LH-LY

                   In the following names, the stressed vowel is the one preceding the stress mark. It is not always
                  easy to ascertain where such stress should be placed, especially in the case of epithets derived
                  from personal names. I have tried to follow the principle of maintaining the stress of the original
                  name as outlined in the Jepson Manual, and have abandoned it only when it was just too awkward.
                  In the case of some names, I have listed them twice, reflecting either some disagreement or conflict
                  in the rules of pronunciation, some uncertainty on my part as to the correct pronunciation, or simply
                  that sometimes there is no single correct pronunciation. In other instances, the way I record it is just
                  that which sounds right to my ear.

• Liber'tia: after Belgian botanist Marie-Anne Libert (1782-1865). The following is from the 'Lichens of Belgium, Luxembourg and northern France' website: "Two undisputed personalities dominate the lichenological world in Belgium around the mid 19th century: M.-A. Libert and J. Kickx. M.-A. Libert worked in the Malmédy region, which at that time belonged to Germany and was later incorporated into Belgium by the Versailles treaty (1919); this explains why her results were not mentioned in the 'Prodrome de la Flore de Belgique' published beforehand (De Wildeman 1898). Whilst the four magnificent exsiccata fascicles she dedicated to the cryptogams found near Malmédy contain very few lichens, her herbarium, now housed at BR, has many, most of them collected and processed with great care and demonstrating how astonishing the lichen biodiversity of the area was at that time. Except for a few specimens, her herbarium remains to be studied. No doubt such a study would result in several changes to the current checklist: species new for the study area are expected to be found, but most should unfortunately appear as extinct since then." The following is from Mary R. S. Creese's Ladies in the laboratory II: West European women in science, 1800-1900: a survey of their contributions to research: "Unlike most girls of her time and her station in life, she was intensely interested in just about everything she saw around her. During long walks in the countryside around Malmedy she observed in detail and made extensive collections, particularly of plants and minerals. These she attempted to identify and classify using her father's library. The fact that the scientific and informational works available to her were in Latin was not an insuperable barrier; without any help she learned the language, becoming very proficient. She took her first plant collections to Alexandre Louis Lejeune (1779-1850), a physician in the neighboring community of Verviers and the most prominent botanist of the region. Lejeune had undertaken to prepare a catalogue of the plants of the department of Ourthe for an official survey of the flora of northern France. Requesting her to collect and dry for him the mountain plants of the Malmedy region, Lejeune offered to supply her with the necessary reference works. With these in hand she quickly became an expert on the Malmedy flora. Many of the vascular plants listed in Lejeune's Flore des environs de Spa were found by her; notable among them were new species of brambles and roses—Rubus arduennensis, Rubus montanus, Rosa nemorosa, and Rosa umbellata. In 1810 she met the celebrated Swiss botanist Auguste-Pyrame de Candolle (1778-1841), then professor of botany at Montpellier University, who was making a scientific tour through Belgium. Together with Lejeune she accompanied De Candolle through the high country to the north of Malmedy. De Candolle was impressed both with the knowledge and abilities of Mile. Libert and with the exceptionally rich cryptogamic flora of the region. He suggested that she begin studies in the area, one that had hitherto received little attention. She accepted the idea and began to collect extensively in the woods, on the mountain slopes, and in the broad, upland marshes typical of the region.
      Marie-Anne Libert's scholarly contributions were not confined to botany. Having decided about 1837 that at age fifty-five she was too old for plant collecting, she switched her attention to local history and archaeology, also subjects that had long interested her. Her collection of artifacts included ancient coins and a Merovingian ring, the latter found in a bog by a peasant. All her steady scholarly activity did not prevent Marie-Anne Libert, a capable and enterprising woman in many areas, from doing her share of the work of managing the flourishing family business; she and her brothers greatly expanded the tannery they inherited from their parents. They nevertheless led a simple life. Of the nine surviving Libert children only three married and Marie-Anne, her sister Marie-Elisabeth-Therese, and four brothers stayed on in the family home, five of them living into their seventies or beyond. Upright in character and unwilling to accept injustice in any form, Marie-Anne was active in civic and community affairs. After the notice taken other by Emperor Friedrich-Wilhelm, her opinions carried considerable weight. She died on 15 January 1865 after three days of illness, three months before her eighty-third birthday. Although Libert's Plantes cryptogames collections established her reputation in the European botanical community, after her death it was her personal herbarium that became the particular interest of specialists. Sold to the Jardin Botanique in Brussels by her nephew Hubert-Remade Libert of Malmedy for 2,000 francs, it included an extensive collection of cryptogams, phanerogams, and published herbaria. Specimens were well prepared and documented. The fungi and lichen collections became especially famous; parts of the collection were published by Casimir Roumeguere in Revue Mycologique in 1880, additional material was brought out the following year by Italian fungal taxonomist Pier Andrea Saccardo,13 and other botanists continued the work. The material was still being used a century after Libert's death and even a few forms thought to be unknown in Belgium were found in it from time to time. This is hardly surprising because Libert worked in the early nineteenth century before extensive damage had been done to the vegetation of the area; further, she was the only person collecting there at the time and for long after." (ref. genus Libertia)
• libertin'i: after Freedom William ("Freed") Hoffman. Libertinus is Latin for freedman (a freed slave) (ref. Eriogonum libertini)
• liboced'ri: from the Greek libos, "tear, drop," and cedrus, "cedar," and referring to the host plant this species parasitizes, which at one time was in the genus Libocedrus (ref. Phoradendron libocedri)
• ligno'sus: woody (ref. Dipogon lignosus)
• ligular'is: same as ligulatus (ref. Cyperus ligularis)
• ligula'tum/ligula'tus: straplike, provided with ligules
• ligulifo'lia: with straplike leaves (ref. Salix ligulifolia)
• ligusticifo'lia: from the Latin meaning "with leaves like those of Ligusticum (Lovage)" (ref. Clematis ligusticifolia)
• Ligust'icum: from the Greek ligustikos, "Ligurian, pertaining to Liguria, Italy" (ref. genus Ligusticum)
• Ligus'trum: a Latin name for the privet plant (ref. genus Ligustrum)
• Lil'aea: after the French botanist and physician Alire Raffeneau-Delile (1778-1850), who accompanied Napoleon to Egypt, was a traveller in North Carolina, and from 1819 to 1850 was a professor of botany at Montpellier (ref. genus Lilaea)
• Lilaeop'sis: similar to genus Lilaea of the Liliaceae (ref. genus Lilaeopsis)
• lilia'cea/lilia'ceus: lily-like (ref. Fritillaria liliacea)
• lilaci'na: lilac in color (ref. Triteleia lilacina)
• Lil'ium: derived from the Greek lirion, "a lily" (ref. genus Lilium)
• limitan'ea: that which is on the border (ref. Argyrochosma limitanea)
• Limnan'thes: from the Greek limne, "a marsh," and anthos, "a flower," because of its habitat (ref. genus Limnanthes)
• Limno'bium: from the Greek limne, "salt marsh, marsh," and bios, "life" (ref. genus Limnobium)
• limno'phila: swamp-loving (ref. Calystegia sepium ssp. limnophila)
• Limo'nium: comes from the ancient Greek name Leimonion, supposedly from leimon, "a marsh" (ref. genus Limonium)
• limo'sa: pertaining to or of marshy or muddy places (ref. Carex limosa, Heteranthera limosa, Legenere limosa)
• Limosel'la: from the Latin limus, "mud," and sella, "seat," because of its habit of growing in wet places (ref. genus Limosella)
• Linan'thus: from the Greek linon meaning "flax" and anthos meaning "flower" (ref. genus Linanthus)
• Linar'ia: from the Latin linum, "flax," referring to the flax-like leaves of some species (ref. genus Linaria)
• linariifo'lia: with leaves like those of genus Linaria (ref. Castilleja linariifolia)
• lincolnen'sis: after Lincoln County, Nevada (ref. Boechera lincolnensis [formerly Arabis pulchra var. munciensis])
• Lindern'ia: after German botanist Franz Balthazar von Lindern (1682-1755) (ref. genus Lindernia)
• lindheim'eri: after Ferdinand Jakob Lindheimer (1801-1879). The following is quoted from the Handbook of Texas Online: "Ferdinand Jacob Lindheimer, naturalist and newspaper editor, was born on May 21, 1801, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, the youngest son of Johann Hartmann and Jahnette Magdeline (Reisser) Lindheimer. His father was an affluent merchant. Lindheimer is often called the father of Texas botany because of his work as the first permanent-resident plant collector in Texas. He received his education at the Frankfurt Gymnasium and attended a preparatory school in Berlin. He attended the University of Wiesbaden, the University of Jena, and the University of Bonn, where he won a scholarship in philology. He returned to Frankfurt and became a teacher at the Bunsen Institute in the fall of 1827. There he became active in the political movement agitating for reform of the German government. In 1834 Lindheimer, whose political affiliations had alienated his family and placed him at risk, immigrated to the United States as a political refugee. He joined a community of fellow German expatriates in Belleville, Illinois, many of whom were former colleagues from the Bunsen Institute. In the fall of 1834 he traveled to Veracruz, Mexico, and joined another German settlement at Karl Sartorius's hacienda, Mirador, near Jalapa, Vera Cruz. During his sixteen-month stay there, Lindheimer collected plants and insects. In 1836, aroused by reports of the Texas Revolution, he traveled to New Orleans and joined Jerome Bonaparte Robinson's company of Kentucky volunteers. Once in Texas Lindheimer enlisted in the army and served under the command of John Coffee Hays until 1837. Responding to an invitation by George Engelmann, a botanist and friend from Frankfurt, Lindheimer spent the winters of 1839-40 and 1842-43 in St. Louis. In 1843 he completed arrangements to work for Engelmann and his partner, Asa Gray, a Harvard botanist, as a collector of plant specimens. He spent the next nine years collecting specimens in Texas from a variety of areas, including Chocolate Bayou, Cat Springs, Matagorda Bay, Indianola, and Comanche Springs. During the course of his work he became acquainted with fellow plant collector Louis C. Ervendberg and other prominent early Texans, including Rosa Kleberg and John O. Meusebach. In 1844 Lindheimer joined the Adelsverein, settled in New Braunfels, and was granted land on the banks of the Comal River, where he continued his plant collecting and attempted to establish a botanical garden. He was hired as editor of the Neu Braunfelser Zeitung (see New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung) in 1852, and his association with the paper continued for the next twenty years. Lindheimer eventually became publisher of the Zeitung and used the paper as a forum to express his anticlerical views. In addition to his work with the paper he ran a private school for gifted children and served as the first justice of the peace of Comal County. During the Civil War, as an advocate of states' rights, he went against the apparent majority of German Americans and publicly supported the Confederacy on the basis that one should maintain regional loyalties. Some scholars have argued, nevertheless, that Lindheimer's postwar writings indicate that his true loyalty lay with the North. In 1872 Lindheimer ended his association with the Zeitung and devoted himself to his work as a naturalist. He shared his findings with many others who shared his interest in botany, including Ferdinand von Roemer and Adolph Scheele. Lindheimer is credited with the discovery of several hundred plant species, among them a milkweed, a loco weed, a mimosa, a prickly pear, and a rock daisy. In addition his name is used to designate forty-eight species and subspecies of plants. In 1879 his essays and memoirs were published under the title Aufsätze und Abhandlungen. Lindheimer's plant collections can be found in at least twenty institutions, including the Missouri Botanical Gardens, the British Museum, the Durand Herbarium and Museum of Natural History in Paris, and the Komarov Botanic Institute in St. Petersburg.
  (ref. Panicum acuminatum var. linheimeri)
• lind'leyi: after John Lindley (1799-1865), one of the most industrious British botanists, author, and the first professor of botany at London University (ref. Mentzelia lindleyi, Uropappus [formerly Microseris] lindleyi)
• linea're: linear, parallel-sided (ref. Montiastrum lineare)
• linearifo'lia: with narrow linear parallel-sided leaves (ref. Castilleja linearifolia, Ericameria [formerly Haplopappus] linearifolia, Stillingia linearifolia)
• linearilo'ba: linearly-lobed (ref. Angelica lineariloba)
• linear'is: see lineare above (ref. Chilopsis linearis, Collomia linearis, Gazania linearis, Mirabilis [formerly Oxybaphus] linearis, Pectocarya linearis, Petalonyx linearis)
• linguifo'lia: with tongue-like leaves (ref. Viola praemorsa ssp. linguifolia)
• lingula'ta: tongue-like (ref. Clarkia lingulata)
• liniflor'us: flax-flowered, with flowers like those of genus Linum (ref. Linanthus liniflorus)
• linifo'lia/linifo'lius: having leaves like those of Linum (ref. Genista linifolia, Oligomeris linifolia)
• Linnae'a: named for Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778). The following long entry (as is deserved by one of the greatest figures in the field of botany) is quoted from a website of the University of California at Berkeley Museum of Paleontology: "Carl Linnaeus, also known as Carl von Linné or Carolus Linnaeus, is often called the Father of Taxonomy. His system for naming, ranking, and classifying organisms is still in wide use today (with many changes). His ideas on classification have influenced generations of biologists during and after his own lifetime, even those opposed to the philosophical and theological roots of his work.
       He was born on May 23, 1707, at Stenbrohult, in the province of Småland in southern Sweden. His father, Nils Ingemarsson Linnaeus, was both an avid gardener and a Lutheran pastor, and Carl showed a deep love of plants and a fascination with their names from a very early age. Carl disappointed his parents by showing neither aptitude nor desire for the priesthood, but his family was somewhat consoled when Linnaeus entered the University of Lund in 1727 to study medicine. A year later, he transferred to the University of Uppsala, the most prestigious university in Sweden. However, its medical facilities had been neglected and had fallen into disrepair. Most of Linaeus's time at Uppsala was spent collecting and studying plants, his true love. At the time, training in botany was part of the medical curriculum, for every doctor had to prepare and prescribe drugs derived from medicinal plants. Despite being in hard financial straits, Linnaeus mounted a botanical and ethnographical expedition to Lapland in 1731. In 1734 he mounted another expedition to central Sweden. Linnaeus went to the Netherlands in 1735, promptly finished his medical degree at the University of Harderwijk, and then enrolled in the University of Leiden for further studies. That same year, he published the first edition of his classification of living things, the Systema Naturae. During these years, he met or corresponded with Europe's great botanists, and continued to develop his classification scheme. Returning to Sweden in 1738, he practiced medicine (specializing in the treatment of syphilis) and lectured in Stockholm before being awarded a professorship at Uppsala in 1741. At Uppsala, he restored the University's botanical garden (arranging the plants according to his system of classification), made three more expeditions to various parts of Sweden, and inspired a generation of students. He was instrumental in arranging to have his students sent out on trade and exploration voyages to all parts of the world: nineteen of Linnaeus's students went out on these voyages of discovery. Perhaps his most famous student, Daniel Solander, was the naturalist on Captain James Cook's first round-the-world voyage, and brought back the first plant collections from Australia and the South Pacific to Europe. Anders Sparrman, another of Linnaeus's students, was a botanist on Cook's second voyage. Another student, Pehr Kalm, traveled in the northeastern American colonies for three years studying American plants. Yet another, Carl Peter Thunberg, was the first Western naturalist to visit Japan in over a century; he not only studied the flora of Japan, but taught Western medicine to Japanese practicioners. Still others of his students traveled to South America, southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Many died on their travels. Linnaeus continued to revise his Systema Naturae, which grew from a slim pamphlet to a multivolume work, as his concepts were modified and as more and more plant and animal specimens were sent to him from every corner of the globe. Linnaeus was also deeply involved with ways to make the Swedish economy more self-sufficient and less dependent on foreign trade, either by acclimatizing valuable plants to grow in Sweden, or by finding native substitutes. Unfortunately, Linnaeus's attempts to grow cacao, coffee, tea, bananas, rice, and mulberries proved unsuccessful in Sweden's cold climate. His attempts to boost the economy (and to prevent the famines that still struck Sweden at the time) by finding native Swedish plants that could be used as tea, coffee, flour, and fodder were also not generally successful. He still found time to practice medicine, eventually becoming personal physician to the Swedish royal family. In 1758 he bought the manor estate of Hammarby, outside Uppsala, where he built a small museum for his extensive personal collections. In 1761 he was granted nobility, and became Carl von Linné. His later years were marked by increasing depression and pessimism. Lingering on for several years after suffering what was probably a series of mild strokes in 1774, he died in 1778. His son, also named Carl, succeeded to his professorship at Uppsala, but never was noteworthy as a botanist. When Carl the Younger died five years later with no heirs, his mother and sisters sold the elder Linnaeus's library, manuscripts, and natural history collections to the English natural historian Sir James Edward Smith, who founded the Linnean Society of London to take care of them.
       Linnaeus's plant taxonomy was based solely on the number and arrangement of the reproductive organs; a plant's class was determined by its stamens (male organs), and its order by its pistils (female organs). This resulted in many groupings that seemed unnatural. For instance, Linnaeus's Class Monoecia, Order Monadelphia included plants with separate male and female "flowers" on the same plant (Monoecia) and with multiple male organs joined onto one common base (Monadelphia). This order included conifers such as pines, firs, and cypresses (the distinction between true flowers and conifer cones was not clear), but also included a few true flowering plants, such as the castor bean. "Plants" without obvious sex organs were classified in the Class Cryptogamia, or "plants with a hidden marriage," which lumped together the algae, lichens, fungi, mosses and other bryophytes, and ferns. Linnaeus freely admitted that this produced an "artificial classification," not a natural one, which would take into account all the similarities and differences between organisms. But like many naturalists of the time, in particular Erasmus Darwin, Linnaeus attached great significance to plant sexual reproduction, which had only recently been rediscovered.
       The sexual basis of Linnaeus's plant classification was controversial in its day; although easy to learn and use, it clearly did not give good results in many cases. Some critics also attacked it for its sexually explicit nature: one opponent, botanist Johann Siegesbeck, called it "loathsome harlotry". (Linnaeus had his revenge, however; he named a small, useless European weed Siegesbeckia.) Later systems of classification largely follow John Ray's practice of using morphological evidence from all parts of the organism in all stages of its development. What has survived of the Linnean system is its method of hierarchical classification and custom of binomial nomenclature. For Linnaeus, species of organisms were real entities, which could be grouped into higher categories called genera (singular, genus). By itself, this was nothing new; since Aristotle, biologists had used the word genus for a group of similar organisms, and then sought to define the differentio specifica -- the specific difference of each type of organism. But opinion varied on how genera should be grouped. Naturalists of the day often used arbitrary criteria to group organisms, placing all domestic animals or all water animals together. Part of Linnaeus' innovation was the grouping of genera into higher taxa that were also based on shared similarities. In Linnaeus's original system, genera were grouped into orders, orders into classes, and classes into kingdoms. Thus the kingdom Animalia contained the class Vertebrata, which contained the order Primates, which contained the genus Homo with the species sapiens -- humanity. Later biologists added additional ranks between these to express additional levels of similarity.
      Before Linnaeus, species naming practices varied. Many biologists gave the species they described long, unwieldy Latin names, which could be altered at will; a scientist comparing two descriptions of species might not be able to tell which organisms were being referred to. For instance, the common wild briar rose was referred to by different botanists as Rosa sylvestris inodora seu canina and as Rosa sylvestris alba cum rubore, folio glabro. The need for a workable naming system was made even greater by the huge number of plants and animals that were being brought back to Europe from Asia, Africa, and the Americas. After experimenting with various alternatives, Linnaeus simplified naming immensely by designating one Latin name to indicate the genus, and one as a "shorthand" name for the species. The two names make up the binomial ("two names") species name. For instance, in his two-volume work Species Plantarum (The Species of Plants), Linnaeus renamed the briar rose Rosa canina. This binomial system rapidly became the standard system for naming species. Zoological and most botanical taxonomic priority begin with Linnaeus: the oldest plant names accepted as valid today are those published in Species Plantarum, in 1753, while the oldest animal names are those in the tenth edition of Systema Naturae (1758), the first edition to use the binomial system consistently throughout. Although Linnaeus was not the first to use binomials, he was the first to use them consistently, and for this reason, Latin names that naturalists used before Linnaeus are not usually considered valid under the rules of nomenclature.
       In his early years, Linnaeus believed that the species was not only real, but unchangeable -- as he wrote, Unitas in omni specie ordinem ducit (The invariability of species is the condition for order [in nature]). But Linnaeus observed how different species of plant might hybridize, to create forms which looked like new species. He abandoned the concept that species were fixed and invariable, and suggested that some -- perhaps most -- species in a genus might have arisen after the creation of the world, through hybridization. In his attempts to grow foreign plants in Sweden, Linnaeus also theorized that plant species might be altered through the process of acclimitization. Towards the end of his life, Linnaeus investigated what he thought were cases of crosses between genera, and suggested that, perhaps, new genera might also arise through hybridization. Was Linnaeus an evolutionist? It is true that he abandoned his earlier belief in the fixity of species, and it is true that hybridization has produced new species of plants, and in some cases of animals. Yet to Linnaeus, the process of generating new species was not open-ended and unlimited. Whatever new species might have arisen from the primae speciei, the original species in the Garden of Eden, were still part of God's plan for creation, for they had always potentially been present. Linnaeus noticed the struggle for survival -- he once called Nature a "butcher's block" and a "war of all against all". However, he considered struggle and competition necessary to maintain the balance of nature, part of the Divine Order. The concept of open-ended evolution, not necessarily governed by a Divine Plan and with no predetermined goal, never occurred to Linnaeus; the idea would have shocked him. Nevertheless, Linnaeus's hierarchical classification and binomial nomenclature, much modified, have remained standard for over 200 years. His writings have been studied by every generation of naturalists, including Erasmus Darwin and Charles Darwin. The search for a "natural system" of classification is still going on -- except that what systematists try to discover and use as the basis of classification is now the evolutionary relationships of taxa. (ref. genus Linnaea)
  
• lino'ides: having the form of or some resemblance to Linum, the genus of flax (ref. Monardella linoides ssp. linoides, Monardella linoides ssp. stricta, Monardella linoides ssp. viminea)
• Lin'um: from the old Greek name for flax linon used by Theophrastus (ref. genus Linum)
• lipocar'pa: see the following entry (ref. Carex lenticularis var. lipocarpa)
• Lipocar'pha: Umberto Quattrocchi's Dictionary of Plant Names says "from the Greek leipo, "to be deficient, to be wanting" and karphos, "chip of straw," referring to the flowers or to the deciduous squamae [scales as in the pappus of some members of the Asteraceae]; some suggest a wrong derivation from lipos, "fat," and karphos." (ref. genus Lipocarpha)
• Lip'pia: after Dr. Agostino Lippi (1678-1705), a European naturalist (ref. genus Lippia, the species of which have now been put by Jepson into Aloysia and Phyla)
• Liquidam'bar: from the Latin liquidus, "liquid, flowing," and the Arabic ambar or anbar, "ambergris," in reference to the fragrant gum or resin exuded by this tree (ref. genus Liquidambar)
• Lis'tera: after Martin Lister (1638-1711), an English naturalist and physician. The following is quoted from Wikipedia: "He was nephew of Sir Matthew Lister, physician to Anne, queen of James I, and to Charles I. He was educated at St John's College, Cambridge, 1655, graduated in 1658/9, and was elected a fellow in 1660. He became F.R.S. [Fellow of the Royal Society] in 1671. He practised medicine at York until 1683, when he removed to London. In 1684 he received the degree of M.D. at Oxford, and in 1687 became F.R.C.P. He contributed numerous articles on natural history, medicine and antiquities to the Philosophical Transactions. His principal works were Historiae animalium Angliae tres tractatus (1678); Historiae Conchyliorum (1685 1692), and Conchyliorum Bivalvium (1696). As a conchologist he was held in high esteem, but while he recognized the similarity of fossil mollusca to living forms, he regarded them as inorganic imitations produced in the rocks. In 1683 he communicated to the Royal Society (Phil. Trans., 1684), an ingenious proposal for a new sort of map of countries; together with tables of sands and clays, such as are chiefly found in the north parts of England. In this essay he suggested the preparation of a soil or mineral map of the country, and thereby is justly credited with being the first to realize the importance of a geological survey. He died at Epsom on the 2nd of February 1712." (ref. genus Listera)
• Lithocar'pus: from the Greek lithos, "rock," and karpos, "fruit," an allusion to the hard acorns, which actually are no harder than the acorns of true oaks (ref. genus Lithocarpus)
• lithocar'yus: presumably from lithos, "rock," and carya or caryon from karyon, "a nut or walnut," in reference to the nutlets (ref. Plagiobothrys lithocaryus)
• Lithophrag'ma: from the Greek words lithos, "rock," and phragma, "hedge or fence, partition" (ref. genus Lithophragma)
• lithospermo'ides: resembling genus Lithospermum (ref. Castilleja rubicundula ssp. lithospermoides)
• Lithosper'mum: from the Greek lithos, "stone," and sperma, "seed" (ref. genus Lithospermum)
• littora'lis: of the seashore (ref. Cordylanthus littoralis, Monanthochloe littoralis, Opuntia littoralis)
• littor'um: same as previous entry, the common name for this taxon in the Jepson Manual is coastal dwarf mistletoe (ref. Arceuthobium littorum)
• liv'ida: lead-colored, bluish-gray (ref. Carex livida)
• loba'ta: lobed  (ref. Physalis lobata, Quercus lobata, Viola lobata)
• lob'bii: named after William Lobb (1809-1863), an English botanist who collected plants in the Santa Lucia Mountains. He was sent out from England by the nursery firm of James Vetch to collect seeds suitable to grow as decorative plants in England, and he collected seeds of the redwood tree in 1852, representing the first scientific recognition of this species. Lobb's seeds and specimens were examined by John Lindley, and it was he who described the species and named it Wellingtonia gigantea after the Duke of Wellington, who had died the year before. It was subsequently named Sequoia gigantea when that genus was established. Other names proposed by Americans were Sequoia washingtoniana and Americus gigantea, but it is known today as Sequoiadendron gigantea (ref. Deinandra lobbii, Eriogonum lobbii, Eschscholzia lobbii, Lupinus lepidus var. lobbii, Nama lobbii, Ranunculus lobbii, Ribes lobbii)
• Lobe'lia: after Matthias de l'Obel (1538-1616), (also known as Lobelius), a Flemish botanist. According to my friend Umberto Quattrocchi, L'Obel "studied at the University of Montpellier, [was a] traveller and plant collector, from 1565 to 1566 worked with Guillaume Rondelet at Montpellier, [was] physician to William, Prince of Orange, attended Lord Edward Zouche in his embassy to the court of Denmark, [was] botanist and physician to King James I of England, [and] superintended a physic garden at Hackney." "His Stirpium adversaria nova (1571, written with Pierre Pena) is one of the milestones of modern botany. Later, Stirpium observationes, a sort of complement to the Adversaria, was joined to it under the title Plantarum seu stirpium historia (1576). His botanical work was directed toward the pharmacological use of plants. L'Obel published an essay on the pharmacology of Rondelet as part of a reissue of his Adversia in 1605. He referred to Lord Zouch's garden as the garden of medicine." (Quoted from a website called the Galileo Project at Rice University) (ref. genus Lobelia)
• Lobular'ia: from the Latin lobulus, "a small pod," referring to the fruit (ref. genus Lobularia)
• locus'ta: from the Latin locusta, "locust, grasshopper" (ref. Valerianella locusta)
• Loefling'ia: named for Pehr (Peter) Löfling (sometimes spelled Loefling) (1729-1756), a Swedish naturalist, botanist and explorer who died in Venezuela. He studied at the University of Uppsala where he attended the courses of Carolus Linnaeus (ref. genus Loeflingia)
• Loeselias'trum: from the Latin for "like Loeselia" (ref. genus Loeseliastrum)
• loesel'ii: after German botanist and physician Johannes Loeselius (1607-1655), professor of medicine in Königsberg 1639-1655 (ref. Sisymbrium loeselii)
• Logfi'a: apparently an anagram of the genus Filago. The genus is undergoing some revision, and the names Logfia and Oglifa, both anagrams, are in the running to take part of the original genus (ref. genus Logfia)
• Lo'lium: classical common name for ryegrass (ref. genus Lolium)
• Loma'tium: from the Greek loma for "bordered," from the prominent marginal fruit wings (ref. genus Lomatium)
• lompocen'se: of or from Lompoc, California or that area (ref. Erysimum capitatum ssp. lompocense)
• lonchi'tis: from lonche, "spear," and lonchitis, a plant with spear-shaped seeds
• lonchocar'pa: with spear-shaped fruit (ref. Draba lonchocarpa)
• lonchol'epis: from lonche, "spear," and lepis, in compound words signifying a scale, thus meaning a spear-shaped scale (ref. Cirsium loncholepis)
• lonchophyl'la/lonchophyl'lus: from the Greek lonche, "a lance," and phyllus, "leaf" (ref. Trimorpha lonchophylla, Erigeron lonchophyllus)
• lon'chus: possibly derived from Greek lonche, meaning "a spear"
• lon'ga/lon'gum/lon'gus: used in compound words to signify "long"
• longae'va: of great age, long-lived (ref. Pinus longaeva)
• longebarba'tus: long-bearded or long-haired (ref. Calochortus longebarbatus)
• longibractea'ta: long-bracted (ref. Ivesia longibracteata)
• longicau'lis: long-stemmed (ref. Wyethia longicaulis)
• longiflor'a/longiflor'us: refers to the length of the corolla (ref. Acleisanthes longiflora, Mimulus longiflorus [now aurantiacus], Nemacladus longiflorus, Symphoricarpos longiflorus)
• longifo'lia/longifo'lius: with long leaves (ref. Acacia longifolia, Mentha longifolia, Lupinus longifolius)
• longilig'ula: long-liguled (ref. Poa fendleriana ssp. longiligula)
• longiligula'tum: same as previous entry (ref. Dichanthelium longiligulatum)
• longilo'ba: long-lobed (ref. Mentzelia multiflora ssp. longiloba, Sagittaria longiloba)
• longipeduncula'ta: with elongated peduncles (ref. Callitriche longipedunculata)
• lon'gipes: long-stalked (ref. Calystegia longipes, Phacelia longipes, Stellaria longipes ssp. longipes, Trifolium longipes)
• longipet'ala: with long petals (ref. Lewisia longipetala)
• longiros'tris: long-beaked (ref. Streptanthella longirostris)
• longisep'ala: with long sepals
• longise'ta: long-bristled (ref. Aristida purpurea var. longiseta)
• longispi'na/longispi'nus: long-spined (ref. Tetradymia axillaris var. longispina, Cenchrus longispinus)
• longis'sima: very long (ref. Oenothera longissima)
• longistipita'ta: long-stalked or with a long stipe (ref. Silene occidentalis ssp. longistipitata)
• Lonic'era: named for Adam Lonitzer (1528-1586), a German herbalist, physician and botanist who wrote a standard herbal text that was reprinted many times between 1557 and 1783 (ref. genus Lonicera)
• loom'isii: after Harold Frederick Loomis (1896-1976), well-known specialist on the millipedes of the West Indies and Central America. A botanist and horticulturist by profession, he also collected material in China and the Western United States and became Director of the U.S. Plant uIntroduction Station in Miami, a position which he held for the last 13 years of his professional life. He described new millipede taxa in 51 papers, publishing a total of nine new families, 129 new genera and 525 new species (ref. Hymenothrix loomisii)
• lophan'tha: from the Greek lophos, "a crest," and anthos, "flower," thus "having crested flowers" (ref. Albizia lophantha)
• Loranderson'ia: after Loran Crittenden Anderson (1936- ), fervent American enthusiast of the Asteraceae, especially Chrysothamnus and related taxa
• loto'ides: resembling Lotus (ref. Glinus lotoides)
• lott'iae: named after Patricia Ann Lott (1936-1980). Arnold Tiehm, in Nevada vascular plant types and their collectors says that Pat Lott of Fallon, Nevada, ,was on a "fishing trip to Desert Creek in the Sweetwater Mountains when she collected a batch of what she thought were chokecherries. Embarassed to find she had rose hips, she became determined to avoid making such a mistake again and began to learn the native plants. Her humorous articles published in the first five volumes of Northern Nevada Native Plant Society newsletters show her love of life, sense of humor and ability to laugh at herself. It is unfortunate that she died of a stroke in her mid-forties (while on a hunting trip with her husband, George Wm. Lott, Jr.). " She went on plant-hunting trips with Laura Mills beginning in 1969. (ref. Gilia lottiae)
• Lo'tus: from the Greek and originally applied to a fruit which was said to make those who tasted it forget their homes (ref. genus Lotus)
• louisian'ica: of or from Louisiana (ref. Proboscidea louisianica)
• lu'ciae: after the Santa Lucia Mts between the Big Sur coast and the Salinas Valley (ref. Camissonia luciae)
• lucia'num: see previous entry (ref. Cirsium occidentale var. lucianum)
• lu'cida/lu'cidum/lu'cidus: glossy, clear or shining (ref. Salix lucida ssp. lasiandra, Lomatium lucidum, Lycopus lucidus)
• lucien'se/lucien'sis: same as luciae above (ref. Galium californicum ssp. luciense, Juncus luciensis)
• ludovicia'na/ludovicia'nus: of or from Louisiana (ref. Artemisia ludoviciana ssp. incompta, Lactuca ludoviciana, Vicia ludoviciana var. ludoviciana)
• Ludwig'ia: named for Christian Gottlieb Ludwig (1709-1773), German botanist, plant collector and a professor of medicine in Leipzig (ref. genus Ludwigia)
• Luet'kea: after Count Fedor Petrovitch Lütke (sometimes spelled Litke) (1797-1882), Russian naval officer and explorer, several times Vice-President of the Russian Geographical Society, and finally President of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 1864-1882. His name is also sometimes referred to as Friedrich Benjamin Lutke which would have been his German name since he was of German ancestry (ref. genus Luetkea)
• lu'gens: the only thing I have been able to find in the way of a derivation of this name is the Latin lugens, which Jaeger's Sourcebook of Biological Names and Terms says has something to do with mourning or wearing mourning apparel and which is obviously of unknown application.  The root would seem to be lugere, "to mourn."  Lugens is a relatively common specific name and has been used not only in plants, but also in birds and insects, among which are the caterpillar Uraba lugens, the damselfly Argia lugens, the beetle Agonum lugens, the butterfly Agrias lugens, and the bird called the Mourning Wheatear or Oenanthe lugens.  Several correspondents have contributed pretty much the same thing, that it refers to a dark coloration or pattern (ref. Triteleia lugens)
• Lui'na: an anagram of Inula (ref. genus Luina)
• Lu'ma: a Chilean name for some species of Myrtaceae in that country (ref. genus Luma)
• Lunar'ia/lunar'is: from the Latin luna, "moon," for the flat, round seedpod that resembles a full moon (ref. genus Lunaria)
• lunula'tum: crescent-shaped
• Lupi'nus: from the Latin lupus for "wolf," alluding to the belief that these plants robbed the soil, which is the oppposite of the truth (ref. genus Lupinus)
• lupuli'na: hop-like (ref. Medicago lupulina)
• lup'ulus: literally a "small wolf," alluding to the plant's habit of climbing over and smothering trees on which it grows. H. lupulus is the European hop and was once called "willow-wolf" because of its propensity for climbing on willows, and the word shows up again in the species Medicago lupulina [see above] (ref. Humulus lupulus)
• lusitan'ica/lusitan'icum: of Portugal (Lusitania), Portuguese (ref. Erica lusitanica, Echium lusitanicum)
• lu'tea: yellow, from a source of yellow dye called lutum (ref. Cleome lutea, Oxystilis lutea, Proboscidea lutea, Reseda lutea, Salix lutea)
• lu'teo-al'bum: yellow-white (ref. Gnaphalium luteo-album)
• luteo'la/luteo'lus: yellowish (ref. Gilmania luteola, Oxytheca luteola, Lupinus luteolus)
• lutes'cens: yellowish (ref. Eragrostis lutescens)
• lu'teus: yellow (ref. Calochortus luteus, Lupinus luteus)
• Lu'zula: possibly from the Italian lucciola, "firefly or glowworm," from the shining inflorescence (ref. genus Luzula)
• luzulifo'lia: with leaves like genus Luzula (ref. Carex luzulifolia)
• lu'zulina: either resembling genus Luzula or a small form of Luzula (ref. Carex luzulina)
• luzulo'ides: having the form of or similarity to genus Luzula (ref. Antennaria luzuloides)
• lyal'lii: after David Lyall (1817-1895), another of the many people who came to botany through medicine. After receiving his medical education, he became an officer in the British navy, first undertaking a journey to Greenland, and then being appointed Assistant-Surgeon of the H.M.S. Terror for its several-year-long voyage to the Antarctic, during which time he collected some 1,500 species of plants and amassed a beautiful collection of algae samples. There followed service in the Mediterranean, and then he was selected to be Surgeon and Naturalist aboard the H.M.S. Acheron for its survey of the coast of New Zealand, at which time he again did significant work, this time specializing in the lower orders of plants, and discovering the monarch of all buttercups, Ranunculus lyallii. Shortly thereafter he was appointed Surgeon and Naturalist for the Assistance, one of the squadron sent to the Arctic regions in search of Sir John Franklin. During this voyage he made the most extensive herbarium ever formed in the American polar islands. He participated in the Baltic Campaign of 1855 (also called the Crimean War), took part in a mission to delimit the sea boundary between Great Britain and the United States, then went on to work on setting the land boundary between British Columbia and U.S. possessions, an excursion from which he brought back another magnificent herbarium of specimens which so impressed Sir William Hooker that he arranged to have Lyall stationed at Kew so he could arrange and report on his collection and for the first time describe the vegetational zones of British Columbia. All of his achievements cannot be elucidated in this brief account, but suffice it to say that he made major contributions to the field of botany (ref. Arabis lyallii, Tonestus lyallii)
• Lych'nis: from the Greek lychnos for "lamp," from the flame-colored flowers of some ssp. (ref. genus Lychnis)
• Ly'cium: either (1) from Lycia, an ancient country in Asia Minor, and/or (2) from the Greek name Lykion used by Dioscorides and Pliny for some thorny tree or shrub (ref. genus Lycium)
• Lycoper'sicon: from Greek lykos, "wolf," and persicon, "a peach," because of supposed poisonous properties, and originally the name of an Egyptian plant later transferred to this American genus (ref. genus Lycopersicon)
• Lycopodiel'la: a diminutive of Lycopodium (ref. genus Lycopodiella)
• lycopodio'ides: resembling Lycopodium or club-moss (ref. Ivesia lycopodioides)
• Lycopo'dium: from the Greek lykos, "wolf," and podion, "a foot," from some imagined resemblance of the branch tips to a wolf's foot (ref. genus Lycopodium)
• Lycop'sis: from the Greek lykos, "wolf," and opsis, "appearance" (ref. genus Lycopsis)
• lycopso'ides: like genus Lycopsis (ref. Amsinckia lycopsoides)
• Lyco'pus: from the Greek lykos, "wolf," and pous, "foot" (ref. genus Lycopus)
• Lycur'us: from the Greek lykos, "a wolf," and oura, "a tail," alluding to the shape of the inflorescence (ref. genus Lycurus)
• lyng'byei: after Danish algae researcher Hans Christian Lyngbye (1782-1837). The following is quoted from a website called Biographical Etymology of Marine Organism Names: "His father was a vestry-keeper in Blendstrup, later in Gjerding. H.C. Lyngbye studied to become a priest and already when studying theology, he became interested in botany, particularly algae, and in 1817 he received a prize from the Univ. of Copenhagen for a survey of the algae of Denmark. After this he travelled to Norway and the Faeroes collecting algae - also collecting old songs from the Faeroes about Sigurd Fafnesbane and other figures in the Nibelungen group, which he translated to Danish - and published in 1819 Tentamen hydrophytologiae Danicae - a classical work over the algae of Nordic seas. The same year he became a priest in the place where he grew up (and married the 11 year younger Henriette Augusta Tilemann in 1822), but moved in 1827 to Zealand, where he acted as a priest in Söborg and Gilleleje. In 1836 he wrote Rariora codana - a work classifying algal vegetation phytogeographically, but this remained unpublished until Eugene Warming in 1879 published the botanical part of the work." (ref. Carex lyngbyei)
• ly'onii: after William Scrugham Lyon (1851-1916), early resident of Los Angeles and California's first State Forester. The following is from courtesy of David Hollombe: "William Scrugham Lyon was born at Eastchester, Westchester County, New York, November 29, 1851, the eighth of nine children (six girls and three boys).  His father, Samuel Edward Lyon, was a successful attorney at White Plains and moved his growing practice to New York City about 1859. According to Sargent's Silva of North America, Lyon studied forestry and agriculture at the College of the State of New York and Massachusetts Agricultural College.  He is described in an old voting register as having been 6 feet 2 inches tall with blue eyes and brown hair.  Arriving in California in 1871, he and his brothers found work in sheep ranching at Rancho Los Alamitos. On November 23, 1875, Lyon married Miss Maria Emelina ("Emma") Mellus.  Miss Mellus, born at Los Angeles March 26, 1857, was the fifth of eight children.  Her uncle, Henry Mellus, had arrived in California in 1835, and her father Francis (1824-1863), followed in 1839.  Both brothers became wealthy as importers and merchants.  Emma's mother, Adelaida Johnson (1839-1922), came to California in 1833 from Guaymas, Sonora, with her parents, her grandmother, her uncles (the Guirado brothers) and their families.  About this time, Lyon's brothers returned to New York.  For a while, Lyon farmed 22 acres near Compton. In 1882 he gave his occupation as "botanist" in the voting register, while the city directories list him and his brother-in-law F. C. Mellus as managers of the "Pacific Salt Works", founded by Frank Mellus on the salt flats at San Pedro in 1862.  The salt works, barely profitable from the start, went under about this time due to the falling price of imported salt.  By 1883, Lyon was living at 32 Wilmington (now north San Pedro St.) in Los Angeles, next door to the United Presbyterian Chinese Mission.  The mission had been organized in 1878 by the Rev. Joseph Cook Nevin, who had developed an interest in botany while running a mission at Canton, China.  In June, 1884, the two men collected together on Catalina Island and in April, 1885 visited San Clemente Island.  Lyon collected again on Catalina from July to October of that year. His account of the island flora was published the following year in Botanical Gazette as "Flora of Our Southwestern Archipelago".  In an 1887 directory, Lyon is listed as the proprietor of Occidental Nurseries.  In July 1888 he was appointed head of the State Forestry Board and held that position until the Board was de-funded in 1893.  He then went back into the nursery business in partnership with Leuric C. Cobbe, specializing in cacti and succulents.  Ernest Braunton was hired away from Germain's to act as foreman and the eccentric San Diego naturalist C. R. Orcutt was sent as head of a three-man team to collect in Mexico.  In addition to their local business, they sold plants for as much as $100 apiece to botanic gardens and nurseries in Europe. Cobbe left the business about 1894 and Lyon took on Miss Ethelind Lord as partner, doing business as "Elysian Gardens" (located at Marathon and Rampart).  Lyon's book, Gardening in California, published about 1897, was the first book on the subject written specifically for our region.  A few years ago, I found a copy of the third revised edition (1904) in a used book shop.  In it, Lyon treats not only the traditional roses, dahlias, etc. but also advises the use of such natives as the Matilija Poppy, Sticky Monkey Flower and the "insular form of the native California wild Cherry" which now bears his name.  In 1902, Lyon left for Manila to take charge of seed and plant introduction in the Philippines Bureau of Agriculture. His position is also given in some of the bureau's publication as "in charge of Division of Plant Industry" and "expert in tropical horticulture". (Mrs. Lyon's name also appears on a list of collectors associated with the bureau.)  After three years, he left the bureau and went back into the nursery and flower business, specializing this time in tropical orchids.  He died at Manila, July 20, 1916.  His survivors included his widow, a daughter, Katherine (born in 1878) and a son, Ward (born in 1886).  Another daughter, Adelaide, died of diphtheria in 1888 at the age of 11." I am also indebted to Mr. Martin Gaerlan (a resident of Balicbalic, Philippines) for the following, which is extracted from his Some Brief Notes on William S. Lyon, former resident of 'Nagtahan Gardens,' Barrio Balicbalic, Sampaloc, Manila: "Around 1903, William S. Lyon built a beautiful chalet near an old late 19th century cemetary in the bucolic hills of Barrio Balicbalic, Sampaloc, Manila. As a horticulturist with the then Bureau of Agriculture in the Philippines (from 1902 to September 16, 1907, he used the vast estate as a sort of experimental nursery planting various plants and trees. The abundance of various botanical life eventually earned the place the nickname, "Nagtahan Gardens." [Note: Nagtahan is a prominent place near the Pasig River just a few kilometers away from the hills of Balicbalic. Today Naghatan Gardens is called "Ang Gubat" or "The Forest" as the estate still contains a number of trees and plants.] In fact, Mr. Lyon corresponded on one occasion with Oakes Ames, founder of the world famous Ames Botanical Laboratory, regarding "going over 85 plants of D. (Dendrobium) lyonii and 34 of D. (Dendrobium) acuminatum" in his collection in the fields and in the gardens of Naghatan. However, Mr. Lyon's planting skills goes beyond the hills of Balicbalic. Mr. Lyon successfully reintroduced, where the Spaniards repeatedly failed, the avocado or alligator pear (Persea gratissima Gaertn.) to the Philippines in 1903. Subsequently, this variety has been renamed the Lyon avocado in honor of its introducer. Around 1912, in a review of the status of Philippine agriculture, J. Wester mentions that W.S. Lyon's most significant contribution to Philippine agriculture was the introduction of a legume, the Lyon bean (Mucuna nigricans). Nevertheless, the list goes on as Mr. Lyon is credited as well with the introduction of various fruits like the Chinese dwarf banana (Musella lasiocarpa), caimito or star apple (Chrysophyllum cainito L.), pitanga or Brazilian cherry (Eugenia uniflora L.), genip (Genipa americana), loquat (Eriobotrya japonica L.), bael or Bengal quince (Aegle marmelos), myrobalan or Malacca tree (Phyllanthus emblica L.), and a superior guava called yellow or apple guava (Psidium guajava L.). Even after resigning from the Bureau of Agriculture, Mr. Lyon continued to successfully introduce to the Philippines other fruit plants like the casimiroa (Casimiroa edulis), cattley guava (Psidium cattleianum), cherimoya or custard apple (Annona cherimola Miller), biriba (Rollinia orthopetala A. DC.), and salak (Salacca edulis). Aside from fruit trees, there was a time that Mr. Lyon got involved with experimenting with Japanese silkworms. Around 1905, Mr. Lyon had written for silkworm eggs from the Japanese Experiment Station and in anticipation of their arrival had transplanted cuttings from mulberry trees. Unfortunately, these silkworm experiments did not succeed due to climatic differences between the Philippines and Japan." Lyon also published material on tamarinds, sugar cane, cacao, coconuts and jute (ref. Pentachaeta lyonii, Phacelia lyonii, Prunus ilicifolia ssp. lyonii, Senecio lyonii)
• Lyonotham'nus: literally Lyon's shrub, named for W.S. Lyon (see lyonii above) and from thamnus, "shrub" (ref. genus Lyonothamnus)
• Lyrocar'pa: from the Greek lyra, "a lyre," and karpos, "fruit," referring to the fruit shape (ref. genus Lyrocarpa)
• Lysimach'ia: named for Lysimachos, King of Thrace, or more likely from the Greek lysimachos, "ending strife," from lysis, "a loosening, releasing," and mache, strife, from whence came the English name of loosestrife, which the Jepson Manual gives as the common name for this genus (in addition to Lythrum) (ref. genus Lysimachia)
• Lysichi'ton: from the Greek lysis, "a loosening or releasing," and chiton, "a tunic, cloak or covering," and alluding to the spathe-like bract which partially encloses the inflorescence (ref. genus Lysichiton)
• Lyth'rum: from the Greek lythron meaning "blood," and alluding to the color of the flowers or to the reputed styptic (tending to contract or bind, tending to check bleeding) qualities of some species (ref. genus Lythrum)