraltia, Carpobrotus, Hereroa, Euphorbia, Leucadendron, Leucospermum, Zaluzianskya, Lobostomon, Hesperantha, Watsonia, Gladiolus, Salvia and others. (PlantzAfrica; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Gunn & Codd; JSTOR; Wikipedia)

Mundia/mundiana/mundii: for Johannes Ludwig Leopold Mund (often and incorrectly spelled Mundt) (1791-1831), a Prussian pharmacist, botanist, land surveyor and plant collector who was originally sent to the Cape by the Prussian government as a plant collector and arrived in 1816. He visited with Adelbert von Chamisso when he stopped at the Cape in the Rurik in 1818. Staying on the ship overnight, he was surprised on awakening to find that the Rurik had set sail, forcing him to seek a transfer to another ship going the opposite way. At some point he and his Prussian companion Louis Maire were recalled because the Prussian government claimed they had not heard from them in two years, but they ignored this recall and their services were terminated. Other collectors apparently were also not satisfied with his collecting rigor and yet his name was placed on taxa by such botanists as Johann Friedrich Klotsch, Carl Daniel Freidrich Meisner, Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck, von Chamisso, Schlechter, Harvey, Ecklon and Zeyher, Otto Wilhelm Sonder, Robert Allen Rolfe, Neville Stuart Pillans, N.E. Brown, and Karl Wilhelm Ludwig Pappe, so he must have been considered significant within the botanical community. The genus Mundia in the Polygalaceae was named in 1821 by German botanist Karl Sigismund Kunth. According to Gunn & Codd, some of the species named for him were published with a 't' as in mundtii, but these names should be corrected. J.L.L. Mund is commemorated with species in the genera Indigofera, Aspalathus, Acmadenia, Silene, Euphorbia, Leucospermum, Protea, Dioscorea, Bupleurum, Holothrix, Struthiola, Scolopia, Helichrysum, Agathosma, Rubus, Athanasia and probably others both current and former. (Elsa Pooley; David Hollombe, pers. comm.; Gunn & Codd)

munroi: for Hugh Kenneth Munro (1894-1973), entomologist and plant collector, President of the Entomological Society of South Africa and the Biological Society of South Africa, commemorated with the former taxon Gazania munroi, now synonymized to G. krebsiana. (Gunn & Codd)

Muraltia: for Johannes von Muralt (1645-1733), Swiss surgeon and botanist, anatomist, professor of physics and mathematics at the Zürich Collegium Carolinum, and son of successful merchant Johann Melchior von Muralt (1614-1686). He studied medicine under Johann Caspar Bauhin and helped to found the teaching of anatomy and medicine there. He was a prolific writer on surgery, anatomy, obstetrics, biology, pathology, philosphy, zoology, botany and general medicine, producing several significant medical books along the way. He was superstitious and believed that the Devil played a large part in the ills of mankind. He was a member of a prominent family most of whom where physicians beginning with Johannes Muralt (Muralto) who emigrated from Locarno to Zürich in 1555. He was elected to the Academia Naturae Curiosorum in 1685. He was a member of Academia Leopoldina. He authored Vade-mecum anatomicum sive clavis medicinae (1677), Anatomisches Collegium (1687), Hippocrates Helveticus oder der Eydgenössische Stadt-Land-und Hauss-Artzt (1692) and Systema physicae experimentalis in 4 vols. (1705–1714). The genus Muraltia in the Polygalaceae was published in 1790 by Belgian botanist and physician Noel Martin Joseph de Necker. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Johannes von Muralt edited by Urs Boschung, 1983; The Galileo Project; Encyclopedia.com)

Murdannia: for Munshí (secretary or writer) Murdann Alí (Aly) of Saharanpur in the Uttar Pradesh, Indian plant collector, the chief plant collector and Keeper of the Herbarium at the Saharunpur Botanic Garden, India in the early 19th century, and expert on Himalayan flora. He was said to be preparing a flora of North India and the Himalayas but was not able to have it published due to the lack of funds. The genus Murdannia in the Commelinaceae was published in 1839 by British botanist John Forbes Royle. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Muriea: for Dr James Murie (1832–1925), Scottish pathologist, surgeon and medical officer.

Murraya: for Johan Andreas (Anders) Murray (1740 - 1791) Swedish physician, pharmacologist and botanist.

muschleriana: possibly for Reinhold (Reno) Conrad Muschler (1883-1957), German botanist and explorer, author of A Manual Flora of Egypt, worked at the Botanical Museum at Berlin. He was honored with the genus Muschleria which does not appear in southern Africa. The taxa in southern Africa with the epithet 'muschleriana' are the former Geigeria muschleriana (now synonymized to G. pilifera) and Othonna muschleriana (now Hertia pallens). (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

nabea: for William McNab (1780-1848), Scottish gardener, curator of the Royal Botanic Garden at Edinburgh (1810-1848), who cultivated Ericas very successfully. His botanical career began as a foreman at Kew Gardens, and he was recommended for the post at Edinburgh by Sir Joseph Banks and William Aiton. Between 1820 and 1823 he undertook the relocation of the garden which was a massive project involving transplanting mature 100-year old trees. He made a trip with Robert Brown in 1834 to North America and Canada, and in 1843 went to Hong Kong to study the flora there. He was the author of Hints on the Planting and General Treatment of Hardy Evergreens, in the Climate of Scotland and A Treatise on the Propagation, Cultivation and General Treatment of Cape Heaths. He is commemorated with Erica nabea, and he was also honored with the genus Macnabia (originally Nabea). His son James (1810-1878) succeeded him as Curator in 1849. Another son, Gilbert McNab (1815-1859), qualified as a medical doctor and undertook botanical investigations in Jamaica, his daughter Catherine Mary McNab (1809-1857), published Botany of the Bible, and his grandson William Ramsey McNab (1844-1889) was Professor of Natural History at the Royal Agricultural College, Professor of Botany at the Royal College of Science, Dublin, and Scientific Superintendent of Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin. (Alice Notten, pers. comm.; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturists; "McNab, William (1780-1848), horticulturist" by Peter D.A. Boyd)

Nachtigalia/nachtigallii: for Gustav Hermann Nachtigal (1834-1885), German physician, botanist, explorer and Consul-General in Tunis who went to Algiers and Tunisia for reasons of health, served as a military surgeon, made a dangerous trek across the Sahara which he wrote about in his multi-volume book Sahara and Sudan (three vols. in German, four in English), and was appointed by Chancellor Bismarck as a special Commissioner for West Africa to negotiate the annexation of Togoland and the Cameroon which subsequently became colonies of Germany. He was also a South African plant botanical author. He died of malaria on his return voyage to Germany. He is considered as one of the greatest of the German explorers of Africa and was primarily interested in ethnography and tropical medicine. The genus Nachtigalia in the Nyctaginaceae was published in 1894 by German botanist Heinrich Gustav Adolf Engler after its original use by Hans Schinz. He is also commemorated with Selago (formerly Walafrida) nachtigalii and probably also for Dicoma nachtigalii. (Wikipedia)

naegelsbachii: for a certain Mr. E. Naegelsbach who collected Blepharis naegelsbachii in Namibia in 1933. The Harvard University Herbarium Index of Botanists lists an E. Naegelsbach with no dates. (JSTOR)

nashii: for George Valentine Nash (1864-1921), American botanist employed by the New York Botanical Garden, did field work in the Bahamas, South Florida and Haiti, author of Costa Rican Orchids (1906) and North American Flora (1909), commemorated with the former taxon Calymperes nashii (now C. tenerum). (Bull. Torrey Botanical Club; Wikipedia)

Nathusia: for Hermann Engelhard von Nathusius (1809-1879), German zoologist, agriculturalist and animal breeder who collected a huge amount of information on cattle breeding. Hugh Clarke adds: "He studied under Johannes Müller from 1827-1829. He was a member of the Prussian Land Economic Council, Director of the Province of Saxony’s Central Agricultural Council, and President of the German Agricultural Society. He wrote a number of books on botany and zoology including Über die Rassens des Schweines (1860), but also about breeding of sheep meat (1856), animal breeding (1860), pig breeding (1860), shorthorn cattle (1861), husbandry and breed knowledge (1872-80)." The genus Nathusia in the Oleaceae was published in 1841 by German botanist and minister Christian Ferdinand Friedrich Hochstetter.

nationae: for Olive Nation (fl. 1903-1911), South African teacher in the Transvaal Education Department and plant collector around Rustenburg, commemorated with Thesium nationae and the former taxon Khadia nationae, now synonymized to K. acutipetala. (Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

naudinianus/naudinii: probably for Charles Victor Naudin (1815-1899), French botanist and plant collector in South Africa, Madagascar and elsewhere, on the herbarium staff of the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, professor of zoology at the Collège Chaptal, Paris, director of the state-run Villa Thuret botanical gardens at Antibes (1878-1899), Alpes-Maritimes, head of the Botanical Gardens of the National Museum of Natural History, specialized in plant hybridizing, commemorated with the genera Naudinia and Naudiniella which do not appear in southern Africa. The taxa in southern Africa with these epithets are Antherotoma naudinii and Acanthosicyos naudinianus. (JSTOR; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

naumanniana: for Friedrich Carl Naumann (1841-1902), German plant collector, fleet surgeon in the German navy, and medical doctor who was on Georg von Schleinitz's circumnavigation on the S.M.S. Gazelle (1874-1876) during which he visited South Africa. He is commemorated with the genus Naumannia which was published in 1891 by Otto Warburg and which does not appear in southern Africa, the taxon Eleocharis naumanniana named in 1883 by Johann Otto Boeckeler, and other species. (JSTOR; Gunn & Codd)

naureeniae: for Mrs. Naureen Adele Cole (née Lambert) (1935- ), South African pharmacist and wife of Lithops authority Prof. Desmond Thorne Cole (1922- ), commemorated with Lithops naureeniae which her husband collected near Springbok. The two of them are responsible for introducing many new Lithops cultivars. See also colei/coleorum. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Women and Cacti)

nealeana: for William Thomas Neale (1892-1943), nurseryman at Newhaven, Sussex and later at Worthington, who imported Crassula nealeana (now synonymized to C. perforata) from Africa into England around 1930. It was not recognzed at the time as to exactly what it was. It was brought in from South Africa again in the 1950s, still unnamed, and was finally published by Larry C. Higgins in the National Cactus and Succulent Journal in 1955. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Nebelia: for Daniel Nebel (1664-1733), German professor of medicine at Heidelberg and Marburg, and his son William Bernhard Nebel (1699-1748). Daniel worked as a doctor and apothecary at Heidelberg hospital and Sapienzkolleg from 1708 to 1728, and was the personal physician of Elector Carl Philip at his court in Mannheim. He was also a prolific author and published works on botany and medicine. William was also a physician and botanist, professor of math, physics and medicine at Heidelberg. The genus Nebelia in the Bruniaceae was first proposed in 1790 by Belgian botanist, physician and mycologist Noel Martin Joseph de Necker but the publication was considered invalid. Later, in 1830, it was validly published by British botanist Robert Sweet. (Lexicon rei Herbariae by Georg-Rudolph Boehmer; Commentatio botanico-literaria de plantis in memorium cultorum nominatis by Georg-Rudolph Boehmer; Heidelberg Historical Society)

nebrowniana/nebrownii: for Nicholas Edward Brown (1849-1934), a taxonomist based at Kew Herbarium. Nicholas Edward Brown was an English plant taxonomist and authority on succulents, Asclepiadaceae, Mesembryanthemaceae, Lamiaceae and other Cape plants. He started work as an assistant in the Herbarium at Kew in 1873, and was Assistant Keeper from 1909-1914. His drawings of succulent plants were made in connection with his revision of the genus Mesembryanthemum, which appeared in 1931, and are accompanied by detailed annotations. He was the author of important works on plant taxonomy particularly succulent plants. He was awarded the Capt. Scott Memorial Medal by the South African Biological Society in recognition of his work on South African flora, and in 1932 an honorary D.Sc. was conferred on him by the University of the Witwatersrand. His publications appeared mainly in the Kew Bulletin and in Flora Capensis. He is commemorated with Acacia nebrownii, Caralluma nebrownii, Gibbaeum nebrownii, and the former Anacampseros nebrownii (now A. lanceolata) and Piaranthus nebrownii (now P. geminatus), and probably also for Dierama nebrownii and Indigofera nebrowniana. He is also honored with the genera Brownanthus and Nicolasia, and with Nebrownia which does not appear in southern Africa. (Wikipedia; Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Flora of Zimbabwe)

Neckera: for Noel Martin Joseph de Necker (or Natalis Joseph de Necker) (1729-1793) Belgian or German physician and botanist of French descent. He was physician to the ruler (Elector Palatinate) in Mannheim. He had a special interest in mosses and especially reproduction in moss-like organisms. His Traité sur la mycitologie (1774) recorded what was known about fungi in his time. He invented the word achene = open, and was also the author of Deliciae gallobelgicae silvestres, seu Tractatus generalis plantarum Gallo-belgicarum in 2 vols. (1768), Physiologia muscorum by examen de analyticum corporibus variis naturalibus (1774), Phytozoologie Philosophique, dans le nombre comment laquelle on démontre of genres et des espèces, concernant les animaux et les végétaux, a été et limité fixé par la nature (1790) and Elementa botanica (1791). The moss genus Neckera in the Neckeraceae was published in 1801 by German botanist Johann Hedwig.

Neesenbeckia/neesii: for Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck (1776-1858), German botanist and physician, zoologist, professor of botany and botanical collector, who described about 7,000 plant species, almost as many as Linnaeus; his special interest was fungi. He was President of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and his last act was to admit Charles Darwin as a member. He was the author of Das System der Pilze und Schwämme, Dissertations and pamphlets on natural history, botany, geology and zoology, 1698-1881, and many others. His brother was the botanist Theodor Friedrich Ludwig Nees von Esenbeck. The genus Neesenbeckia in the Cyperaceae was published in 1947 by South African botanist, taxonomist and phytogeographer Margaret Rutherford Bryan Levyns. In southern Africa there are a number of taxa that either currently carry or formerly carried the epithet of neesii, which I presume without being able to confirm it were intended to honor Nees von Esenbeck. These include Brachymenium neesii (now B. dicranoides), Melica neesii (now M. decumbens), Elegia neesii, Hypodiscus neesii, Restio neesii (now Ischyrolepis sieberi) and Charieis neesii (now Felicia heterophylla). Other than the two brothers, I know of no one else by this name for whom such commemorations would be made. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses; Wikipedia)

neethlingiae/neethlingii: for Dr. Marie Murray Neethling (later Mrs. Vogts) (1908-1998), South African botanist and agriculturist, Protea specialist and author of the first popular book on the family, Proteas, Know Them and Grow Them, wife of Bernard Carl Vogts, commemorated with Delosperma neethlingiae. Caloplaca neethlingii is another taxon in southern Africa, and I am not sure whether or not it commemorates the same person. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Gunn & Codd; JSTOR; Women and Cacti)

Negria: for Cristoforo Negri (1809-1896), Italian geographer, professor of political science at the University of Padua, and politician. Hugh Clarke adds "He studied at universities in Pavia, Graz, Vienna and Prague. During the 1848 war of independence he sided with the Italians, but after the fall of Vicenza on 10 June, 1848, he was compelled to leave for political reasons. He moved to Turin where he became University Rector. He was the founder in 1866 and first President of the Italian Geographic Society which he directed until 1872. During his career, he became involved in diplomatic missions to many European countries. His last official activity was the management of the General Consulate in Hamburg, 1873-74." The genus Negria in the Gesneriaceae was published in 1869 by German botanist and geographer Ferdinand Jacob Heinrich von Mueller. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

neilii: for (1) Neil MacGregor of Nieuwoudtville, Merino sheep farmer and authority on Namaqualand flowers who gives tours on his farm called Glen Lyon, commemorated with Lachenalia neilii. (PlantzAfrica); (2) a Mr. Neil (fl. 1928-1933), dairy farmer and nurseryman in the Western Cape, commemorated with Stayneria neilii. (JSTOR; Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

neilsoniae: the taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is the former Cryophytum neilsoniae, with no information as to its derivation. The only Neilson I can find is a James A. Neilson from the Vineland Horticultural Experiment Station, Ontario, Canada, and a Ronald P. Neilson of the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology at Oregon State University and the USDA Forest Service, both of whom seem very unlikely. According to JSTOR, Mesembryanthemum neilsoniae (= Cryophytum neilsoniae = Mesembryanthemum guerichianum) was collected by a J. Neilson in 1927 at Kirstenbosch, and the specific epithet would seem to indicate a woman. The taxon was originally published as Cryophytum neilsoniae by Louisa Bolus in 1928, then synonymized to Mesembryanthemum neilsoniae published by Bolus in 1939, and subsequent to that it was determined that it was actually the same thing as M. guerichianum, which had been published in 1894.

Nelia/neliana/nelianum/nelii: for Gert Cornelius Nel (1885-1950), South African botanist, prolific plant collector and cactus specialist, professor of botany at Stellenbosch University 1921-1950, commemorated with Delosperma nelii, Herrea nelii, Ruschia nelii, Glottiphyllum nelii, Hereroa nelii, Rhombophyllum nelii, Chasmatophyllum nelii, Leipoldtia nelii, Lampranthus nelii, Pleiospilos nelii, Cheiridopsis nelii, Gasteria neliana, Stapelia neliana, Conophytum nelianum, and maybe others. The genus Nelia in the Aizoaceae was published in 1928 by German botanist Martin Heinrich Gustav Schwantes. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Wikipedia; Gunn & Codd)

Nelsia/nelsii: probably for Louis Nels (1855-1910), German government official in German South-West Africa who collected there around 1890 according to the Harvard University Herbaria index of botanists. Trained as a lawyer, he became a colonial judge before assuming the role of Reichskommissar. He was born and trained as a lawyer in France before joing the German civil service. He became German Consul in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1897 and remained there during the Boer War. The name Nelsia in the Amaranthaceae was published by Swiss botanist Hans Schinz in 1911 and according to David Hollombe, the author cited a collection made by Nels near Windhoek and also cited as a synonym Sericocoma nelsii. It would seem coincidental for the name to be published only a year after Louis Nels died if it were intended to honor some other Nels. Specific epithets of nelsii such as Lonchocarpus nelsii, Euphorbia nelsii and Aptosimum nelsii were definitely for Louis Nels, but Philenoptera nelsii and Asparagus nelsii I don't know for sure. In 1897, he became German consul in Johannesburg, South Africa and remained there during the Boer War. (Gunn & Codd; Wikipedia)

Nelsonia/nelsonii: for (1) David Nelson (?-1789), British botanical collector. He was employed by Joseph Banks to collect specimens and received some training from Banks and from William Aiton before embarking on Cook's third and last voyage, making his first visit to the Cape in 1776. Upon returning he was a gardener for seven years at Kew Gardens. He was also assistant botanist on the infamous voyage of Captain Bligh's Bounty which was intended to bring back breadfruit from Tahiti, and on this voyage called at the Cape again in 1788. When the mutiny occurred, he was put in the boat with Bligh and the others, survived the legendary 3800-mile voyage to Timor, then a few days after arriving, caught a cold while botanizing in the mountains and died. The genus Nelsonia in the Acanthaceae was published in 1810 by Scottish botanist Robert Brown. The Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names says that Albuca nelsonii was named for him, but this may not be the case, see (2) below. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names); (2) William (C.?) Nelson (1852-1922) of Bradway, British nurseryman, son of John Nelson, owner of the Thornbank Nurseries in Rotherham, Yorkshire, listed on JSTOR specimen records as either W. Nelson or W.C. Nelson which I think is the same person. By a coincidence it was exactly 100 years after David Nelson arrived in South Africa that William Nelson arrived. He was on the same vessel as Harry Bolus who was returning from Kew, and when it ran aground Bolus lost his notes and museum specimens he had taken for naming. According to JSTOR, PlantzAfrica, and the Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturists, the species Albuca nelsonii was first collected by the younger Nelson near the Umlayi river in Natal and sent by him to his father's nursery. Most taxa with this specific epithet likely honor William Nelson, including Indigofera nelsonii (now synonymized to I. mollicoma), Triaspis nelsonii (now T. hypericoides), Tetraselago nelsonii, Heliotropium nelsonii, Tritonia nelsonii, Pelargonium nelsonii, Kniphofia nelsonii (now K. triangularis), Brownleea nelsonii (now B. coerulea), Disperis nelsonii (now D. virginalis), Gnaphalium nelsonii, and Scilla nelsonii (now Ledebouria macowanii). Thanks to David Hollombe for clearing up a puzzle which is that JSTOR records indicate that the holotype of Indigofera nelsonii was collected by an Edward W. Nelson in Baja California, Mexico, although Gunn & Codd specifically state that it commemorates William Nelson. They were two different plants. The one collected by Edward Nelson and E.A. Goldman in Baja was published by Per Axel Rydberg in 1923 whereas the one collected in South Africa by William Nelson was published by N.E. Brown in 1925. (JSTOR; PlantzAfrica; Trees and Shrubs of Mpumalanga and Kruger National Park; Gunn & Codd)

nelsoniae: the species in southern Africa that has this epithet is the former Khadia nelsoniae, now synonymized to K. beswickii, with no information as to its derivation.

Neobakeria: for John Gilbert Baker (1834-1920), British botanist and botanical collector at the Herbarium of Kew Gardens for thirty-three years, during the last nine of which he was keeper of the herbarium, Fellow of the Royal and Linnean Societies. He was a prolific author and among his works were Flora of Mauritius and the Seychelles (1877), Handbook of the Iridaea (1892), and handbooks for other plant groups such as the Amaryllidaceae, Bromeliaceae and Liliaceae. His son was the botanist Edmund Gilbert Baker (1864-1949). This genus in the Liliaceae was published in 1924 by German botanist Friedrich Richard Rudolf Schlechter. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Neoboivinella: for Louis Hyacinthe Boivin (1808-1852), French botanist, explorer and plant collector. He was a student of René Louiche Desfontaines and Antoine Laurent de Jussieu and official botanist on the Oise Expedition (1846-1852) to the islands of the Indian Ocean (Comoros, Seychelles and Reunion). He also visited Mauritius in 1847–49 as well as the coast of Africa, the Canary Islands and Madagascar. He gathered together a vast and important collection of specimens which were deposited in the Museum of Paris for identification and classification of the new species. He contracted malaria and died the day after his return to France. The genus Neoboivinella in the Sapotaceae was published in 1959 by French botanist and African forestry expert André Aubréville. He is also commemorated by the genus Boivinella in the Sapotaceae published in 1958 by André Aubréville and François Pellegrin, and with Bivinia in the Flacourtiaceae which does not appear in southern Africa. See also Boivinella. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Neobolusia: for Harry Bolus (1834-1911), English-born South African botanist, businessman, and founder of the Cape Town Bolus Herbarium, Fellow of the Linnean Society, and member and president of the South African Philosophical Society (later the Royal Society of South Africa). He bequeathed his library, his extensive herbarium and most of his fortune to the South African College for which he also founded a chair of botany. He is commemorated in the genera Bolusia, Bolusafra, Neobolusia, Bolusanthus and Bolusiella, as well as in numerous specific names. While he was at Castle Gate School, Nottingham, headmaster George Herbert regularly corresponded with and received plant specimens from a William Kensit of Grahamstown, South Africa. Kensit requested that the headmaster send him one of his pupils as an assistant and Harry Bolus was chosen, arriving at Port Elizabeth in March, 1850. He spent two years at Grahamstown and then moved to P.E. Five years later, in 1857, he married Kensit's sister Sophia. He started his botanical collection in 1865 and began corresponding with Joseph Hooker at Kew, William Henry Harvey in Dublin and Peter MacOwan in Grahamstown. In 1875 with his brother Walter he founded a stockbroking firm and in 1876 he took a large number of specimens to Kew for identification. Unfortunately all his specimens and notes were lost when the ship returning to South Africa struck a reef north of Cape Town. He immediately began collecting new specimens from all over South Africa and founded the Harry Bolus Professorship at the Cape University. He was the author of A Sketch of the Flora of South Africa (1886) and Icones Orchidearum Austro-Africanum Extra-tropicarum, published in three volumes, the last of which was edited after his death. He was also the author of The Orchids of the Cape Peninsula.The genus Neobolusia in the Orchidaceae was published in 1895 by German botanist Friedrich Richard Rudolf Schlechter. He was also honored with the generic names Bolusafra, Bolusanthus, Bolusia, and Bolusiella. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Gunn & Codd)

Neodregea: this one is confusing. Wikipedia states that the genus name commemorates Johann Franz (Jean Francois) Drège (1794-1881), a meticulous German plant collector and botanical explorer who travelled to the Cape in 1826 to join his older brother Carl Friedrich, became a professional natural history collector specializing in botanical specimens eventually collecting some 200,000, then ran a successful nursery business upon his return to Germany. However Gunn & Codd state that the genus name commemorates Isaac Louis Drège (1853-1921), son of C.F. Drège and nephew of J.F. Drège, trained like his father as an apothecary, who collected plants in the Albany, Uitenhage and Port Elizabeth areas, and published "A Preliminary List of Flowering Plants, Ferns and Fern Allies in Port Elizabeth District" in S. Afr. J. of Science (1913). The CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names says that the epithet is for J.L. Drège, and The Flora of Africa Vol. 4 by Rudolf Marloth (1913) states that Neodregea is named for "Mr. J.L. Drège of Port Elizabeth, a nephew of J.F. Drège." So is the J.L. Drège here referred to the same person as the Isaac Louis Drège? If so, as seems likely, then the weight of the evidence would support Isaac Louis. Hugh Clarke has uncovered an article entitled "A Revision of the Characters of Neodregea" written in 1935 by Sidney Garside of Bedford College (U.K.) which states that in 1896 James Glass sent some immature fruiting samples of a species to Kew for description and identification. In 1909 plants that were apparently of the same species in flower were collected near Port Elizabeth by 'J.L. Drège' and sent to Kew by Dr. Selmar Schönland. JSTOR records the species only as having been collected in 1909 by 'Drège,' with no initials. On the basis of these new samples, the taxon was published by British botanist and algologist Charles Henry Wright in Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information Kew (1909:308) as genus Neodregea and species glassii. I think that the 'J.L.' was a mistake and should have been 'I.L.' and that Isaac Louis is the person that Wright intended to honor with this epithet. So it would appear that Wright was responsible for referring to him as J.L. Drège, which was then picked up by Marloth in 1913 and by the 1935 article by Garside and by the CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names (2000). This is an excellent example of how errors proliferate through the literature and of the kind of detective work that is required to set these errors to right. I particularly thank Hugh Clarke who also found the original 1909 publication. (Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Gunn & Codd; Wikipedia)

Neoglaziovia: for Dr. Auguste Françoise Marie Glaziou (1828-1906), French civil engineer, landscape designer and botanist. and plant collector in Brazil. After being a student in Paris where he earned a degree in civil engineering and took classes at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, he was requested in 1858 by the Emperor Dom Pedro II to relocate to Rio de Janeiro to become Director of Parks and Gardens. He was responsible for the landscape design at the gardens at Quinta da Boa Vista, which was the residence for Brazilian royalty throughout much of the 19th century. He was the author of a two-volume work Plantae Brasiliae Centralis a Glaziou lectae which described the species in his collection and died of pulmonary disease shortly after the publication of the second volume. He was also the co-author with Antoine Laurent Apollinaire Fée of the two-volume Cryptogames vasculaire du Brésil (1869-1873). The herbarium he collected included some 12,000 species. The genus Neoglaziovia in the Bromeliaceae was published by German botanist and university professor Carl Christian Mez in 1894. He was also honored with the generic names Glaziova, Glaziostelma, Glaziophyton, Bisglaziovia, Glaziophytum and Glaziocharis. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Naturhistoriska riksmuseet; JSTOR; Wikipedia)

Neohenricia: for Dr. Marguerite Gertrude Anna Henrici (1892-1971), Swiss plant physiologist and plant collector. She began her career with the Division of Veterinary Services and was placed in charge of the Armoedsvlakte field station with particular responsibility to study the problem of lamsiekte or lame sickness, which was a botulism of phosphorus-deficient cattle. Later she transferred to the Division of Plant Industry under Dr. Pole Evans. She spent much of her life in the Orange Free State, obtaining a D.Sc. from the Univ. of South Africa for work on the content of Karoo shrubs and grasses, and the Division of Plant Industry built a well- equipped laboratory for her in Fauresmith for study of problems connected primarily with Karoo vegetation. She collected some 6000-7000 specimens mainly from western Orange Free State and Ermelo. She was also commemorated with the taxon Salsola henriciae, Lampranthus henricii and probably Ruschiella henricii. The genus Neohenricia in the Aizoaceae was published in 1938 by South African botanist Louisa Bolus, after having been originally published two years earlier as Henricia. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Gunn & Codd)

Neoluederitzia: for Franz Adolph (Adolf) Eduard Lüderitz (Luederitz) (1834-1886), merchant and colonial pioneer, tobacco farmer and rancher, or his younger brother August (1838-1922). Of the two of them, August was the plant collector, but Adolf reportedly sent a collection of specimens to the Berlin Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum. Hugh Clarke adds: "In 1878 he inherited his father’s trading business and established a trading station at Lagos, later turning his attention to S.W. Africa (= Namibia). In 1883 he acquired land extending from the Orange River Mouth to latitude 26° south and 32 km inland which became known as Lüderitzland, and in 1884 concluded treaties with other Nama chiefs to acquire the whole Nama area to the Kunene river. He obtained support from Bismarck and the German government and protection for this territory which established German interests in S.W. Africa." He travelled extensively in the United States, and perished by drowning in the Orange River in Namibia. (Gunn & Codd)

Neomuellera: for Jean Mueller (1828-1896), Swiss botanist, Curator of the Candolle herbarium 1851-1869, Curator of the Benjamin Delessert Herbarium 1869-1896, Director of the Genève Botanic Garden, professor of botany 1871-1889. The genus Neomuellera in the Lamiaceae was published in 1894 by Swiss botanist John Isaac Briquet. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Neonotonia: the following applies to both this genus and to the genus Notonia. It is not certain whether these names are derived from some Latin or Greek root, or whether they honor some individual. The CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names says they are either from Greek notos, noton - "the south, the southwest wind, the south wind, back," OR for Benjamin Noton (1812-1835), an English botanist and plant collector who contributed to the botany of the Nilgiri Hills, India. The website of Kew Botanical Gardens, however, says that the names honor Mr. Noton and further that the two names are synonyms. This is certainly true for the genus Notonia in the Fabaceae published in 1834 by Robert Wight and George Arnott Walker-Arnott, but the genus Notonia that is in southern Africa is the one in the Asteraceae published in 1833 by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle. So the legume genera Notonia and Neonotonia are named for Benjamin Noton, and another source (Pharmacographia Indica Vol. 2 by William Dymock) says about the sunflower family species Notonia grandiflora: "The Wánder-roti of the Mahrattas, was named by De Candolle after Mr. Benjamin Noton of Bombay, who first met with it on the Nilgiris." The genus Neonotonia in the Fabaceae was published in 1977 by American botanist James A. Lackey, and Hugh Clarke has dug up the following information regarding Mr. Noton: "[He was an] English Assay-Master of the East India Company's Mint at Bombay and plant collector, largely in S. India, especially in the Nilgiri Hills. Little is known about him. Robert Wight & Walker-Arnott, Prodromus Florae Peninsulae Indiae Orientalis (1834), write: 'In 1928, Dr Wallich … superintendent of the Botanical Gardens, arrived in England with an enormous number of specimens of plants … collected by himself [and many others including] Noton in the [O.E. Neelgherries = Nilgiri Hills].' These specimens were distributed to various authorities. 'Professor De Candolle … named for us the greater part of the Compositae.' Noton also published the earliest record of tidal observations made at Bombay (1832) in Rushton's Gazetteer (1842)." If the Kew Gardens website dates of 1812-1835 are correct and are life dates rather than collecting dates, then that would mean that he died at the early age of 23, but I can't find anything that confirms this. David Hollombe has turned up records of a Benjamin Noton who was in the East India Civil Service and whose dates are 1784-1869. It's certainly possible that the dates given by the Kew Gardens website are for his collecting and not for his life. It does seem suspicious to think that a genus would be named for a person only 21 years of age.

Neopatersonia: for Mrs. Florence Mary Paterson (née Hallack) (1869-1936), one of the earliest women botanical collectors in the Cape Colony, and wife of Mr. T.V. Paterson of Redhouse, South Africa. Her father, Russell Hallack, was an amateur botanist, collecting locally and sending many specimens to William Harvey in Dublin, and no doubt she absorbed the interest from him. Hugh Clarke adds: "[She] collected in the area around Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage, [and] made a comprehensive collection of specimens, some of which had not been seen since Carl (Karl) Ludwig Philipp Zeyher (1799-1858) collected that area in 1838. She sent her specimens mainly to Professor Schonland (1860-1940) who was Professor of Botany at Rhodes University and Curator, (later Director), of the Albany Museum, who specifically thanked her in his Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa No. 1 (1919) as did Harry Bolus in Orchids of South Africa Vol.3 (1913)." The genus Neopatersonia in the Hyacinthaceae was published in 1912 by German-born South African botanist Selmar Schönland who acknowledged the significance of her collections. There is also a taxon Ornithogalum neopatersonia which was also named for her. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Ladies in the Laboratory III by Mary and Thomas Creese; David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

neopavonia: possibly for José Antonio Pavón y Jiménez (1754-1840), Spanish botanist, traveller and explorer, was with Joseph Dombey and Hipólito Ruiz López in Chile and Peru on the first of three major botanical expeditions sent to the New World during the reign of Carlos III. With Ruiz López he authored Flora Peruviana et Chilensis in ten richly illustrated volumes. The taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is Moraea neopavonia. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Neorautanenia: for Rev. Martti Rautanen (1845-1926), Russian-born Lutheran church missionary pioneer who went to South-West Africa, specifically Ovamboland (also spelled Owamboland) in present-day Namibia, where he served for 56 years. After spending five years training as a missionary at the Finnish Missionary Society School, he left for Ovamboland in 1870. He founded the Olukonda mission station in western Ondonga in 1880. He was the director of the missionary station and his most important work was the translation of the Bible into the Herero language Oshindonga. He amassed a significant collection of ethnography which is now housed at the National Museum of Finland. He was interested in the natural world, and learned basic research methodologies from and assisted the Swiss botanist Hans Schintz, who stayed in the area in the 1880s. He sent plants that he collected to the University of Zurich. The Ovambo people named him “Nakambale “ – the man who wears the hat. The genus Neorautanenia in the Fabaceae was published in 1899 by Swiss botanist Hans Schinz. (Wikipedia; Gunn & Codd)

Neorosea: for Valentin Rose the Younger (1762-1807), German apothecary and pharmacologist, assessor (assistant) at the Berlin Ober-Collegium-Medicum, son of the pharmacist and chemist Valentin Rose the Elder (1736-1771), who was the discoverer of the low-melting alloy, Rose's metal, an alloy of bismuth, lead and tin. The Younger was the father of Heinrich Rose (1795-1864), the well-known German mineralogist and analytical chemist, and Gustav Rose (1798-1873), another minerologist, and grandfather of the noted surgeon Edmund Rose (1836–1914) and the classicist Valentin Rose (1829-1916). Hugh Clarke adds: "After Valentin Rose the Elder died, his sons were educated by Martin Heinrich Klaproth (1743-1817) who also looked after Rose the Elder’s business for nine years. Klaproth made many brilliant contributions to analytical and mineralogical chemistry and became the first professor of chemistry at the University of Berlin. Rose the Younger collaborated with him in his researches, verified all his analyses before publication, and was the first person to demonstrate the presence of chromium in a species of serpentine." Klaproth acted as a father to the two young men and their sisters, and trained Rose the Younger to become an outstanding analyst. He discovered inulin and sodium carbonate, and invented a way to detect arsenic. After the Younger's death, Klaproth became a grandfatherly figure to Gustav and Heinrich. The genus Neorosea in the Rubiaceae was published in 1970 by French botanist Nicholas Hallé. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

neostayneri: for Frank J. Stayner (1907-1981), South African horticulturist and farmer born in Natal and trained at Kew Gardens 1933-1934, specialist on succulent plants, assistant Superintendent of Parks in the Port Elizabeth Parks Department 1935-1946, horticulturist for Ford Motor Company 1949-1954, Curator of the Karoo Botanic Gardens at Worcester 1959-1969, commemorated with Lampranthus neostayneri and many other species in addition to the genus Stayneria. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Gunn and Codd)

neoweberi: so named for the resemblance of Xanthoparmelia neoweberi to X. weberi which was discovered in Arizona by William Alfred Weber (1918- ), American lichenologist, Professor of botany Emeritus at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and former curator of the University of Colorado Museum Herbarium. He has named well over three dozen lichen species as well as the genus Hubbsia, published in 1965, and the genus Xanthopsora which has now become Xanthopsorella, published by Kalb and Hafellner. He is the author of Rocky Mountain Flora: A Field Guide for the Identification of the Ferns, Conifers, and Flowering Plants of the Southern Rocky Mountains and co-author of Colorado Flora: Eastern Slope, as well as over 50 publications. (Wikipedia; Harvard University Index of Botanists)

Neptunia: after Neptune, in Roman mythology the god of water, then after his identification with Poseidon in Greek mythology became the god of the sea. The genus Neptunia in the Fabaceae was published in 1790 by Portuguese botanist João de Loureiro. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Nerine: said by PlantzAfrica to be derived either from Nerine, the Greek mythological sea nymph, daughter of sea god Nereis and Doris and granddaughter of Pontus, or from Nereide, daughter of Doris and Nereus and granddaughter of the Titan Oceanus and his sister Tethys. Both these references seem to be the same since Doris is descended from both Oceanus and Pontus, but I can find no mention of Nerine as a specific nymph, but rather as one of the names applied overall to the fifty daughters of Nereus, who were also known as Nereides (or Nereids). According to the Greek Myth Index, the name Nerine was a patronymic derived from their father's name Nereus, and the name Nerine is not included in any list I can find of the Nereids. Nerines are also known sometimes as Guernsey lilies because supposedly (and this may be apocryphal) a box of bulbs washed ashore from a possible shipwreck and became established there. The genus Nerine in the Amaryllidaceae in 1829 by British botanist William Herbert. Nerines had been in cultivation for some time and is it possible that Herbert had heard this story and therefore in his naming made the association with the sea? (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; PlantzAfrica; Greek Myth Index)

Nesaea: after Nesaea or Nesaie, in Greek mythology a sea nymph, and one of the Neriads of islands. The genus Nesaea in the Lythraceae was published in 1824 by German botanist Karl Sigismund Kunth. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Greek Myth Index)

nesemannii: for a Mr. A. Nesemann (fl. 1934), plant collector near Robertson in the Western Cape, commemorated with Euphorbia nesemannii. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; JSTOR).

Nestlera: for Chrétien Géofroy Nestler (1778-1832), Alsatian botanist, army pharmacist 1806-1810, and professor of botany and pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine and chief pharmacist of the hospitals of Strasbourg. He was a student of French botanist Louis Claude Marie Richard, director of the botanical garden at Strasbourg (1816), and author of a thesis on Potentilla. He also authored Index Plantarum quae in Horto Academ. Argentinensi (1818) and other botanical and pharmacological works. With Jean Baptiste Mougeot, he made a fabulous collection of plants of Alsace and the Vosges. The genus Nestlera in the Asteraceae was published in 1818 by German botanist Kurt Polycarp Joachim Sprengel. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia; JSTOR)

neuflizeana: for Jean Abraham Andre (Andrew) III Poupart, Baron de Neuflize (1820-1868), French banker and diplomat, attaché for the French legation to Mexico, born and died in Paris. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Neumannia: for Joseph Henri Francois Neumann (1800-1858), French botanist and horticulturist of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris and head-gardener of the greenhouses of the Imperial Museum of Natural History who worked, explored and collected plants in Madagascar. According to Popular Science Monthly Vol. 15, Sep. 1879: “Neumann, head-gardener at the Paris Museum of Natural History, was the first to obtain … in 1838 … [from] a single stock … over two hundred vanilla fruits of excellent quality.” Hugh Clarke adds: "In the wild, Vanilla planifolia, a species of orchid, native to Mexico, has less than a 1% chance of being pollinated. Neumann discovered a simple method of transferring the pollen from the anther to the stigma. He wrote The Art of Building and Governing the Serres (= Greenhouses) (1846), and was one of the editors of the Good Gardener magazine. He was the father of the botanist Louis Neumann (1827-1903). The genus Neumannia in the Flacourtiaceae which has now been synonymized to Aphloia was published in 1845 by French botanist and physician Achille Richard. He is also commemorated with the genus Neumannia in the Bromeliaceae which does not occur in southern Africa. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; JSTOR; Wikipedia)

neumannii: possibly for Oscar Rudolf Neumann (1867-1946), German ornithologist, travelled through Somaliland, Ethiopia and Tanzania collecting zoological specimens and describing many new African species. He worked for many years in the Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum in the UK and then went to Cuba and Chicago where he worked in the Field Museum of Natural History. The taxon in southern Africa is the former Commiphora neumannii, now synonymized to C. schimperi, published in 1904 by German botanist Heinrich Gustav Adolf Engler.

Nevillea/nevillei: for Mr. Neville Stuart Pillans (1884-1964), South African botanist who assisted Prof. Henry Harold Welch Pearson (1870-1960) in selecting the Kirstenbosch site for the future National Botanical Garden, and son of the agriculturalist and horticulturalist Charles Eustace Pillans (1850-1919). Hugh Clarke provides the following: "He spent two years at Cambridge University studying agriculture but had to give it up because of ill health. After various jobs, he joined the Bolus Herbarium where he remained until his retirement and even worked there afterwards. As a schoolboy he grew indigenous plants, especially succulents, and was 'the most eminent collector of Stapeliads in the eventful history of the tribe.' (White and Sloane). He devoted himself to the taxonomy of Restionaceae, Bruniaceae, Phyllica, Agathosma, and Metalasia.” He is commemorated with Erica nevillei, Mesembryanthemum nevillei, Aridaria nevillei and the former Conophytum nevillei (now synonymized to C. obcordellum), and also the genus Pillansia in the Iridaceae. The genus Nevillea in the Restionaceae was published in 1984 by South African botanist Elsie Elizabeth Esterhuysen and Swiss botanist Hans Peter Linder. See also Pillansia/pillansii. (Ericas of the Cape Peninsula; Gunn & Codd)

newdigateae: for Miss Caroline Barbara Newdigate (1857-1937), South African plant collector who was acknowledged by Harry Bolus in his preface to Orchids of South Africa, Vol. 2. She sent orchid specimens to him and other specimens to Peter MacOwan at the government herbarium at Cape Town. She and her sisters also collected moths, butterflies and sea shells, and did most of her collecting in the area of Plettenberg Bay. She is commemorated wth Erica newdigateae, Disa newdigateae and Pterygodium newdigateae. (JSTOR; Gunn & Codd; SANBI)

newii: for Charles H. New (1840-1875), British Methodist missionary in east Africa, author of Life, Wanderings and Labours in Eastern Africa (1873), made at least two attempts to climb to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro and was the first European to reach the snowline, took part in a search for David Livingstone, commemorated with the former taxon Gladiolus newii, now synonymized to G. dalenii. He was sent to Tanzania in 1863. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; JSTOR)

Newtonia: for Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), the great English physicist, mathematician and astronomer, author of the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica describing the laws of gravity and planetary motion, one of the most significant works in the history of science. Hugh Clarke adds: "[He] co-founded the field of integral and differential calculus (with his arch-rival Gottfried Leipniz), wrote Opticks (1704) explaining the laws of light and colour, became the first person to build a practical refractive telescope, formulated a law of empirical cooling, and studied the speed of sound. In 1705 he became the first English scientist to be knighted when this honour was conferred by Queen Anne." I have no idea why Newton was chosen to be honored in this fashion. There is also a genus Newtonia in the Asteraceae which does not appear in southern Africa and honors another Newton which may be the individual referred to in the following entry. The genus Newtonia in the Fabaceae was published in 1888 by French botanist and physician Henri Ernest Baillon. See also Newtonia (Asteraceae) below) (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Stafleu & Cowan)

Newtonia/newtonii: for Francisco (Francis) Xavier Oakley de Aguiar Newton (1864-1909), British-born Portuguese botanist and plant collector. His father, English botanist Isaac Newton (1840-1906), worked extensively as curator in the Botanic Garden of Porto, Portugal. His specialty was bryophytes, algae and lichens. In addition to the genus Newtonia in the Asteraceae, published in 1892 by German botanist and teacher Karl August Otto Hoffmann, two taxa, Athyrium newtonii and Willkommia newtonii, were collected by an F. Newton. Francisco collected, either for himself or for his father, in Dahomey (1882-1883), Angola (1885-1886), Portugal, Java, Timor, Cape Verde, Benin, Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe. See also Newtonia (Fabaceae) above. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses; JSTOR; Wikipedia; Harvard University Herbaria)

Nicandra: for Nikander of Colophon (Nikandros Kolophonios) (c.100-150 AD), an early Greek botanist, philosopher, grammarian and physician, poet and medical writer. He was the author of Alexipharmaca, a hexameter poem treating of poisons and their antidotes, and Theriaca, a hexameter poem on the nature of venomous animals and the wounds which they inflict. He relied largely on the physician Apollodorus (of Alexandria?) for his medical knowledge. According to Wikipedia, "Among his lost works, Heteroeumena was a mythological epic, used by Ovid in the Metamorphoses and epitomized by Antoninus Liberalis, and Georgica, of which considerable fragments survive, was perhaps imitated by Virgil. The works of Nicander were praised by Cicero, imitated by Ovid and Lucan, and frequently quoted by Pliny and other writers." He also wrote a number of prose works which are mostly lost. The genus Nicandra in the Solanaceae was published in 1763 by French naturalist Michel Adanson. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia)

nicholsonii: for (1) Hugh Barry Nicholson (1906-1998), South African amateur botanist, collector in South Africa with R.G. Strey, commemorated with Cussonia nicholsonii, Manilkara nicholsonii and Colubrina nicholsonii. (Gunn & Codd); (2) T.G. (Thomas Goddard) Nicholson (1862-1932), plant collector in Malawi and Zambia, graduated with a degree in chemistry from University of London 1890, then studied medicine, served in the Royal Army Medical Corps in WWI, spent many years in Central Africa and South America, commemorated with Aneilema nicholsonii which he collected, also Strophanthus nicholsonii which does not appear in southern Africa. Both the JSTOR list of plant collectors and Gunn & Codd list a J.G. Nicholson and a T.J. Nicholson with virtually the same details. This either refers to the same person or to two different probably related people, but when two related people are listed by JSTOR they usually indicate that under 'Associates," and that's not the case here. David Hollombe believes that J.G., T.J. and T.G. probably all refer to the same person. (JSTOR; David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

nicklesii: for Maurice Charles Dominique Nicklès (1907-1980), French geologist, engineer, cartographer and malacologist in French West Africa, collected mainly ferns in Cameroun, the Congo, Guinea, Mali, Senegal and Gabon, also authored a book on the molluscs of the western coast of Africa. The taxon in southern Africa that bears this specific epithet is the fern Doryopteris nicklesii. (Denis Mouren, grandson of M. Nicklès, pers. comm.)

nicolai: for Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolajevich (1831-1891), the third son of Nicholas I and Tsarina Alexandra, and brother of the assassinated Tsar Alexander II, Field Marshal of the Russian army of the Danube in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), norotious womanizer, expert on cattle, purebred dogs, horse breeding, and fishing, and sponsor of the Russian Horticultural Society of St. Petersburg. In 1890, Nicholas Nicolaievich was declared insane and kept locked indoors in Crimea where he died in April 1891. The taxon which bears his name is Strelitzia nicolai. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; Wikipedia)

Nicolasia: for Nicholas Edward Brown (1849-1934), a taxonomist based at Kew Herbarium. Nicholas Edward Brown was an English plant taxonomist and authority on succulents who made a considerable contribution towards the taxonomy of South African plants, particularly Asclepiadaceae, Aizoaceae, Lamiaceae, and other Cape plants. He started work as an assistant in the Herbarium at Kew in 1873, and was Assistant Keeper from 1909-1914. His drawings of succulent plants were made in connection with his revision of the genus Mesembryanthemum, which appeared in 1931, and are accompanied by detailed annotations. He was the author of important works on plant taxonomy particularly succulent plants. His papers appeared mainly in the Kew Bulletin, Journal of Botany, Journal of the Linnean Society Botany, Bothalia, and in Flora Capensis. He was awarded the Capt. Scott Memorial Medal by the South African Biological Society in recognition of his work on South African flora, and in 1932 an honorary D.Sc. was conferred on him by the University of the Witwatersrand. Some of his writings include "Notes on the Genera Cordyline, Dracaena, Pleomele, Sansevieria and Taetsia," "The Stapeliae of Thunberg's herbarium," and "Mesembryanthemum and Allied Genera." The genus Nicolasia in the Asteraceae was published in 1900 by British botanist Spencer Le Marchant Moore. He is also honored with the southern African genus Brownanthus, and with the genus Nebrownia which does not appear in southern Africa. (Wikipedia; Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Flora of Zimbabwe; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Cactus and Succulent Journal of Great Britain, Vol. 23, 1961)

Nicolsonia: for Père Jean-Barthélemy-Maximilien Nicolson (1734-1812), a Dominican priest and superior in Haiti. His title was Préfet Apostolique et Supérieur Général des Frères Prêcheurs à Saint-Domingue. Loudon's Hortus Britannicus by George Don et. al. refers to an M. Nicolson who wrote on the natural history of Santo Domingo. James Macfadyen's Flora of Jamaica says that Nicolsonia is named after Ern. Ant. (?) Nicolson, author of "Essai sur l'Histoire Naturelle de St. Domingue" (Essay on the Natural History of Santo Domingo), published in Paris in 1776. 'Ern. Ant.' is an abbreviation for what is apparently some kind of honorary title, either academic or religious. The genus Nicolsonia in the Fabaceae was published in 1825 by Swiss botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle, but it has now been subsumed into Desmodium. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Colonialism and Science: Saint Domingue and the Old Regime by James McClellan)

Nicotiana: for Jean Nicot (1530-1600), French diplomat, first in the service of the Keeper of the Great Seal of France. He was private secretary to the King, ambassador to Portugal (1559-1561), and friend of the Portuguese scholar, philosopher and botanist Damião de Goís (Goes). He was sent to Portugal to negotiate the marriage of six-year-old Princess Marguerite de Valois, who became Queen of France in 1589, to five-year-old King Sebastian of Portugal, but unsuccessfully. He brought back tobacco and snuff and introduced them to the French court of Catherine de Medici to treat her migraines. This proved to be an instant success, although cigarette smoking only emerged in Europe in the 1830s. He had become interested in tobacco because of its supposed effectiveness against various diseases and conditions, among which were syphilis, asthma and headaches, and it came to be prescribed for paralysis, rabies, tetanus, epilepsy, nervous disorders and hysteria. His name is remembered today in connection with the word nicotine. He was the author of one of the first French dictionaries, Thresor de la langue françoyse tant ancienne que moderne, which was published after his death in 1606. The genus Nicotiana in the Solanaceae was published by Linnaeus in 1753. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; "Jean Nicot, 1530-1600" by L.F. Haas in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, 1992; MedicineNet.com)

Niebuhria: for Carsten Niebuhr (1733-1815), German-born Danish orientalist, botanist, mathematician, cartographer, traveller and explorer, and the sole survivor of Pehr Forsskål's expedition to Arabia undertaken in 1760. After the other five members of the expedition died, probably of malaria, he carried on the work by himself before returning to Copenhagen in 1767. He measured landscapes, described everything he saw in notebooks, copied thousands of cuneiform characters from the ruins of Persepolis, which enabled language experts to decipher the writing, and made detailed drawings and maps that were used for over a hundred years. He was a member of the Royal Society of Göttingen and foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, author of Beschreibung von Arabien (Description of Arabia) (1772), Reisebeschreibung von Arabien und anderen umliegenden Ländern in 2 vols. (Travels Through Arabia and Other Countries in the East) (1774, 1778), Descriptiones Animalium - Avium, amphiborum, insectorum, vermium quæ in itinere orientali observavit Petrus Forskål (1775), Flora Ægyptiaco-Arabica sive descriptiones plantarum quas per Ægyptum Inferiorem et Arabiam felicem detexit, illustravit Petrus Forskål (1775), and other works that would prove important to the decipherment of cuneiform writing. Regrettably most of the specimens he collected were either lost or deteriorated in the shipment home. The genus Niebuhria in the Capparaceae was published in 1824 by Swiss botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia)

Niemeyera: for Felix von Niemeyer (1820–1871), German physician and pathologist, and co-founder of the Medizinische Gesellschaft zu Magdeburg (Medical Society of Magdeburg). Hugh Clarke provides the following information: "After completing his medical studies at the University of Halle in 1843, he practiced as a physician in Magdeburg. In 1855 he became a professor of 'internist' medicine at the University of Greifswald and then professor at the University of Tübingen from 1860. His main textbooks were Lehrbuch der speciellen Pathologie und Therapie mit besonderer Rücksicht auf Physiologie und pathologische Anatomie (1858-1861) (Textbook of special pathology and therapy with special reference given to pathological anatomy and physiology), published in seven languages, and A text-book of practical medicine... (1869). He became a consulting physician to King Charles 1 of Württemberg in 1865, was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1870, and served as medical consultant during the Franco-Prussian war (July 1870–May 1871). He died two month later." He also was the author of Die symptomatische Behandlung der Cholera mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die Bedeutung des Darmleidens (1849) (Symptomatic treatment of cholera with special attention given to intestinal disease). The genus Niemeyera in the Sapotaceae was piblished in 1870 by Ferdinand Jacob Heinrich von Mueller. He was also honored with the genus Niemeyera in the Orchidaceae which does not appear in southern Africa. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Hugh Clarke)

Nierembergia: for Juan Eusebio Nieremberg (1595-1658), Spanish Jesuit born of German parents, author, mystic, and first professor of natural history at the Colegio Imperial in Madrid. He was one of the most influential figures in Spanish intellectual life in the 17th century. After studying the classics, he took up science at the University of Alcalá, and canon law at the University of Salamanca. At the age of 19 he joined the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) and was a lecturer on scripture at the Jesuit seminary in Madrid until his death. He authored a number of books which although published in many languages are now mostly forgotten. His treatise, De la hermosura de Dios y su amabilidad (1649) is regarded in Spanish literature as a classical manifestation of mysticism, but somewhat cloying. His Oculta filosophia de la sympatia y antipatia de las cosas (1636) describes how man is capable of receiving divine revelations which permit him to predict future events. He was an anti-Copernican and followed the system of Tycho Brahe which posited a stationary Earth with the sun and moon revolving around it and the other planets revolving around the sun. Under the intellectual leadership of men such as Nieremberg, Spain fell further behind other less retrograde countries and contributed little to the development of modern thought for several hundred years. The genus Nierembergia in the Solanaceae was published in 1794 by the Spanish botanists Hipólito Ruiz López and José Antonio Pavon. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia; Between Exaltation and Infamy by Stephen Haliczer)

nissenii: for a Mr. Nissen (fl. 1923?), commemorated with the former Mesembryanthemum nissenii, now Psammophora nissenii, about whom I have no information. This is the only taxon with this specific epithet. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Nivenia/niveniana/nivenii: for (David) James Niven (1776-1827), sometimes recorded as Nevin, an avid Scottish gardener and plant collector. The seed of N. corymbosa was collected by Niven on one of his journeys to Cape Town (1798-1803), and the seed was raised in the garden of his patron, George Hibbert, in Clapham, London. Plants flowered there for the first time in 1805 and were described as Witsenia corymbosa. Niven was gardener at the Royal Botanic Garden of Edinburgh and at Syon House, Middlesex. He spent more than a dozen years at the Cape collecting herbarium specimens, seeds and bulbs, first during the period 1798-1803. He had only been back in England for three months when he returned to South Africa as a botanical collector for the Empress Josephine of France and this time spent nine years there. He ranged as far east as Grahamstown in the eastern Cape and to Clanwilliam in the northwest returning to England 1812 where he set up his own business, unrelated to botany. Contrary to popular myths, his wife Alison Abernethy Niven did not die the instant his corpse left the door of their house, but some weeks later, and he was not the father of (nor was connected in any way with) Ninian Niven, one-time curator of the Royal Dublin Society's Botanic Gardens at Glasnevin. The genus Nivenia in the Iridaceae was published in 1808 by French botanist Étienne Pierre Ventenat. His name was placed on Serruria nivenii, Erica neviniana and the former Gladiolus nivenii (now synonymized to G. carinatus). There are several other species with this epithet but I can't say for sure who they are named for since there is at least one other Niven who collected in South Africa. James Niven was also commemorated in the genus Nivenia in the Proteaceae published in 1810 by British botanist Robert Brown which is now considered illegitimate and has become Paranomus. NOTE: His birth and death years are uncertain. The Dictionary of Irish Botanists and Horticulturists and the website of the National Archives have c. 1774, and the Harvard University Herbarium database of botanists have it listed as both 1774-1826 and 1776-1826. IPNI, and Tropicos both have it as 1774-1826. JSTOR in one place says 1774-1826 and in another 1776-1827. Gunn & Codd list it as 1776-1828. An article by E. Charles Nelson and John P. Rourke in the Kew Bulletin is entitled "James Niven (1776-1827), a Scottish Botanical Collector at the Cape of Good Hope," and gives his dates as 28 Sep 1776- 9 Jan 1827. A page from the McNab Herbarium at the National Botanical Gardens, Glasnevin, also gives 1776-1827. Also his name is given variously as James David Niven and David James Niven, although the latter appears to be correct. (PlantzAfrica; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia; Article on James Niven in Kew Bulletin Vol. 48, No. 4 (1993) by E. Charles Nelson and John P. Rourke; Gunn & Codd)

nixonianum: for Kenneth C. Nixon (1953- ), plant collector in South Africa, commemorated with Dierama nixonianum which he collected in 1985 in the Pietermaritzburg area. (JSTOR)

Nolletia: for Abbé Jean Antoine Nollet (1700-1770), French clergyman trained in theology, aristocrat, mapmaker, popular lecturer, and the first professor of experimental physics at the University of Paris. He did much work in the new field of electricity, was the inventor of the electroscope, a device to detect the presence of an electrical charge, was credited with the discovery of osmosis through a membrane, and was a member of the Royal Society of London. He regarded electricity as a fluid and posited that all bodies had two sets of pores out of which and into which this electrical effluvia would flow, affluent in one direction and effluent in the other. He was a contemporary of Benjamin Franklin and exchanged many letters with him denying his electrical theories, and he is reputed to have given the name to the Leyden jar after it was invented by Pieter van Musschenbroek. He once joined several hundred monks in a large circle connected by a wire from a Leyden jar, and when a charge was released from the jar along the wire, he noted the reaction of each man to determine the speed at which the charge propagated. By 1758 he was named "Physics Teacher to the Royal Children" and established the Cabinet des Physiques (Physics Cabinet) for Louis XV, king of France. The genus Nolletia in the Asteraceae was published in 1825 by French botanist and naturalist Alexandre Henri Gabriel de Cassini. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia; J. Paul Getty Museum)

Noltea: for Ernst Ferdinand Nolte (1791-1875), German botanist and physician, professor of botany at the University of Kiel (1826-1873) and Director of the botanical garden there, and son-in-law of the chemist Christoph Heinrich Pfaff (1773-1852). Hugh Clarke adds: "He studied medicine at the University of Göttingen from 1813 and later at Charité, a University hospital in Berlin. From 1815 he explored floristically and from 1821-1823 had the financial support of the Danish government and the Elbe Duchies of Lauenburg to study the flora of the Schleswig-Holstein mainland and coastal islands and [due to the inflence of Danish botanist Jens Wilken Hornemann (1770-1841)] made many contributions to the Flora Danica. In 1825 he wrote Botanische Bemerkungen über Stratiotes und Sagittaria (Botanical observations on Stratiotes and Sagittaria) which received acclaim, probably leading to his professorship. His most famous student was Ferdinand von Mueller, who explored the flora of Australia." He was also the author of Novitiæ floræ Holsaticæ (1826) and Index seminum horti botanici Kiliensis. The genus Noltea in the Rhamnaceae was published in 1828 by German botanist and ornithologist Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Hugh Clarke; Wikipedia)

nolteei: for Frans K.A. Noltee (fl. 2000), Dutch succulent plant enthusiast, horticulturist and photographer, creator of a 3-volume CD set entitled Succulents in the Wild and in Cultivation containing some 700 photographs, commemorated with Tylecodon nolteei. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

nordenstamii: for Prof. Rune Bertil Nordenstam (1936- ), Swedish botanist and professor emeritus at the Swedish Museum of Natural History in the Department of Phanerogamic Botany, assistant at the Botanical Museum at Lund, Chief Curator of Botany at the Swedish Museum, Stockholm, plant collector in Namibia and Republic of South Africa on two visits 1962-1964 and 1974, commemorated with Nidorella nordenstamii, Conophytum nordenstamii, Oedera nordenstamii, Lachenalia nordenstamii, Felicia nordenstamii, Antimima nordenstamii, Drosanthemum nordenstamii, and the former taxon Oophytum nordenstamii (now O. oviforme). He also did field work in Greece, Sweden, Turkey, Mongolia, and Egypt, and was the Editor of Compositae Newsletter. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names, Wikipedia)

Norlindhia/norlindhii: for Nils Tycho Norlindh (1906-1995), Swedish plant collector in South Africa and Zimbabwe. After collecting in Mongolia in 1970 and 1972, he authored Flora of the Mongolian Steppe and Desert Areas. He was Associate, then Acting Professor at Lund (1943-1949), Curator of the Botanical Museum of Lund (1950-1951), Director and Acting Professor of Botany at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm, from 1961, becoming Professor (1965-1972). He is commemorated with the former taxon Chlorophytum norlindhii which he collected in Zimbabwe in 1931 (now synonymized to C. galpinii) and a couple of other species which are not in southern Africa. His specialty was the flora of South Africa, but he was also interested in taxonomy, morphology, cytology, phytogeography, and ecology, and he was an honorary member of the South African Association of Botanists.The genus Norlindhia in the Asteraceae was published by Swedish botanist Rune Bertil Nordenstam in 2006. (JSTOR)

Normandina: possibly for Sébastien-René Lenormand (1796-1871), French lawyer and botanist. Hugh Clarke provides this information: "[He was an] algologist and plant collector who amassed a substantial herbarium. He had a particular interest in the Pacific flora and published a Catalogue des plantes recueillies a Cayenne (1859). Jstor writes: '...material from many different countries has been attributed to Lenormand, yet he probably never left France and acquired most of the specimens through purchase or exchange.' This is, perhaps, an overstatement as H.F. Jaubert of the French Botanical society wrote an 11-page document Notice sur la vie et les travaux de Sebastien-René Lenormand in 1872." The genus Normandina in the Verrucariaceae was published in 1855 by Finnish botanist and entomologist Wilhelm Nylander. According to the CRC World Dictionary, Lenormand was also honored with the genera Mandelorna and Lenormandia in the Poaceae, which are supposed to be anagrams (although imperfect ones) of each other. (JSTOR; CRC World Dictionary of Grasses; Hugh Clarke)

northiae: for Marianne North (1830-1890), Victorian traveller and botanical artist, eldest child of Member of Parliament Frederick North. She visited Jamaica, Canada, the U.S., Brazil, Japan, Sarawak, Java, Ceylon, India, Australia, New Zealand, Borneo, the Seychelles and Chile, and based on her extensive notes were published posthumously two volumes of Recollections of a Happy Life: Being the Autobiography of Marianne North. 832 of her paintings are displayed in the The Marianne North Gallery at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew. She is commemorated with the taxon Kniphofia northiae. (Elsa Pooley; Plant Lust; Plant-Explorers.com)

Nortenia: a close anagram derived from the name Torenia, for Rev. Olof Torén (1718-1753), Swedish clergyman, traveller, botanist and plant collector, ship's chaplain with the Swedish East India Company. The genus Nortenia in the Scrophulariaceae was published by French botanist Louis Marie Aubert du Petit Thouars. Apparently this generic epithet is now considered as a synonym of Torenia. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

nortieri: for Dr. Pieter Le.Fras Nortier (1884-1955), medical doctor and botanist of Clanwilliam, Western Cape, Captain in the South Africa medical corps in 1914, had honorary doctorates from Stellenbosch University and the University of Cape Town, did research on rooibos tea which helped to make it a major industry, was a great friend of Christian Louis Leipoldt. He is commemorated with Oxalis nortieri, Haworthia nortieri, the former taxon Argyroderma nortieri (now A. congretum), and probably also for Haemanthus nortieri. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

norwalteri: the name Xanthoparmelia norwalteri was chosen to distinguish this taxon from Xanthoparmelia walteri, from which it differs in chemical composition, and so it might be said that it is indirectly named for German botanist/plant collectors Heinrich and Erna Walter. See walteri.

Notonia: for Benjamin Noton (1812-1835) of Bombay, an English botanist and plant collector who contributed to the botany of the Nilgiri Hills, India. He was Assay-Master of the East India Company's Mint at Bombay. The genus Notonia in the Asteraceae (which is the genus in southern Africa as opposed to the legume genus Notonia) was published in 1833 by Swiss botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle. For more information on this epithet, see Neonotonia.

Notoniopsis: meaning resembling the genus Notonia, and indirectly named after Benjamin Noton (1812-1835). The genus Notoniopsis in the Asteraceae was published in 1978 by Swedish botanist Rune Bertil Nordenstam.

nouhuysii: for Jan Jozua van Nouhuys (1903-1940), plant collector in Mozambique and South Africa, artist, horticulturist and geologist, came to Pretoria in 1921, appointed 1925 gardener in charge of the Division of Botany garden, was in the South African Air Force at the beginning of WWII but died in a plane crash near Nairobi in 1940. He is commemorated with Huernia nouhuysii and the former taxon Stapelia nouhuysii, which is now S. paniculata. (Gunn & Codd)

Nurmonia: for William Munro (1818-1880), English military officer who rose to the rank of General, agrostologist, plant collector, and Fellow of the Linnean Society. Hugh Clarke provides the following information: "He rose through the ranks from being an Ensign in 1834 to becoming a General in 1878, serving in India, Gibralter, the Crimea, Canada, Caribbean, Bermuda and the Windward and Leeward Islands. From an early age he had an interest in collecting plants. He wrote Hortus Bangalorensis (1837), Hortus Agrensis (1844), On Antidotes to Snake Bites (1848), and Report of the Timber Trees of Bengal (1849). He wrote nine publications including A Monograph of the Bambusaceae (1868) describing the 219 bamboo species then known. He became perhaps the greatest authority on grasses of his day, identifying grasses from around the world for many of the great botanists. About a dozen or so were new to science." He was planning to contribute a monograph on bamboo to DeCandolle's Prodromus at the time of his death. The genus Nurmonia in the Meliaceae was published in 1917 by German taxonomist and botanist Hermann August Theodor Harms, and is an anagram of Munronia, which does not appear in southern Africa, also named for William Munro, as were the genera Munroa and Munrochloa. (Hugh Clarke; CRC World Dictionary of Grasses; Dictionary of Irish Botanists and Horticulturists)

nussbaumerianus: possibly for Ernst Nussbaumer (fl. 1935), head gardener at the Botanical Garden, Bremen, Germany, as recorded by the Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names. I have no confirmation of this. The taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is the former Adromischus nussbaumerianus, which is now A. cristatus.

Nuxia: for M. Jean-Baptiste François de la Nux (Lanux) (1702-1772), French amateur botanist, chief clerk (1725) then commander of Saint-Denis, administrative capital on Réunion Island (1736). Hugh Clarke adds: "He tried to develop silkworm farming on the island and was interested in all aspects of natural history. He became a correspondent of the Royal Academy of Sciences (1762). Both Mathurin Jacques Brisson (1723–1806), French zoologist, and Georges-Louis Leclerc Comte de Buffon (1707-1788), French naturalist, relied on his detailed descriptions and specimens. He described the now extinct Lesser Mascarene or Small Mauritian Flying-Fox (Pteropus subniger)." The genus Nuxia in the Buddlejaceae was published in 1791 by French naturalist Jean Baptiste Antoine de Monet de Lamarck. (PlantzAfrica; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Nylandtia: for Petrus (Peter, Pierre) Nylandt (ca.1635 – 1710?), Dutch botanist, physician, and prolific author. He published some 50 works on a wide range of topics such a bee-trafficking and garden design, mainly in Dutch from between 1670-1710, many of the publications with co-authors. His major works are considered to be Herbarius Belgicus (1670) which was the first record of the flora of the Low Countries (presumably, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg), De Nederlandtse herbarius of kruydt-boeck (The Dutch Herbal or Herb Book) (1682) which not only describes all medicinal plants and herbs, growing wild, or cultivated in the Netherlands, but also the dried herbs from overseas found in chemist shops and Den Verstandigen Hovenier (The Intelligent Gardener). Nylandtia spinosa was first described as Polygala spinosa by Linnaeus in 1751 and 1753. The Belgian botanist Barthelemy Dumortier (1822) recognized that it belonged to a genus different from Polygala and named it Nylandtia for some unknown reason. The genus Nylandtia in the Polygalaceae was published in 1822 by Belgian botanist Barthélemy Charles Joseph Dumortier. (PlantzAfrica; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Nymania: for Carl Fredrik Nyman (1820-1893), Swedish botanist, Curator of the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm, author of Conspectus Florae Europaeae in 4 volumes (1878-1885) and Sylloge Florae Europaeae (1854-1855). In 1838 he studied at Uppsala University with Karl Greg Theodor Kotschy (1794-1865), an Austrian botanist, and Heinrich Wilhelm Schott (1794-1865), with whom he produced and edited Analecta Botanica (1854). The genus Nymania in the Meliaceae was published in 1868 by German-American botanist Ferdinand Jacob Lindheimer. There is also a genus Nymania in the Euphorbiaceae family named for the same botanist but it does not appear in South Africa. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia)

Nymphaea: in Greek mythology nymphaia referred to a water nymph. Linnaeus published the genus Nymphaea in the Nymphaeaceae in 1753. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

nysiae: the taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is the former taxon Glottiphyllum nysiae, now G. depressum, with no information as to its derivation.

oakesiorum: for John and Nerine Oakes of Greyton, who contributed data to the Protea Atlas Project and who discovered the species Erica oakesiorum. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; Ted Oliver, pers. comm.)

oatesii: for Frank Oates (1840-1875), British naturalist and traveller who arrived in South Africa in 1873 with his brother W.E. Oates, made extensive ornithological, herpetological and entomological collections, was one of the first Westerners to reach Victoria Falls but died on the return trip. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. His younger brother Charles George Oates published his journals, letters and notes under the title Matabele Land and the Victoria Falls (1881). He is commemorated with Euphorbia oatesii, Gladiolus oatesii, Erica oatesii, Hebenstretia oatesii and the former taxon Combretum oatesii, now C. platypetalum. (Elsa Pooley; Flora of Zimbabwe; Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

obermeijerae: see the following entry. The taxon in southern Africa with this specific epithet is the former Indigofera obermeijerae, now synonymized to I. lyalli. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

obermeyerae: for Miss Anna Amelia Obermeyer (later to become Mrs. Amelia Mauve) (1907-2001), a South African botanist at the National Herbarium, Pretoria. She was the Curator of the Transvaal Museum Herbarium. She has published many contributions to South African flora in Bothalia, Flora of Southern Africa, Flowering Plants of Africa and Kirkia. She was honored with the names Blepharis obermeyerae, Syncolostemon obermeyerae (formerly Hemizygia obermeyerae), Asparagus obermeyerae (which is now synonymized to A. schroederi) and Ornithogalum annae-ameliae. (Gunn & Codd)

Oberonia: after Oberon, the mythological King of the Fairies and husband of Titania. The genus Oberonia in the Orchidaceae was published in 1830 by British botanist John Lindley. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Obetia: Uncertain derivation. Hugh Clarke has suggested that this epithet possibly honors Louis Jean Marie Obet (1777-1856), naval surgeon, second chief physician of the Navy in 1812. He was a professor of anatomy at the Saint Bernard Hospital and did much to improve the standards of nutrition and hygiene. He was elected to the Royal Academy of Medicine in 1822. He published Essai sur la nutrition (1806). He was honored with the Chevalier of the Legion d'Honneur in 1821 and became an Officer of the Legion d'Honneur in 1833. Another related possibility stems from the fact that Charles Gaudichaud-Beaupré named a number of new genera after officers involved in the 1817-1820 circumglobal expedition on which he sailed as botanist on l'Uranie. Such was the case of Camile Fleury whom he honored with the name Fleurya. Since the above Louis Jean Marie Obet was a naval surgeon, it was speculated that he could have been a member of the crew, but this is apparently not the case. So this is an epithet the derivation of which remains a mystery. The genus Obetia in the Urticaceae was published in 1844 by French botanist Charles Gaudichaud-Beaupré. (Hugh Clarke, pers. comm. David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

obrienii: for James O'Brien (1842-1930), a British botanist, horticulturist and orchid grower. He was a pioneer in the reclassification of many species of the genus Cattleya and a member of the Royal Horticultural Society. He is commemorated with Cyrtanthus obrienii and the former taxon Watsonia obrienii (now synonymized to W. borbonica). (Wikipedia)

oconnorii: for Alexander James O'Connor (1884-1957), South African forestry officer who served in the Royal Light Horse, and worked in the Western Province, Transkei, Knysna and northern Transvaal, became Deputy Director and then Director of Forestry, commemorated with the former taxon Ochna oconnorii, which he collected in 1916 in Zoutpansberg District and which is now synonymized to O. arborea. (Gunn & Codd)

odetteae: for Odette Cumming, wife of David M. Cumming (1942), the Scots-born Australian botanist who moved to South Africa. She is commemorated with Haworthia odetteae. (All You Wanted To Know About Haworthias)

Odyssea: after Odysseus, also known as Ulysses, legendary Greek king of Ithaca and a hero of Homer's epic poems the Odyssey and The Iliad the events of which took place during and after the Trojan War. The genus Odyssea in the Poaceae was published in 1922 by Austrian-born botanist and taxonomist Otto Stapf. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Oedera/oederianus:  for Georg Christian Edler von Oldenburg Oeder (1728-1791), German physician, economist, social reformer, professor of botany in Copenhagen, and in 1753 the founding author of Flora Danica, a massive work initially designed to cover all plant species in the crown lands of the Danish King, including Norway with its North Atlantic dependencies Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland, which was only completed 153 years later. He studied medicine at the University of Göttingen under Albrecht von Haller who in 1751, after he had been practicing medicine in the town of Schleswig, persuaded King Frederick V to appoint him as Professor botanices regius (Royal Professor). He soon established a botanical garden and began work on the Flora Danica. Oeder served on many commissions and was involved in agrarian and social reforms. Because of the crisis in state finances and the strengthening of anti-enlightenment and anti-German conservative circles around 1771, Oeder lost his professorship, and this was the period when Christian VII's mental illness became a state crisis, and the country was basically taken over for a couple of years by his royal physician Johann Friedrich Struensee who had an affair with the queen and in 1772 was arrested and executed. Two years before Oeder's death he was ennobled by Holy Roman Emperor Emperor Joseph II. The genus Oedera in the Asteraceae was published in 1771 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. Oeder is also commemorated with Plagiopus oederianus. The taxa Lobostemon oederiaefolius and Senecio oederiaefolius would also refer to his name, although indirectly, the specific epithet meaning basically 'with leaves like Oedera.' (Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.)

oertendahlii: for Ivar Anders Oertendahl (1870-1935), Swedish horticulturist, former head gardener of Uppsala University Botanic Gardens in Sweden, came to South Africa in 1931 to visit his brother who was farming in the Karas Mountains of Namibia, commemorated with Plectranthus oertendahlii and probably also for the taxon of lichenized fungi Acarospora oertendahlii. (Elsa Pooley; PlantzAfrica; Gunn & Codd)

Oftia: obscure, published by Michel Adanson (1727-1806). W.P.U. Jackson suggested that Adanson might have named the genus Oftia in the Scrophulariaceae for some friend, a M. Oft, but there is no evidence I can find either for that theory or for any other. One thing that occurs to me is that in old versions of printing, the letter 's' was written almost the way the letter 'f' is written today, and given the fact that Ostia is a geographical location (at the mouth of the river Tiber), is it possible that someone misread Ostia as Oftia?

Ohlendorffia/ohlendorfiana: unstated for either species or genera, but probably for Johann Heinrich Ohlendorff (1788-1857), German gardener/architect/curator of Hamburg Botanical Garden founded in 1820 by the German botanist, Johan Georg Christian Lehmann (1792-1860). This derivation seems likely since Ohlendorff worked for Lehmann, who named the genus Ohlendorffia in the Scrophulariaceae in 1837, and Ecklon was living in Hamburg when he named Polygala ohlendorfiana. Ohlendorff came from a family of landscape gardeners and nurseryman. Perhaps better known is his son Baron Jacob Heinrich Bernard von Ohlendorff (1836-1928), who became immensely rich and a land baron through being involved in the guano fertilizer business, owning a bank, and a publishing and printing business. However the possibility that one or the other commemorates Dr. Christian Friedrich Ohlendorff, a Holstein botanist, cannot be entirely discounted. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.)

Oldenburgia: for Franz Pehr Oldenburg (1740-1774), Swedish soldier employed by the Dutch East India Company, amateur botanist and plant collector for Kew Gardens, and a companion of the botanists Carl Peter Thunberg and Francis Masson on their travels to South Africa. He arrived in the Cape in 1765 and collected specimens for Joseph Banks in London and Bergius in Stockholm. Thunberg declined an invitation by Governor Joachim van Plettenberg, to go to Madagascar as ship’s surgeon and itinerant botanist and recommended Oldenburg, who accepted the position and collected for a while on Madagascar and the Comoro Islands before dying of fever in 1774. The genus Oldenburgia in the Asteraceae was published in 1830 by German botanist Christian Friedrich Lessing. (PlantzAfrica; The Zoological Exploration of Southern Africa by L.C. Rookmaaker)

Oldenlandia: for Henrik (Hendrik) Bernard Oldenland (c.1663-1699), German-born South African botanist and physician, painter, land surveyor, naturalist and plant collector at the Cape. He was Curator-Superintendent of the Botanical Garden of the Dutch East India Company. He was a medical student at Leyden University under Professor Paul Hermann (1646-1695), compiler of the first plant list at the Cape, and he came to the Cape in 1688. Hugh Clarke provides the following: "He went on an expedition to near Aberdeen, Eastern Cape (1689), at that time the most easterly point explored. He served the government in various capacities: master-gardener of the Company's garden, land-surveyor, and the equivalent of town-engineer (Superintendent of streets, roads, bridges, buildings). He compiled a 13- vol. Herbarus vivus (380 indigenous plants and a second list of exotic plants). books, and was working on a ‘Kruid Boek’ of dried and mounted plants when he died." Date of death sometimes given as 1697. The genus Oldenlandia in the Rubiaceae was published by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in 1753. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Hugh Clarke)

Olfersia: for Ignaz Franz Werner Maria von Olfers (1793–1871), German naturalist, historian and diplomat. Hugh Clarke adds: "He studied medicine, science and linguistics at the University of Göttingen (1812-1815) before joining the diplomatic corp. He served Brazil (1816), Lisbon and Naples (1826-1828), Switzerland – as chargé d'affaires (1831-1834), before becoming a Privy Councillor of the Court in 1835. He became General Director of the Royal Museums (1839-1869) which he redeveloped and increased the collections of significantly, introducing many innovations, expanded the medieval art and renaissance sculptures sections, created an Antiquarium and developed the library. Olfers described a number of new mammal species in Wilhelm Ludwig von Eschwege Journal von Brasilien (1818)."

Olinia: for Johan Henrik Olin (1769-1824), Swedish botanist, student of Carl Peter Thunberg, and author. He studied theology in 1789 and obtained a BA degree in 1793, became an assistant at the Botanical Garden in Uppsala during which he obtained further degrees and a Licentiate in Medicine in 1797. He was the acting medical officer in Växjö in 1800, the district medical officer in Eksjö in 1802, district medical officer in Växjö in 1815, and the nation's curator in Växjö 1794-1796. He translated from German to Swedish Paul Erdman Isert's Journey to Guinea and the Caribbean Islands in Colombia in 1788. He was also the author of Plantae svecanae in 1797 and Dissertatio arnica in 1799. Some sources give his birth year as 1764. The genus Olinia in the Oliniaceae was published by Carl Peter Thunberg in 1800. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names

Oliverella: for Daniel Oliver (1830-1916), British botanist who worked at the Kew Herbarium, professor of botany at University College, London, Fellow of the Royal and Linnean Societies, and a member of the Edinburgh Botanical Society. He was born in Newcastle-upon Tyne and educated at the Friend's School in Brookfield near Wigton. At the age of 17 he published a list of plants from Boulsdersdale and Teesdale in The Phytologist. He made botanical collecting trips to Ireland and the Aran Islands where he found the first British record of Euphrasia salisburgensis. He was Librarian of the Herbarium at Kew Gardens from 1860-1890 and Keeper there from 1864-1890, as well as being a professor of botany at University College, London from 1861-1890. He authored Lessons in Elementary Biology (1864) based upon material left in manuscript by John Stevens Henslow (1796-1861), a clergyman, botanist and mentor to Charles Darwin, First book of Indian botany (1885), three volumes of The Flora of Tropical Africa (1868), Illustrations of the principal natural orders of the vegetable kingdom (1874) (with Walter Hood Fitch who was responsible for the plates) and other works. He wrote monographs on new genera, Hillebrandia (1866) and Begoniella (1873), of the family Begoniaceae. He continuing to edit Sir W. J. Hooker's Icones Plantarum after his retirement. He also produced an Official guide to the Kew museums in 1863. The genus Oliverella in the Loranthaceae was published in 1895 by French botanist Phillippe Édouard Léon van Tieghem. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; JSTOR)

oliveri/oliveriana/oliverianus/oliverorum: for (1) Edward George Hudson (Ted) Oliver (1938- ), South African botanist born in Rondebosch and specializing in Ericoids, Curator of the Government Herbarium at Stellenbosch, Curator of the National Herbarium in Pretoria, a researcher at the National Botanical Institute at Kirstenbosch, co-author of Ericas in Southern Africa (1967) and Field Guide to the Ericas of the Cape Peninsula (2000), research fellow in the Department of Botany and Zoology at Stellenbosch University, commemorated with Erica oliveri, Asparagus oliveri, Aspalathus oliveri, Lachnaea oliverorum, Drimia oliverorum, and the former taxa Romulea oliveri (now R. neglecta), and other species that do not appear in southern Africa such as Gethyllis oliverorum. The former genus Tedingea in the Amaryllidaceae and the taxa with epithet oliverorum commemorate both Ted Oliver and his wife Inge; (2) Daniel Oliver (1830-1916), British botanist, Keeper of Kew Herbarium for 26 years, professor of botany at University College London 1861-1888, author of Flora of Tropical Africa (1868-1877) in 3 volumes, commemorated with Impatiens oliveri, and the former taxa Eulophia oliveriana (now E. aculeata), Cyrtopera oliveriana (now Eulophia parviflora) and Hypodiscus oliverianus (now H. albo-aristatus). See entry above.

olivettiana: the taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is Haworthia olivettiana, with no information as to its derivation. The taxon was published in 1971 by British plant cultivator and collector Cyril A. E. Parr, so it could be someone he knew. This is the only taxon with this specific epithet.

ommannei/ommanneyi: for Capt. Henry Travers Ommanney (1849-1936), British civil servant and army officer who was in the Indian Civil Service, Under Secretary of the Revenue Department (1886), Inspector-General of Police (1888), and after retiring and settling in South Africa was in the South African Mounted Irregular Forces (1901-1902) and made plant collections there, commemorated with both Ipomoea ommannei and Senecio ommannei. The POSA database spells it as ommanneyi. (JSTOR)

orpeniae: for Kate Orpen (1870-1943), plant collector in South Africa, see following entry, commemorated with Aloe hereroensis var. orpeniae. (JSTOR)

orpenii: for Mr. Redmond Newenham Morris Orpen (1864-1940) of Kleinzee, Northern Cape, who was apparently interested in astronomy as well as botany. He was the brother of Katherine Irene Theodora Orpen (Kate, see above). One source I found spelled his name Reimond Newingham Morris Orpen, but various family trees I found online indicate that this is an error. He is commemorated with Prepodesma orpenii. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Orphium: after Orpheus, in Greek mythology a poet and musician, and one of the Argonauts. The genus Orphium in the Gentianaceae was published by Ernst Heinrich Friedrich Meyer. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

orsmondiae: according to JSTOR records, the holotype of Ruschia orsmondiae was collected by a person named Orsmond in South Africa in 1933 and published by Louisa Bolus in 1934. By the epithet ending we can assume that this Orsmond was a woman, and we can further assume that she is the person who is commemorated with this epithet. I have no further information about it. The taxon has since been synonymized to R. capornii. As far as I know, this is the only taxon with this specific epithet.

osbornei: for David Osborne, Nature Conservator for the Klein Swartberg Mountains, who discovered Leucadendron osbornei only in 1994. (Colin Paterson-Jones; Protea Atlas)

Osmunda: the CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names says "Uncertain attribution, French osmunde, English osmund, of unknown origin, possibly after the Saxon Osmunder, a name for Thor, the god of war, or for Osmundus, c. 1025, a Scandinavian writer of runes, or after Osmun, Bishop of Salisbury, d. 1099." However, Geoffrey Andrew's Fernkloof Plant Names Explained relates the following Legend Of Osmund The Waterman which is quoted from Notes and Queries, Second Series, Volume VIII (1859): "At Loch Tyne dwelt the waterman old Osmund.  Fairest among maidens was the daughter of Osmund the waterman. Her light brown hair and glowing cheek told of her Saxon origin, and her light steps bounded over the green turf like a young fawn in his native glades.  Often, in the stillness of a summer's even, did the mother and her fair-haired child sit beside the lake to watch the dripping and the splashing of the father's oars, as he skimmed right merrily towards them on the deep blue waters.  Sounds, as of hasty steps, were heard one day, and presently a company of fugitives told with breathless haste that the cruel Danes were making towards the ferry. Osmund heard them with fear. Suddenly the shouts of furious men came remotely on the ear. The fugitives rushed on, and Osmund stood for a moment, when, snatching up his oars, he rowed his trembling wife and fair child to a small island, covered with the great Osmund Royal, and, assisting them to land, enjoined them to lie down beneath the tall ferns. Scarcely had the ferryman returned to his cottage, when a company of Danes rushed in; but they hurt him not, for they knew he could do them service. During the day and night did Osmund row backwards and forwards across the river, ferrying troops of those fierce men; and when the last company was put on shore, you might have seen Osmund kneeling beside the river's bank, and returning heartfelt thanks to Heaven for the preservation of his wife and child. Often in after years did Osmund speak of that day's peril; and his fair child, grown up to womanhood, called the tall fern by her father's name." The fact that Osmunda is a genus of ferns lends some credence to this story. PlantzAfrica states that the name may derive from "combining the Latin os (= mouth) and mundus (= clean), as it was reputedly used to clean the mouth. Another possibility is that it was named after King Osmund, who reigned over the South Saxons about 758 A.D." So this is another of the many mysteries of the botanical nomenclature of Southern Africa. The genus Osmunda in the Osmundaceae was published in 1753 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

ottoniana: for Friedrich Otton, Austrian botanist, Director of Schonbrunn Gardens, Vienna, in the mid-1800's, commemorated with Polystachya ottoniana. (Elsa Pooley; Flora of Zimbabwe)

ottonis: for Frederich Otto (1782-1856), German botanist, Curator of the Berlin Botanic Garden, commemorated with Ehrharta ottonis.

Ottosonderia/ottosonderi: for Otto Wilhelm Sonder (1812-1881), German botanist and pharmacist, practicing in Hamburg. He was a botanical explorer and plant collector, and co-author with William H. Harvey of the first three volumes of Flora capensis although he never actually visited the Cape. He accumulated an enormous private herbarium of more than a quarter of a million specimens, mostly from some of the leading botanists and collectors of his day. Most of his important South African holdings were collected by C.F. Ecklon, W.H. Harvey, C.P. Thunberg and C.L.P. Zeyher. When it became too large to manage he sold it to his friend Ferdinand von Mueller, parts of it going eventually to the Swedish Museum of Natural History, and the bulk of it, about 250,000 specimens, going to the Melbourne Royal Botanic Gardens. He had a special interest in algae and wrote an algal supplement to Mueller’s Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae and a major paper on Australian tropical algae. He also wrote a local flora, Flora Hamburgensis (1851), and was editor and author of several families of Plantae Muellerianae in the journal Linnaea. In 1846 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Königsberg. The genus Ottosonderia in the Aizoaceae was published in 1958 by Louisa Bolus, and Sonder is also commemorated with the former taxon Ruschia ottosonderi, now synonymized to R. monticola. See also sonderana/sonderi/sonderiana/ sonderianum. He was also honored with the generic names Sonderina and Sonderothamnus, and the names of four algal genera, Sonderia, Sonderopelta, Sonderella and Sonderophycus. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia; JSTOR; Gunn & Codd)

otzeniana/otzenianus/otzenii: for Max Otzen, German emigre to Namibia then South Africa, succulent plant enthusiast, commemorated with Lampranthus otzenianus and the former taxa Lithops otzeniana (now L. comptonii) and Haworthia otzenii (now H. mutica). (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

owanii: for Peter MacOwan (1830-1909), South African botanist, rector and head of natural sciences at Gill College, Somerset East, South Africa, father-in-law of Selmar Schonland (founder of the botany department at Rhodes University), commemorated with Cyperus owanii and the former taxon Agathosma owanii, now synonymized to A. capensis. See also macowanii etc. (JSTOR)

oweniae: for Miss M.C. Owen (1802-1854), British plant collector, sister of the Rev. Francis Owen. She and her brother and her brother's wife arrived in South Africa in 1837, and travelled overland by oxcart to Port Natal. The Rev. Owen's attempt to establish a mission station in an area about 100 miles north of Port Natal failed due to severe fighting between settlers and Zulus, and they returned to Port Natal and then to Cape Town. Miss Owen left South Africa in 1841 and died in Alexandria, Egypt. She is commemorated with the taxon Clematis oweniae. (Gunn & Codd; Ladies in the Laboratory III by Mary R.S. Creese)