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 I have included names which are no longer current because the individuals which these names commemorate nevertheless contributed to Southern African flora and deserve to be recognized and remembered.


pageae/Pagella: for Mary Maud Page (1867-1925), English botanical artist, plant collector and botanical explorer, emigrated to RSA in 1911, associated with the Bolus Herbarium at the University of Cape Town 1917-1925, wrote a handbook on culinary herbs published by the Royal Horticultural society, died in South Africa. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Pahudia: for Charles Ferdinand Pahud de Montanges (1803-1873), Governor-general of the Dutch East Indies 1856-1861.

Palhinhaea: for Ruy Telles Palhinha (1871-1957), Portuguese (Azores-born) botanist, Director of the Botanical Garden of Lisbon and the Botanical Institute of the University of Lisbon, studied the flora of the Azores and while working on a catalog of the spermatophytes died as a result of injuries sustained in a car crash. Catalog of the Vascular Plants of the Azores was published posthumously. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Palmstruckia: for Johan Wilhelm Palmstruch (1770-1811), Swedish army officer and botanical artist. Hugh Clarke adds: "[He was] editor of the 11 volume Svensk Botanik now in the Academy of Sciences. Palmstruch's 455 drawings of plants in the six first volumes, have been characterized as the best pictures of plants ever produced in Sweden. This magnificent work used as models Oeder's Flora Danica and Sowerby's English Botany. The text was written by the most distinguished botanists of the period: Quensel, Olof Schwartz, Elias Friis, Göran Wahlenberg and Peter Fredrik Wahlberg." (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names, ABE Books)

Pancovia: for Thomas Panckow (1622-1665), physician to King Wilhelm von Brandenburg, author of Herbarium portatile. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Pandorea: after Pandora, according to Greek mythology the first mortal woman sent to earth. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

paolii: for Professor Guido Paoli (1881-1947) who collected in Italian Somaliland and in Eritrea, mainly seems to have been an entomologist with side interests in botany and anthropology, studied the inhabiters of spines of Acacia trees, and mites and aphids, collected Drimia paolii in Eritrea in 1913.

Pappea/pappeana/pappei: for Carl (Karl) Wilhelm Ludwig Pappe (1803-1862), German physician and plant collector. He studied medicine and botany at Leipzig before moving to Cape Town in 1831, initially practising as a doctor. He was the first colonial botanist and South Africa's first professor of botany, 1858, and he was an international government adviser on botanical issues. (Darwin Correspondence Online Database)

parkeri: for (1) Dr. George Williams Parker (1848-1904), court physician in Madagascar where he collected Indigofera parkeri, or (2) Richard Neville Parker (1884-1958), British botanist, Chief Conservator of Forests for the Punjab, author of A Forest Flora of the Punjab, settled in Cape Peninsula after his retirement, collected Polygala parkeri in 1947. (JSTOR, Gunn & Codd)

Parkinsonia: for John Parkinson (1567-1650), English apothecary to James I and later Royal Botanist to Charles I. Wikipedia says that he was the "last of the great English herbalists and one of the first of the great English botanists." He is best known for his two major works Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris (1629) which described the proper cultivation of plants, and Theatrum Botanicum (The Botanical Theatre or Theatre of Plants (1640), which described over 3,800 plants and was the most complete and beautifully-presented English treatise on plants of its day. He was an eminent gardener and was maintained contact with other important English and European botanists, herbalists and plantsmen such as William Coys, John Gerard, John Tradescant the elder (who was a close friend), Vespasian Robin, and the Frenchman Matthias de Lobel.

parksiana: purportedly for a Mrs. Parks, with no further information, but Eggli & Newton say that the epithet refers to the Port Elizabeth Parks and Recreation Department.

pasmithii: for Peter Alexander (P.A.) Smith (1931-1999), Rhodesian-born agricultural officer who was employed with the Commonwealth Development Corporation in Botswana and Rhodesia, then with the government of Botswana where he worked on tsetse fly control, water affairs, and plant ecological investigations in the Okavango region

passargei: for Professor Otto Karl Siegfried Passarge (1867-1958), explorer and traveller in the Cameroon, Namibia, and Venezuela.

patersonia/patersonii: for Lieutenant William Paterson (1755-1810) who made four collecting journeys into South Africa. He was sent by Sir Joseph Banks to make observations on the natural history of the land. (PlantzAfrica)

patersoniae/pattersoniae: for Florence Mary (née Hallack) Paterson (Mrs. T.V. Paterson) (1869-1936), made a comprehensive collection of the flora of her area. Her contributions were acknowledged both by Selmar Schonland, who published this name, and by Harry Bolus. (Gunn & Codd)

patersonii: for William Hugh ("Meester") Paterson (1873-1963), schoolteacher and later mayor of Hermanus, commemorated with Leucospermum patersonii. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

patriciae: for Patricia Hardy, wife of David Hardy, collector of plants from South Africa.

pattisoniae: according to JSTOR records, Agathosma pattisoniae was collected by an R. Pattison in the Calvinia district of South Africa in 1913. She was the sister of Christian Frederick Leipoldt, the South African physician, poet, author, journalist and writer. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Pauletia: for Jean Jacques Paulet (1740-1826), French botanist and physician, mycologist and author. Among his important works were The Secret of medicine or preservative against smallpox (Paris, 1768), Smallpox destroyed, or new facts and observations (1776), and His Complete Treatise on Fungi (1775), considered one of the founding works of the group of fungi. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Paullinia: for Simon Paulli (1603-1680), professor of anatomy, botany, and surgery, physician to King Christian V of Denmark, and author of the herbal describing plants of medical interest, Flora Danica (1648). This is not to be confused with the great work of botany, Flora Danica, first proposed by G.C. Oeder in 1753 and published over a 123 year period from 1761 to 1883. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

pavelkae: for Petr Pavelka (1971- ), Czech molecular biologist, cacti and succulent cultivator who collected Othonna pavelkae in South Africa in 1993. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Pavonia: 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. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

pavonia: for Clemente Ruiz Pavon, a pupil of the Spanish-Colombian naturalist, physician, and mathematician José Celestino Mutis. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

paxiana/paxii: possibly for Ferdinand Albin Pax (1858-1942), German botanist and entomologist, professor of botany and zoology at the Technical University of Wroclaw. (Wikipedia)

paynei: for a George Payne (fl. 1930), succulent plant collector. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

peacockiae: for a Mrs W. Peacock who found the plant in Darling 1917-1918. (Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.)

peacockii: for John Thomas Peacock (1831-1889), English egg merchant and succulent plant collector. (Ety-mological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

pearsei/pearsii: for Reginald Oliver Pearse (1900-1995), mountaineer, educator, author and the first to collect this plant. (Elsa Pooley)

Pearsonia/pearsonii: for Professor Henry Harold Welch Pearson (1870-1916), British-born South African botanist and the first Director of the former National Botanical Institute of Southern Africa, worked at the Cambridge Herbarium, professor of botany at South African College, Cape Town, plant collector and botanical explorer, founder and Honorary Director of the Kirstenbosch National Botanic Gardens at Cape Town, Fellow of the Linnean and Royal Societies, made several expeditions to South-West Africa to study the monotypic Welwitschia. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Pechuel-Loeschea/pechuelii: for M. Eduard Pechuël-Loesche (1840-1913), German naturalist, geographer, ethnologist, painter, traveler, Professor of geography in Jena and Erlangen (1895-1912), collected plants in the Cape, Hereroland and Congo (Loango-Expedition 1874-1876) and in German South-West Africa (now Namibia), 1884/85, publisher of "Brehm's Animal Life” 3rd ed, 1890-1893). (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names, Biographies of Namibian Personalities)

Peddiea: for John Peddie (?-1840), plant collector and soldier who sent South African plant specimens to William H. Harvey at Dublin. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Peersia/peersii: for Victor Stanley Peers (1874-1940), Australian botanist and amateur archeologist who found ancient skeletons at a location since named Peers Cave, collected succulents and other plants, died in Cape Town, South Africa. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Peglera/peglerae: for Alice Marguerite Pegler (1861-1929), teacher, painter and East Cape collector around the area of Kentani where she lived. She corresponded with the leading botanists of South Africa including MacOwan, Bolus, Pearson, Schönland, Pole Evans, Kolbe and others. She collected over 2,000 specimens, most of which were from an area with a radius of 8 km from the village of Kentani where she had settled, and kept extensive notes on the characteristics of the plants she observed as they changed month to month throughout the year. She had suffered from eye trouble all of her life and was an invalid for seven years before her death. She was also interested in collecting beetles, gall flies, spiders and scorpions, and late in life turned her attention to algae and fungi. (Gunn & Codd)

pehlemannia/pehlemanniae: for Mrs. Inge Pehlemann-Brase (fl. 1978-1983), plant collector and succulent specialist. She created a magnificent garden in Windhoek, Namibia. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Penaea: for Pierre Pena (c. 1520/1535-1600/1605), French physician and botanist, assistant to Mathias de L'Obel, physician to Henri III. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

pentheri/pentheriana/pentherianus/Pentheriella: for Arnold Penther (1865-1931), Austrian zoologist born in Italy who collected in South Africa and Zimbabwe, worked in the Zoology Department at the Vienna Natural History Museum. (Elsa Pooley)

Pentzia: for Carolus Johannes Pentz, 18th century Swedish botanist, student of C.P. Thunberg who published the genus in 1800 and with whom he authored the Dissertatio Botanica De Diosma (1797). (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

pentzii: for James Alexander Pentz (1896-1967), South African ecologist and conservationist, assistant to Pole
Evans in the Department of Agriculture. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses)

Pereskia: for Nicholas Claude Fabry de Peiresc (1580-1637), French astronomer, numismatist, antiquary, patron of botany and art, naturalist and archeologist, amateur artist, friend of Peter Paul Rubens, historian and Egyptologist. An intellectual and savant, he was in continual contact with many of the leading figures of his day, and was a noted politician in his home region which was Province. He was a also a geographer and was interested in measuring the longitude of various places in Europe. He wrote an "Abridged history of Province" which was published posthumously. As an astronomer he discovered the Orion Nebula, studied the moons of Jupiter and began a map of the surface of the Moon. In short, there seem to be few subjects in which he was not interested. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Perlebia: for Karl (Carl) Julius Perleb (1794- 1845), German botanist and physician, professor of natural history in 1821 and director of the Freiburg Botanic Garden in 1826. In 1838 he became the Director of the Freiburg University. (Wikipedia)

perrieri/perrieriana: for Joseph Marie Henri Alfred Perrier de la Bâthie (1873-1958), French botanist who collected Salicornia perrieri and Rhynchospora perrieri, and who specialized in the plants of Madagascar, author of La végétation malgache (1921) and Biogéographie de plantes de Madagascar (1936).

perrottetii: for George (Georges Guerrard) Samuel Perrottet (1793-1870), Swiss-born French botanist and horticulturist who collected Dyschoriste perrottetii, gardener at the Jardin des Plantes, naturalist on an expedition to Java and the Philippines, explorer in Senegambia (present-day Senegal and Gambia), co-author of Florae Senegambiae Tentamen, and longtime botanist at the botanical garden at Pondicherry. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses)

perryae: for Pauline Lesley Perry (1927- ), South African botanist and plant collector in southern Africa.

persoonii: possibly for Christian Hendrik Persoon (1761-1836), South African-born botanical illustrator. Wikipedia says "He was apparently unemployed, unmarried, poverty-stricken and a recluse, although he corresponded with botanists throughout Europe. Because of his financial difficulties, Persoon agreed to donate his herbarium to the House of Orange, in return for an adequate pension for life." His two volumes of Synopsis Plantarum described 20,000 species of plants, but his major work was the Synopsis Methodica Fungorum on the subject of fungi.

perssonii: for Dr. Natan Peter Herman Persson (1893-1978), Swedish bryologist at the Natural History Museum, Stockholm, Sweden, commemorated with Riccia perssonii. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

pervillei: there was a French plant collector who collected in Madagascar around 1841 named Auguste Pervillé but I have no confirmation that this is the derivation for Lasiodiscus pervillei.

peschii: for Mr. C. Pesch of Namibia.

petersiana/petersianus/petersii: for Wilhelm Carl Hartwig (Hartwid or Hartwich) Peters (1815-1883), German naturalist and explorer, curator of the Berlin Zoological Museum, who botanized extensively in Mozambique.

petitiana: for Antoine Petit (?-1843), French naturalist and botanist who traveled at the behest of the French government with Léon Richard Quartin-Dillon and Théophile Lefebvre to Ethiopia in 1838. Quartin-Dillon died of illness in 1840 and a crocodile in Tacazze River drowned Petit in 1843. (Biodiversity Research in the Horn of Africa Region: Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium on the Flora of Ethiopia and Eritrea, 1999)

petiveri: possibly for James Petiver (1658-1718), London apothecary, botanist, entomologist and a Fellow of the Royal Society who received many plant specimens, seeds and much other material from correspondents in the American colonies. Erica petiveri published by Linnaeus in 1771.

Peyrousea: for Jean François de Galaup, Comte de la Pèrouse (1741-1788), French navigator, explorer and naturalist. He fought against the British off North America in the Seven Years War and was promoted to the rank of commodore. In 1785 he lead an expedition to the Pacific which included ten scientists, an astronomer, a botanist, a physicist and three naturalists. He went to Easter Island, Hawaii, Alaska, California, the Philippines, Korea, the Kurile Islands, Russia, Japan, the South Seas, Australia, but then he and all his men disappeared and were never seen again. Thirty-seven years later it was determined that both his shipsmhad been wrecked on reefs and sunk. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

pfeilii: for Joachim Friedrich Graf von Pfeil (1857-1924), a plant collector in Namibia and South Africa. (JSTOR)

Phaenohoffmannia: for Heinrich Karl Hermann Hoffmann (1819-1891), German botanist, mycologist, plant geographer, professor of botany, Director of the Botanic Garden at Giessen. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Pharnaceum: for Pharnaces II (63-47 B.C.), son of Mithridates VI, king of Pontus (Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.)

Phelypaea: for Louis Phélypeaux de Pontchartrain (1643-1727), French politician. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Philippia: for Rudolph Amandus (Rodolfo Amando) Philippi (1808-1904), German botanist, traveller, botanical explorer and plant collector, professor of natural sciences at the Polytechnic School in Kassel 1834-1850, and professor of botany and zoology at Santiago where he directed the National Museum and created the Santiago Botanic Gardens. He studied medicine and graduated in 1830 from the Royal Prussian University but never practised. With his son Federico, he emigrated to Chile in 1851 to join his brother Bernhard Eunom who had already spent years there and had a ranch at Valdivia. Bernhard was murdered at Magallanes the following year and Rudolph decided to return to Germany, but instead became professor of natural history at the University of Chile and Director of the Director of the Museo Nacional de Chile in1853. From 1860 on he worked closedly with his son who eventually took over his father's teaching posts and also succeeded him as head of the botanic garden. He conducted the first scientific exploration of the Atacama Desert region, and published some 453 articles in the fields of palaeontology, entomology, ornithology, marine mammalogy, anthropology and mineral-
ogy and described 3,720 new species from Chile. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names, JSTOR)

phillipsiae: for Mrs. E. Lort-Phillips, aka Louisa Jane Forbes Gunnis (1857-1946), wife of English explorer E. Lort-Phillips. Mrs. Lort-Phillips was a plant collector who accompanied her husband on journeys in Somaliland around 1883-1895 and whose specimens were used by Frank Linsly James in his The Unknown Horn of Africa, and presented to the Kew Gardens herbarium. Her name is currently on Adromischus phillipsiae. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

phillipsianum (Asplenium): for Ethelbert Edward Lort-Phillips (1857-1944). (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

phillipsii: for Edwin Percy Phillips (1884-1967), South African botanist, taxonomist and plant collector, noted for his monumental work The Genera of South African Flowering Plants first published in 1926, curator of the South African Museum, curator of National Herbarium, Pretoria. (Wikipedia)

pickhardii: for Mr. R. Pickhard (fl. 1932). (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

pienaarii: for Uys de Villiers Pienaar (1930- ), South African histologist and biochemist, Director of Nature Conservation in Pretoria, succulent plant enthusiast and collector in South Africa. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

piersii: for a Mr. C.P. Piers (fl. 1900-1931), South African government surveyor and field collector. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

pilgeri/pilgeriana/pilgerianum: for Robert Knuds Friedrich Pilger (1876-1953), German agrostologist, traveller, botanical explorer, plant collector, Director at Berlin-Dahlem Botanical Gardens. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses, CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Pillansia/pillansii: for Mr. Neville Stuart Pillans (1884-1964), a well-known botanist and assistant curator at the Bolus Herbarium who collected plants near Clanwilliam and grew Gasteria pillansii in his garden in Rosebank, Cape Town, and assisted Prof. H.H.W. Pearson in selecting the Kirstenbosch site for the future National Botanical Garden (PlantzAfrica).

pinchotii: for Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946), first chief of the U.S. Forest Service and a well-known conservationist.

Pisonia: for Willem Piso (Willem Pies) (1611-1678), Dutch physician, pharmacologist, botanist, pioneer of tropical medicine, and author. He studied medicine at the University of Leiden (1633) and practiced in Amsterdam, was sent in 1637 by the Dutch West India Company to be the physician to Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen who had become the governor of the Dutch colony in the north-east corner of Brazil. Piso along with George Marcgrave served as surgeons to the Dutch troops. He was particulary interested in dietary deficiencies and speculated that the colonists' lack of fresh fruit and vegetables caused many of their problems. During his stay in Brazil and in conjunction with Marcgrave, Piso wrote Historia Naturalis Brasiliae (published in 1648), a compendium of tropical medicine and pharmacology and one of the earliest works on the natural history of Brazil. He returned to the Netherlands in 1644, where he established a successful practice and later became Dean of the Amsterdam Medical College. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

pittenii: a mistake in spelling took place here because this epithet commemorates Joost van Putten (fl. 1929), a farmer in South Africa.

plantii: probably for Robert W. Plant (?-1858), British-born nurseryman, naturalist and plant collector, one-time curator of the Durban Botanical Garden, commemorated in the former taxa Lastrea plantii (now Dryopteris athamantica) and Watsonia plantii (now W. densiflora).

plittii: for Charles Christian Plitt (1869-1933), American botanist and lichenologist who had a lichen collection of over 10,000 specimens, the third largest at the time.

plowesii: for Darrel Charles Herbert Plowes (1925- ), South African-born plant collector in South Africa and Zimbabwe, naturalist, agricultural officer, specialist on Stapeliads, and co-author with Robert Bailey Drummond of Wild Flowers of Rhodesia.

Pluchea: for Noël-Antoine Pluche (1688-1761), French abbot, seminary teacher and naturalist. The following is quoted from a website page on Pluche at The Online Library of Liberty: "Noël-Antoine Pluche was born in 1688. After completing his studies, he became a professor first of humanities, then of rhetoric in his hometown of Rheims, before taking holy orders. The Bishop of Laon made him director of the collège (secondary school), an offer he accepted partly to escape the controversy that arose around him for his refusal to swear adherence to the bull Unigenitus (1713). After a lettre de cachet was prepared against him, he was provided with private tutorial positions by both Gasville (royal intendant of Rouen) and the Englishman Lord Stafford. After a chance discovery of information useful to the Crown, he was offered a lucrative priory by Cardinal Fleury—which he refused on principle because of his continued refusal to sign Unigenitus. Still, his teachings and writings began to gain some notoriety. He became deaf, retired in 1749 to Varenne-Saint-Maur, and died of apoplexy in 1761. His major work, Spectacle de la nature, was an eight-volume study of life and creation that was translated into virtually all European languages, still appearing in abridged editions in the early nineteenth century. His other works include Histoire du ciel (1739), La Méchanique des langues (1751), and Concorde de la Géographie des différents âges (1765), as well as works on Holy Scripture and French royal coronation ceremonies."

Plukenetia/plukenetiana/plukenetii: for Leonard Plukenet (1641-1706), British physician, Royal Professor of botany and gardener to Queen Mary II of England. "[He] published Phytographia (London, 1691–1692) in four parts in which he described and illustrated rare exotic plants. It is a copiously illustrated work of more than 2,700 figures and is frequently cited in books and papers from the 17th century to the present. He collaborated with John Ray in the second volume of Historia Plantarum (London, 1686–1704). Paul Dietrich Giseke (1741–1796) compared Plukenet’s species with those of Linnaeus in Index Linneanus (Hamburg, 1779)." (Wikipedia)

plumieri: for Charles Plumier (1646-1704), a prominent French botanist, became royal botanist to Louis XIV, made several collecting expeditions to the Antilles and Central America. Wikidpedia says, "He is considered one of the most important of the botanical explorers of his time. All natural scientists of the 18th century spoke of him with admiration. At his death Plumier left thirty-one manuscript volumes containing descriptions, and about 6,000 drawings, 4,000 of which were of plants, while the remainder reproduced American animals of nearly all classes, especially birds and fish. The botanist Herman Boerhaave had 508 of these drawings copied at Paris; these were published later by Burmann, Professor of Botany at Amsterdam, under the title: "Plantarum americanarum."

pobeguinii: for Charles Henri Oliver Pobéguin (1856-1951), French botanist and plant collector, and a colonial administrator in French Africa. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

pocockiae: my original entry for this name stated that it was for Reginald Innes Pocock (1863-1947) naturalist, entomologist, arranger of the bird collection at the British Museum and later Superintendent of the London Zoo. But further research triggered by a communication from correspondent Dr. J.M. Lock turns up the fact that Lampranthus pocockiae and Oxalis pocockiae were both collected by Mary Agard Pocock in the Swartberg area of South Arica in 1926 and 1927 respectively and were named by N.E. Brown in 1930. Since the 'iae' ending on the name indicates that it honors a woman, it is almost certain that Mary Pocock was the honoree. She was a South African algologist educated in the U.K. She conducted a plant collecting expedition mostly on foot from Rhodesia across Angola in 1925-1926. She taught off and on at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, acted as head of the Botany Department there, and founded the University herbarium. In connection with her interest in marine algae, she conducted researches in various parts of the world including the USA, and was internationally recognized as an authority on algae. She was born in 1886 and died in 1977.

Podalyria: after Podalirius or Podaleirios, in Greek mythology the son of Asklepios, the god of healing. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Poellnitzia/poellnitziana/poellnitzianum: for Joseph Karl Leopoldt Arndt von Poellnitz (1896-1945), German botanist, agriculturist and specialist on succulent plant systematics. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names, Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

poeltii: probably for Josef Poelt (1924-1995), Austrian lichenologist.

Pohlia: for Dr. Johann Ehrenfried Pohl (1746-1800), physician, author and director of a botanical garden, named in 1789 by Transylvanian botanist Johann Hedwig.

Poinciana: for Phillippe de Longvilliers (or Lonvilliers) de Poincy (or Poinci) (1583-1660), French nobleman, Bailiff Grand Cross of the Knights of Malta, patron of botany, and French Governor on St. Kitts in the West Indies. The CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names says that Poinciana is "possibly named for Louis de Poinci (Poincy), French Governor in the West Indies, a patron of botany, author of Histoire naturelle et morale des les Antilles de l'Amérique...avec un vocabulaire Caraïbe. Rotterdam 1658." This I'm fairly sure
refers to the same person, but the book referred to is of uncertain parentage. It supposedly was authored in the main by French Protestant pastor Charles de Rochefort (1605-1683), and contributed to by others such as Jean-Baptiste du Tertre (1610-1687), French Dominican preacher, botanist, and author of Histoire generale des isles de Christophe, de la Guadeloupe, de la Martinique, et autres dans l'Amerique (1654), and Ray-
mond Breton (1609-1679), French Dominican missionary and linguist. However, du Tertre claimed that his work had been plagiarized by de Rochefort and others have suggested that much of the text was actually written by de Poincy. It has also been proposed that it was largely a work of propaganda instigated by de Poincy. De Poincy at least signed the preface of the second edition, but the degree of his input is unclear. Charles de Roche-
fort has often been confused with the jurist Cesár de Rochefort (1630-1691), but I have not seen any convincing evidence of a connection between the two. The book Historic Architecture in the Caribbean Islands by Edward Crain refers to French Governor M. Phillipe de Langvilliers de Poincy as an amateur botanist, and the official website of the island of Martinique lists Philippe de Longvilliers, chevalier de Poincy, as governor first from 1639-1645 and then from 1647-1660. In any case, de Poincy was sent to the Caribbean in 1638 originally under a commission by the government of France, and basically set himself up as the ruler of the island of St. Kitts and then expanded his control to St. Croix, St. Bartholomew and St. Martin. Within four years he was building the elaborate Chateau de Montagne on his estate called La Fontaine, reportedly one of the grandest ever built in the Americas. There is some nomenclatural confusion about this epithet because there is a genus Poinciana in the Caesalpineaceae/Fabaceae, but there is also a tree commonly called the Royal Poinciana in the same family that is actually Delonix regia (previously in genus Poinciana). David Hollombe has fleshed out the history of this confusing taxon in the following manner: the taxon Poinciana pulcherrima, aka Pride of Barbados, was known as Poincillade as far back as 1659 and was presumably named for Philippe de Long-
villiers de Poincy. The name was Latinized by Tournefort in 1700 as Poinciana, and he indicated that it was named for de Poincy. Then Linnaeus adopted the name and made it a valid genus in Species Plantarum in 1753. He included only P. pulcherrima in the genus at that time, but added several more species later. Delonix regia, or Royal Poinciana as it came to be widely known, was first described as Poinciana regia in 1829 by the Czech botanist Wenceslaus Bojer because of its similarities to P. pulcherrima and other species that had already been added to that genus. In 1837 it was placed in its own genus Delonix and given the name Delonix regia by botanist Constantine Samuel Rafinesque. So de Poincy could not have had anything to do with the introduction of D. regia, aka flamboyant tree, into the West Indies because it wasn't even known until over a century and a half after his death, and every source, of which there are many, that state that the flamboyant tree was introduced into the West Indies from Madagascar by Gov. de Poincy specifically for his garden is incorrect. He probably had Poinciana pulcherrima in his garden, and when Delonix regia was later introduced later, the two became confused. However the name Poinciana was intended to honor him. The genus Poinciana with several species including pulcherrima does appear in southern Africa, but Delonix does not. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.)

Poinsettia: for Joel Roberts Poinsett (1775-1851), American statesman, member of the House of Representatives, Secretary of War under President Martin van Buren, botanist, gardener, and diplomat. From 1801 he travelled across Europe, only returning to the U.S. several months after his father's death in 1803. Later that year his sister died, and he inherited a fortune. In 1806 he travelled to Russia and the next year at the invitation of the Russian czar left with eight companions on a tour of the Empire. So difficult was the journey that only Poinsett and two others survived it. He served as Consul-General to Chile and Argentina from 1810 to 1814 having been appointed by President James Madison. He was special envoy to Mexico 1822-1823 and became the first Minister to Mexico in 1825 (ambassadors not being appointed until 1896). It was here he discovered what in Mexico is called "Flor de Noche Buena" (Christmas Eve flower). He sent samples of the plant back to the States. By 1836 the plant was widely known as ‘poinsettia’. Genus Poinsettia is now Euphorbia. He was a member of the prestigious society, Columbian Institute for the Promotion of Arts and Sciences which included many prominent men including former Presidents. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

poiretii: for Jean Louis Marie Poiret (1755-1834), a French clergyman, botanist and explorer and plant collector, mainly in Algeria, specialist in algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens; after the French Revolution he became professor of natural history at the Ecole Central of Aisne (Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.)

Poivrea: for Pierre Poivre (1719-1786), French botanist and naturalist, plant collector and traveller in China, Indochina, the Philippines, and Madagascar, first as a Catholic missionary, then as a member of the French East India Company, author of Voyages d'un Philosophe (The Voyages of a Philosopher), a book that was read with interest by Thomas Jefferson. Poivre first landed on Mauritius during one of his travels in the 1750's with seeds of many tropical plants and spices, determined to break the Dutch monopoly on spices from the East Indies. In the 1760's he served as administrator of Mauritius and Reunion and created a botanical garden with trees, shrubs and plants from the tropics. He introduced clove, nutmeg, pepper and cinnamon and other spices. Called the Botanical Garden of Pamplemousses, it still thrives today on northern Mauritius. 'Pamplemousse' is the French word for grapefruit. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

polackii (Streptocarpus):

Polemannia/polemannii: for Peter Heinrich Poleman (Polemann, Pohlmann) (c.1780-1839), German chemist, apothecary and keen naturalist who came to the Cape in 1802 and was friendly with people like Burchell, Harvey and Krebs. The pharmaceutical firm he worked for had a big influence on the study of Cape natural history by employing many naturalists and collectors such as Krebs, Bergius, C.F. Drège and Ecklon. He died at Cape Town. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

pole-evansii/Polevansia/polevansii: for Illtyd Buller Pole Evans (1879-1968), Welsh botanist, mycologist and plant pathologist, plant collector, traveller, Fellow of the Linnean Society, Director of the Botanical Survey of South Africa 1918-1939, first editor of the Flowering Plants of South Africa, member of the Transvaal Department of Agriculture. He is commemorated with many species such as Cynodon polevansii, Gladiolus pole-evansii, Streptocarpus pole-evansii, Eucomis pole-evansii, Nananthus pole-evansii, Conophytum pole-evansii and Dinteranthus pole-evansii. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Polhillia: for Dr. Roger Marcus Polhill (1937- ), botanist at Kew Gardens, authority on legumes, plant collector in the Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana, and Malawi, and editor of Flora of Tropical East Africa 1966-1997. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

pollardii: for a Mr. Pollard (fl. 1960), security officer for the diamond mines in southern Namibia who facilitated botanical journeys on the company's property. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Pollichia: for Johann Adam Pollich (1740-1780), German physician who practiced in Kaiserslautern around 1780, botanist and entomologist, naturalist and author of Historia plantarum in Palatinatu, a history of plants in the Palatinate (an area of southwestern Germany). (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Polyxena: after the mythological daughter of Priam and Hecuba. Priam was the King of Troy during the Trojan War and was the father of Hector and Paris. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

poncinsii: for Edmonde Montaigne, Vicomte de Poncis (1866-1937). (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Pontederia: for Giulio (Julius) Pontedera (1688-1757), Italian botanist and physician, plant collector, professor of botany at Padua, and Praefectus of the Botanical Garden of Padua. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Popowia: for Johannes Siegmund Valentin Popowitsch (1705-1774), professor of German and linguistics in Vienna 1753-1766. A polymath, he was primarily interested in biology, botany (especially sponges and fungi) and linguistics. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

porteri: for Harold Nixon Porter (1883-1958), South African architect, town planner and conservationist, president of the Transvaal Horticultural Society. (Gunn & Codd)

poseideonis: after Poseidon, God the Sea.

pospischilii: for a certain Pospischil who collected in East Africa.

Pottia: for Johann Friedrich Pott (1738–1805), German botanist and professor of botany in Braunschweig, Germany, personal physician to the Duke of Brunswick, correspondent with Linnaeus. He maintained an extensive herbarium of vascular plants that was purchased by the Botanical Museum of St Petersburg (currently the Komarov Botanical Research Institute) in 1826.

pottiae: for Reino Leendertz (later Mrs. Pott) (1869-1965), Dutch botanist and the first official botanist at employed at the Transvaal Museum, commemorated with Thesium pottiae.(Elsa Pooley)

pottsiana (Riccia):

pottsii: for George Potts (1877-1948), British-born botanist and professor of botany at the University College of the Orange Free State from 1905 until retirement in 1937. He collected mainly in the Orange Free State and was a member of Dr. Pole-Evans' Botanical Survey Advisory Committee, died in Bloemfontein. (Elsa Pooley, Gunn & Codd)

Pouzolzia: for Pierre Marie Casimir de Pouzolz (1785-1858), French soldier, botanist and writer on flora of France, member of the Linnean Society of Paris and the Academie du Gard, author of Catalogue of plants which grow naturally in the Gard (1842) and Flore du département du Gard, a work which was completed and published after his death. He had a herbarium containing more than 20,000 specimens. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

powellii: for John Wesley Powell (1834-1902), famed explorer and runner of the Colorado River through the American Grand Canyon. His research on Indians led to the creation of the Bureau of Ethnology and he became its Director. He also was appointed Director of the U.S. Geological Survey in 1881 and held that post until retiring in 1894. He was founder and President of the Anthropological Society of Washington, an early member of the Biological Society of Washington, an organizer of the Geological Society of Washington, and he helped establish the National Geographic Society and the Geological Society of America, receiving honorary degrees from several universities and becoming President in 1888 of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Few men in America have combined the qualities and accomplishments of exploration and science to the extent that he did, and he was buried in Arlington National Cemetary.

pozoi: for Don José del Pozo (sometimes written as D.G. del Pozo), an Ecuadorian (?) discoverer of an orchid species and plant collector who first collected Stegnogramma pozoi in Spain, according to the plant name author, classmate and lifelong friend the Spanish botanist Mariano Lagasca y Segura. (Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.; JSTOR; David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

prageri (Felicia): for a J. Prager who collected in Great Namaqualand in 1918. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

presliana/preslii: for Karel (Carl) Borivoj Presl (1794-1852), professor of botany at Prague University. (Elsa Pooley)

preussii: for Dr. Paul Rudolf Preuss (1861- ), German botanist, traveller and collector, participated in the 1888-1891 Zintgraff Expedition to Cameroon, collected Asplenium preussii in 1891 in Cameroon. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names, JSTOR)

Priestleya: for Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), noted English chemist, clergyman, philosopher, Fellow of the Royal Society, prolific author best known for his work on the chemistry of gases and possibly the discovery of oxygen. Hugh Clarke adds: "A multi-talented man, he studied French, Italian, and German; published over 150 works ranging from political philosophy to education to theology to natural philosophy to history and also wrote a a seminal work on English grammar (The Rudiments of English Grammar, 1761). By the time he died he was a member of almost every major scientific society including being a Fellow of the Royal Society." Because of his advocacy of religious toleration and equal rights, he helped to found Unitarianism in England. His views were controversial and a mob burned his home and church forcing him to live his final ten years in the United States. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names, Wikipedia)

prieurii: François Mathias René Leprieur (1799-1869), French navy pharmacist and amateur botanist, stationed in Senegambia then lived in the colony of French Guiana, collected in Gambia, Senegal and Madagascar. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses, JSTOR)

primosii: for Mr. Richard Primos (fl. 1928-1936), plant collector of Cape Town. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

princeae: for Magdalene von Prince (fl. 1898-1899), German plant collector.

pringlei: for Victor L. Pringle, South African plant collector who first collected Haworthia pringlei in 1973. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

prinslooi: for Gerry Prinsloo (fl. 1965), South African succulent grower. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Printzia: for Jacob Printz (1740-1779), Swedish botanist, pupil of Linnaeus, author of Plantae rariores africanae (1760), which described 100 South African plants, based on a collection sent from the Cape of Good Hope. Jacob Printz himself never visited the Cape. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names and the Imperial Encyclopaedic Dictionary, 1901). Elsa Pooley says that Printzia is named for a Mr. H.C. Printz of Christiana, Mpumalanga, which is in accord with Hugh Clarke and Deon Kesting. However the genus name was published in 1825 by Alexandre Henri Gabriel de Cassini, and since the town of Christiana was not even established until the 1870's, Pooley's etymology cannot be correct.

priorii: for Richard C. Prior, born Alexander (1809-1902), a British medical practitioner and amateur botanist who collected actively in the Eastern Cape and Karoo areas 1846-1848; author of On the Popular Names of British Plants. He is commemorated with Aspalathus priorii, some other taxa that have since disappeared, and some taxa with the specific epithet alexandri. (Gunn & Codd)

prittwitzii: for Georg von Prittwitz und Gaffron (1861-1936), paticipated in exploration of German East Africa in 1893-1894.

pritzeliana/pritzelii: probably for Ernst Georg Pritzel (1875-1946), German botanist, travelled and collected with Ludwig Diels.

proschii: for Roderich de Prosch (1866-1910), plant collector in Zambia and missionary on the Zambezi affiliated with the Societe des Missions Evangeliques de Paris.

Pseudobaeckea: for Dr. Abraham Baeck (1713-1795), Swedish physician, scientist and writer, physician-in-ordinary to the king and President of the Royal College of Medicine, friend of Linnaeus. (Dictionary of Biographical Reference)

Puccinellia: for Benedetto Luigi Puccinelli (1808-1850), Italian botanist, professor of botany, Director of the Botanical Garden of Lucca. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Pueraria: for Marc Nicolas Puerari (1766-1845), Swiss botanist, teacher, and pupil of Danish-Norwegian botanist and zoologist.Martin Vahl in Copenhagen. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

pueschelii: for a Lieut. Püschel who made a small collection in the area of Grootfontein in the very northwestern part of South Africa, honored by the name Cephalocroton pueschelii.

puiggarii: for (1) Juan Ignacio Puiggari (1823-1900) who collected in Brazil or (2) G.L.T. Puiggari (fl. 1829).

purcellii: probably for William Frederick Purcell (1866-1919), British-born emigree to SA, specialized on arachnids at the South African Museum, retired in 1905 and spent the rest of his life collecting arachnids and other insects, and making a collection of the flora of the area around his farm. Crassula purcellii was collected in 1906 and named in 1907 by Selmar Schonland. The JSTOR list of collectors also includes a Miss M. Purcell who botanized around 1932, but this would not seem likely to be the derivation here.

purpusii: for Joseph Anton Purpus (1860-1932), head gardener at the Darmstadt Botanical Garden, lived in Mexico for 50 years and collected plants there, younger brother of German botanical explorer Carl Albert Purpus, commemorated with Conophytum purpusii.

putterillii: for Victor A. Putterill (fl. 1919), South African mycologist, appointed government fruit inspector in 1917, head of mycological laboratory in Cape Town in 1918, and Chief Fruit Inspector in 1926. (Gunn & Codd)

Putterlickia: for Aloys Putterlick (1810-1845), Austrian botanist and physician, bryologist and CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

puttkamerianus: for a Mr. Puttkamer (fl. 1914). (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

pynaertii: for Léon Auguste Edouard Joseph Pynaert (1876-1968), Belgian plant collector in the Congo.

quarrei: for Paul Quarre (1904-1980), Belgian botanist and plant collector in the Congo. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses)

Quartinia/quartiniana/quartinianum: for Léon Richard Quartin-Dillon (?-1841), French botanist, physician, explorer, plant collector, died while exploring in Ethiopia. (CRC World Dictionary of Grasses)

quensonii: for Francois Louis Joseph Quenson (1794-1879), French magistrate, jurist, historian, president of the Société d'agriculture, sciences et arts de Douai, commemorated with the former taxon Strelitzia quensonii, now synonymized to S. nicolai. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

quintanilhae: both the Harvard University Herbaria list of botanists and the JSTOR list of collectors of African plants include an Aurélio Pereira da Silva Quintanilha (1892-1987) who apparently enjoyed great prestige among botanists in South Africa. Born in Lisbon, he attended medical school for a time, then moved into the fields of botany and natural history. He was a university professor, a researcher of international renown in the fields of genetics, the biology of fungi, and the study of cotton. He lived in Mozambique for some years.

quintasii: for Francisco Joaquim Dias Quintas (fl. 1885-1893), plant collector.

rabenhorstii: either for (1) Rudolf Rabenhorst (fl. 1869-1879), plant collector in Central Africa and elsewhere, or (2) Gottlieb Ludwig Rabenhorst (1806-1881), German botanist, bryologist, mycologist and pharmacist. The JSTOR website has specimen records of Calymperes rabenhorstii being collected in Nigeria by a Rabenhorst (no initials given), and Rudolf Rabenhorst did collect in Nigeria, so that might be a clue. However this species is a moss and G.L. Rabenhorst was a moss specialist. It's possible that Rudolf is G.L. Rabenhorst's son.

Rabiea/rabieana: for W.A. Rabie (fl. 1927-1930), South African priest and plant collector in the Orange Free State, collected Salsola rabieana.(CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

raddianum: for Giuseppi Raddi (1770-1829), Italian botanist who explored the basins of the Orinoco and Amazon Rivers in Brazil and studied the cryptogams there, commemorated with Adiantum raddianum.

radlkoferi: for Ludwig Radlkofer (1829-1927), professor of botany and Director of the Botanical Museum in Munich, also an authority on the sexual and asexual reproduction of plants and author of Die Befruchtung (1856). (PlantzAfrica)

Radyera/radyeri: for Robert Allen Dyer (1900-1987), South African botanist, Director of the Botanical Research Institute at Pretoria 1944-1963. Hugh Clarke adds: "founder of the Pretoria National Botanical Garden; President, inter alia, of the Pretoria Horticultural Society (1961-1972): author of many taxonomic publications, especially succulents; received many local/overseas awards including the first Gold Medal from the S.A. Association of Botanists (1973) and an honorary D.Sc. degree from the University of the Witwatersrand (1976)." (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Rafnia: for Carl Gottlob Rafn (1769-1808), Danish botanist, school teacher and author or co-author of publications including Flora of Denmarks and Holstein, and other influential papers on a broad array of basic and applied sciences such as plant physiology, animal hibernation, life saving measures for drowning persons. He became a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and letters in 1798. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names, Wikipedia)

raineriana: for Rainer Joseph (1783-1853), Archduke of Austria, patron of botany?

Ramboldia: for Gerhard Walter Rambold (1956- ), German lichenologist. The genus was published in 1994 by Ginteras Kantvilas, head of the Tasmanian Herbarium at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, and Australian lichenologist John Alan Elix. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Randia: for Isaac Rand (?-1743), British botanist, apothecary, gardener, Fellow of the Royal Society, and the first Director and lecturer in botany at the Society of Apothecaries’ Physic Garden, Chelsea, which was among the most highly regarded botanical gardens of Europe during the 18th century. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names, JSTOR)

randii: for Dr. Richard Frank Rand (1856-1937), surgeon trained at Edinburgh. His obituary in Nature says that he "served as medical officer with the pioneer column sent by Cecil Rhodes to Mashonaland in 1890. As medical officer to the Chartered Company's police, and later chief hospital surgeon at Fort Salisbury, he devoted himself specially to the treatment of malaria, the scourge of the early settlers and then not recognized as a mosquito-borne disease. The active period of Dr. Rand's long life was spent in practice in South Africa, chiefly at Salisbury and other places in Southern Rhodesia, and his great experience of tropical diseases was an important asset to the British forces in the Boer War and later in the Great War."

rangeana: for Paul Theodor Range (1879-1952), see rangei.

rangei: for (1) Paul Theodor Range (1879-1952), German government geologist in Namibia (SW Africa) with passion for collecting plants, who kept detailed records of collecting sites, place names, and literature references (Sporobolus, Pteronia) (Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.) or (2) Max Range, German physician who collected in SW Africa (Merxmuellera) (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses).

Raspalia: for François Vincent Raspail (1794-1878), French botanist, politician, chemist, and naturalist. He was one of the originators of cell theory in biology and an early proponent of the use of the microscope for the study of plants. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

rattrayi: for George Rattray (1872-1941), Scottish teacher and naturalist, principal of Selbourne College, East London, for 27 years, and collected extensively in the East Cape. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

rauhii: for Professor Werner Rauh (1913-2000), German botanist, Director of the Institute of Systematic Botany and Plant Geography, University of Heidelberg, particularly interested in succulents, has collected extensively in Namaqualand, the Karoo, Transvaal and the Eastern Cape.

Rauia: for Ambrosius Rau (1784-1930), German botanist, minerologist, naturalist and plant collector, and author of Enumeratio rosarum circa Wirceburgum. The genus was published in 1823 by Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck and Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Rauiella: for Eugene Abraham Rau (1848-1932), American bryologist, co-author with Alpheus Baker Hervey of Catalogue of North American Musci. The genus Rauiella was published by Hermann Johann O. Reimers in 1937. (Bryophyte Flora of North America, Provisional Publication, Missouri Botanical Garden)

rautananiana/rautanenianum/rautanenii: for Rev. Martti Rautanen (1845-1926), Russian-born Lutheran church missionary pioneer who went to South-West Africa, specifically Ovamboland in present-day Namibia, where he served more than 50 years. He was the director of the missionary station and his most important work was the translation of the Bible into Oshindonga. He amassed a significant collection of ethnography which is now housed at the National Museum of Finland, and sent plants that he collected to the University of Zurich. (Wikipedia, Gunn & Codd)

Rauvolfia: for Leonhard (Leonhart) Rauwolff (Rauvolf, Rauvolff) (1535-1596), German physician and botanist, a traveller, plant collector, and author. "He was a pupil of Guillaume Rondelet in 1560. In 1565 he set up a medical practice in Augsburg. In that year he married Regina Jung, daughter of the patrician, Doctor Ambrosius Jung, the Younger. In 1573 he began a three year journey to the Near East. This journey was made possible by his brother-in-law Melchior Manlich. He hoped Leonhard would come back with new plants and drugs that could be traded profitably by his firm that already traded with the Levant. But in addition to his botanical investigations, Leonhard observed and recorded his impressions of the people, customs, and sights of these Levantine trading centers as well. For example, he was the first European to describe the preparation and drinking of coffee. Leonhard visited many countries such as Syria and Armenia. In 1573 he visited Constan-
tinople, in 1574 he was in Baghdad and in 1575 he was in Jerusalem. Leonhard was the first botanist of the new era who had traveled this far into Asia. Circa 1576 he published the results of his botanic expeditions in his fourth herbarium "Viertes Kreutterbuech -- darein vil schoene und frembde Kreutter". In 1582 he published his travel journal "Aigentliche Beschreibung der Raiß inn die Morgenländerin" in German. It also appeared in English and Dutch. Written from the point of view of an early Protestant pilgrim, his depictions of Jerusalem and of religious life in the Near East, both Christian and Muslim, are of particular historical value. John Gill (theologian) refers to this work a number of times in his Exposition of the Bible to show the accuracy of biblical history. In 1588 the leaders of Augsburg reverted to Catholicism, and Rauwolff, a leader of the Protestant opposition, left. He next served as city physician in Linz for 8 years. In 1596 he joined the imperial troops fighting the Turks in Hungary, where he died." (Wikipedia)

ravenelii: for Henry William Ravenel (1814-1887), American botanist and mycologist.

rawei (Conophytum): Rolf Rawé?

rawlinsonii: for S.I. Rawlinson, collector and succulent grower in RSA.

Rawsonia/rawsonii: for Sir Rawson William Rawson (1812-1899), British pteridologist, traveller, colonial administrator, 1854-1864 Colonial Secretary of the Cape of Good Hope, Gov. of Bahamas 1864, Jamaica 1865, Windward Islands 1869-1875. His personal herbarium of around 2 000 ferns collected in Mauritius, the Cape and West Indies was purchased by the British Museum in 1900. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

raynali: for Aline Marie Roques Reynal (1933- ), French botanist.

readei/readii: for Robert W. Reade (fl. 1865), a plant collector mostly in the Grahamstown area of South Africa, pupil at Shaw College when Peter MacOwan was the principal. (Gunn & Codd)

rebeloi: for Tony Rebelo, South African botanist, Scientific Officer for the Protea Atlas Project at the South African National Biodiversity Institute, Kirstenbosch, which records locations of proteas throughout southern Africa, co-author of books on pollination ecology, proteas and vegetation types of South Africa.

rechingeri: for Karl Heinz Rechinger (1906-1998), Austrian plant taxonomist, phytogeographer and botanical collector, author of Flora Aegaea, head of the Department of Botany and later Director-General of the Natural History Museum in Vienna and an academic teacher at Vienna University, son of botanist Karl Rechinger.

reckii: there is a JSTOR specimen record for Holothrix randii (syn. Holothrix reckii) being collected by an S. Reck in South Africa in 1905, with no further information.

reddii: for Dr. Venumbaka Balakrisha Reddi (fl. 1994), a radiation oncologist of East London, commemorated with Haworthia reddii. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

regelii: for Eduard August von Regel (1815-1892), German botanist, head gardener at the Zurich Botanical Garden and then Director of the Imperial Botanic Gardens in St. Petersburg.

rehmanniana/rehmannianus/Rehmanniella/rehmannii: for Anton Rehmann (Rehman) (1840-1917), Polish botanist and geographer who visited South Africa. (Elsa Pooley)

rehmii: for Sigmund Eugen Adolf Rehm (1911-2001), German plant physiologist who came to South-West Africa in 1939, was interned in South Africa during WWII, and was appointed as a plant physiologist for the Horticultural Research Institute in Pretoria, commemorated with Cyperus rehmii, Wormskioldia rehmii, Pentratrichia rehmii, Inula rehmii, Citrullus rehmii, Erica rehmii, Monsonia rehmii and Wormskioldia rehmii.

rehneltianus: for Friedrich Rehnelt (1861-1945), German succulent plant enthusiast, and Inspector of the Botanical Garden of the University of Giessen. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Reichardia: there is a genus Reichardia in the Asteraceae (not in SA) that is named for the German physician and botanist Johann Jacob Reichard (1743-1782), author with Linnaeus of Genera Plantarum (1778), supervisor of the botanical garden and library of the Senckenberg Foundation in Frankfurt, but I'm not sure whether the genus Reichardia in the Fabaceae is named for the same individual. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

reichenbachiana: for Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach (1824-1889), German ornithologist, botanist and one of the foremost orchidologists of the 19th century, professor of botany at Leipzig, Director of the Botanical Gardens at Hamburg University, son of well-known botanist Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach.

reilleyana: for the Reilly family of Mlilwane, Swaziland, James Weighton Reilly (nicknamed 'Mickey'), an Irish-
born former trooper in the Anglo-Boer War, his wife Billie Wallis and their son Ted Reilly, considered a legend in Swazi wildlife conservation and the current owner of Reilly's Rock Hilltop Lodge, who have done so much for the preservation of natural game land. The taxon in southern Africa that bears this specific epithet is Drimiopsis reilleyana. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

reinekeana: Lobelia reinekeana was collected by an E. Reineke in South Africa in 1913, so I assume that this is who the taxon honors.

reinwardtii: for Caspar Georg Carl Reinwardt (1773-1854), Prussian-born Dutch botanist, professor of chemistry, pharmacy and natural science, collected in South Africa, founder and first director of agriculture of the botanic garden at Bogor (Buitenzorg) in Java. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names, Wikipedia)

reitzii: either for (1) Francis William Reitz, Sr. (1810- ), Afrikaaner farmer and politician, or (2) his son, Francis William Reitz, Jr. (1844-1934), 5th President of the Orange Free State Republic.

Relhania: for Rev. Richard Relhan (1754-1823), clergyman born at Dublin, a botanist, plant collector, talented painter, bryologist, lichenologist, and one of the founders of the Linnean Society. He was Chaplain of Kings College, Cambridge, collected plants there and authored Flora Cantabrigiensis about the plants of the Cambridge area. (1785). (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

renauldii: probably for Ferdinand François Gabriel Renauld (1837-1910), French botanist? The taxon in southern Africa that had this specific epithet was Metzgeria renauldii, now synonymized to M. leptoneura.

rendallii: for Dr. Percy John Rendall of Barberton (1861-1948) who first collected Ceropegia rendallii and sent samples to Kew Gardens. He was assistant colonial surgeon and Justice of the Peace and Commissioner of the Court of Requests for Gambia, also Resident Medical Officer to the Sheba Gold-mining Company in the Bar-berton District of the Transvaal. He was an amateur zoologist and ornithologist, had a good collection of birds, and collected plants in the Gambia, Sierra Leone and South Africa. (Elsa Pooley; David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Rendlia: for Alfred Barton Rendle (1865-1938), British botanist, traveller and plant collector, Keeper of the Botany Department of the British Museum, Fellow of the Royal CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Rennera: for Otto Renner (1883-1960), German botanist and bacteriologist, a professor of botany, traveller, and director of the Botanical Garden of Jena. "Otto Renner was a German plant geneticist, following the work of Erwin Baur, Renner established the theory of maternal plastid inheritance as a widely accepted genetic." Plastids are major organelles in plant cells that are responsible for photosynthesis and the storage of starches. (Wikipedia, CRC World Dictionary of Pant Names)

renniei (Conophytum):

renschiana/renschii: for Carl Rensch (1837-1905), to whom J. M. Hillebrandt sent his specimens for distribution to other botanists while he was traveling in Africa. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Requienia: for Esprit Requien (1788-1851), French botanist, malacologist, traveller and botanical explorer, "He developed a herbarium of international importance and discovered many taxa. He was a director of the Calvet Museum, Avignon for 34 years where he founded the department of natural history. In 1840 he  bequeathed his important natural history collections and library reference collection to the Calvet Museum." (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Retzia: for Anders Johan Retzius (1742-1821), Swedish botanist, lichenologist and bryologist, entomologist and professor of natural history at the University of Lund. In addition to these disciplines, he also did work on chemistry, zoology, minerology and paleontology. Hugh Clarke adds: "He described many new species of insects and did fundamental work on their classification. Was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 1782." (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

revoilii: for Georges Révoil (1852-1894), French plant collector and author of Voyages au cap des Aromates (Afrique Orientale). The taxon in southern Africa that has this specific epithet is Rhoicissus revoilii. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

rexii: for George Rex (1765-1839), British entrepreneur who spent most of his life in the Cape Colony, on whose estate near Knysna the taxon Streptocarpus rexii was first found. He was the founder of Knysna and held various positions in the Colony before settling down on a farm. (PlantzAfrica)

Reyemia: for Dr. Heinrich Meyer who practiced medicine in Calvinia in the 1860's and collected in the Hantam Mts which are in the Namaqualand region of the Northern Cape Province. He came from Germany to the Cape in the mid-1860's, and later practised medicine at Cape Town in the 1880's. (Gunn & Codd)

reynoldsii: for Dr Gilbert W. Reynolds (1895–1967), author of Aloes of South Africa, who was an optician in Johannesburg before he moved to Swaziland in 1960, and studied and cultivated plants, mostly aloes, in his spare time. In the course of gathering material for his two classic volumes (Reynolds 1950, 1966), he travelled some 40,000 km and collected numerous plants in addition to his aloe specimens. He was an authority on the genus Aloe. (PlantzAfrica)

Reynoutria: my original entry stated that Reynoutria is uncertainly identified as being named after a somewhat obscure Dutch or French botanist and/or naturalist named either Reynoutre or van Reynoutre (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names). Sources uncovered by David Hollombe relate to a man named Karen van Sint Omaars, alternatively spelled Charles Saint Omer (1533-1569), a Flemish botanist and humanist, and lord of among other towns one called Dranouter in West Flanders. The 16th century horticulturist Carolus Clusius helped him lay out a very extensive garden and also advised him in the compilation of a large illustrated book of watercolors he had commissioned to be entitled Centuriae Plantarum Rariorum. His death at the age of 36 aborted the book project, but his work was incorporated into another by the same title published by others many years later. The genus name was first described by Dutch botanist Maarten Houtteyn in 1777.

Rhadamanthus: after Rhadamanthus, in mythology the son of Zeus or Jupiter, and Europa, who was made the judge of souls in the underworld. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

rheedii: for Hendrik Adriaan von Rheede tot Draakestein (1637-1691), Dutch naval officer and botanist, author of Hortus Malabaricus.

Rhynea: see Tenrhynea.

ricardianum: for Richard Grässner (1875-1942), German cactus enthusiast and nurseryman. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Riccardia: for one or more of the members of the Riccardi family, Ottavio Riccardi, Francesco Riccardi (1648-1718),Cassandra Capponi Riccardi, Cosimo Riccardi (1671-1751) and Vincenzio Riccardi (1704-1752), all of whom are mentioned in Pier (Pietro) Antonio Micheli's Nova Plantarum Genera as having supported the work. Samuel Frederick Gray published the name Riccardia. He didn't explain the names of his new genera but many of them matched the names of people referred to in the Nova Plantarum.

Richardia: the history of the name Richardia is a long and complex one deserving of an essay-length entry by someone more knowledgeable than myself. But to reduce it to what I think are its most fundamental elements, Richardia was a name originally given by Linneaus in 1753 to plants in the Rubiaceae and intended to honor British botanist and physician Richard Richardson (1663-1741), collector of mosses and lichens, and botanical and historical books. He had a marvelous garden, considered one of the best in England, which even included one of the first hothouses in England. In 1818, Karl Sigismund Kunth announced that the rubiaceous plants should be called Richardsonia and he proposed the name Richardia for a plant in the Araceae in honor of Louis Claude Marie Richard (1754-1821), French botanist and author who originated some of the special descriptive term-inology for orchids. This was the way things stood for quite a while until more recently when the araceous genus Richardia became Zantedeschia, and the name Richardia was restored to certain of the rubiaceous plants. Richardia was also a name published by John Lindley in 1847 for a plant in the Asteraceae, but that name appears now to have disappeared, and I don't know who Lindley named it for or what happened to it. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

richardiana: probably for Achille Richard (1794-1852), who collected in Ethiopia and Madagascar. He was one of the leading botanists of his day and wrote the first flora of Tropical East Africa, the Tentamen Florae Abyssinicae, printed in 1845 and 1851, and studied and described several genera of orchids. Taxa in southern Africa with this specific epithet include Disa richardiana and the former Cheiridopsis richardiana (now syn-
onymized to Ihlenfeldtia vanzylii). (Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.)

richardii: among the various Richards who are listed in botanical literature (and referred to above), and for whom taxa with the name richardii might have been named, is Louis Claude Marie Richard (1754-1821), noted French botanist and plant collector, and his son Achille Richard (1794-1852), who collected in Ethiopia and Madagascar. The current and former taxa in southern Africa with this specific epithet include Potamogeton richardii, Ornithogalum richardii (now O. deltoideum), Eriosema richardii (now E. nutans), Macromit-
rium richardii and Erica richardii. This last is one of the dozens of ericaceous taxa which were collected and named by Edward George Hudson "Ted" Oliver (1938- ) and Inge Magdalene Oliver (1947-2003), and this was named for Richard Taylor of the Saasveld Forestry College in the Eastern Cape, head of the department of wood production engineering and wood technology lecturer, and a keen supporter of the Protea Atlas Project. I don't know who the others are named for. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

richardsiana: for James Richards, possibly the Assistant Secretary of the Royal Horticultural Society, may have been an accountant. Begonia richardsiana was named in 1871.

Richardsonia: see Richardia. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

ridleyi: the JSTOR website has a specimen record for Nerine ridleyi which lists a G.H. Ridley as having collected it in 1913. He was, I believe, a Curator at Kirstenbosch Gardens.

Rikliella: for Martin Albert Rikli (1868-1951), Swiss botanist, plant geographer, traveller and botanical collector, Curator of the Botanical Museum of the E.T.H. Zurich (Eldgenössische Technische Hochschule, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names).

rileyi: for Mr. A.W. Riley (fl. 1959), a farmer in the Pietersburg area of the former Transvaal. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

ringoetii: for Arthur Ringoet (1889-1952), plant collector in the Congo.

Riocreuxia: for Alfred Riocreux (1820-1912), French artist and botanical illustrator. Hugh Clarke adds: "The botanist Adolphe Théodore Brongniart (1801-76), saw his sketches and was probably responsible for bringing him to the Paris Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle. T. G. Hill, author of The Essentials of Illustration (London, 1915), has stated that Riocreux’s work on seaweeds for a work by Gustave Thuret as "the finest plates ever published in a botanical work" while the distinguished Dutch botanist F. A. Stafleu, writing in 1966, commented: "Riocreux was one of the great botanical artists of all times." (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

rionii: for Alphonse Rion (1809-1856), Swiss college professor and canon at the Cathedral of Sion in the canton of Valais, Switzerland. He was the author of Guide du botaniste en Valais. The taxon Ranunculus rionii was published by Swiss physician and botanist Franz Joseph Lagger in 1848.

ripartii: for Jean Baptiste Marie Joseph Solange Eugene Ripart (1814-1878), French bryologist.

Ritchiea: for Joseph Ritchie (?-1821), British explorer and traveler, surgeon and plant collector in Africa. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

ritellii: for a Major Ritelli (?) in Italian Somalia. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

rivae: possibly for a Dr. Domenico Riva (1856-1895), Italian botanist and plant collector.

Rivina: for Augustus Quirinus Rivinus (1652-1723), German botanist and physician, professor of botany and physiology, and curator of the University of Leipzig’s medicinal plants garden. Hugh Clarke adds: "In 1701 he became professor of pathology and in 1719 Professor of Therapeutics apermanent Dean of the Faculty of Medicine. The same year, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society. He authored Introductio generalis in rem herbariam (Leipzig, 1690), a classification of plants based on the the structure of flowers, mainly the shape of the corolla, and three other books on plant orders."  (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

roaneanus: for Herbert Michael Roan (1909-2003), English succulent plant collecter and one of the founders of the British National Cactus and Succulent Society. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

robbertsii (Acacia):

robbinsii: for Mr. F. Robbins who collected specimens in 1941. (Australian Journal of Botany)

robertsiana: for Dr. Austin Roberts (1883-1948), plant collector in charge of the bird and mammal collection at the Transvaal Museum where a wing was named in his honor.

robertsoniae (Gladiolus): W.M. Robertson?

robillardei: for Jean Aime Victor de Robillard (1813-1892), sugar plantation owner, natural historian, plant collector and resident of Mauritius.

Robinia: for Jean Robin (1550-1629), French botanist, royal gardener and herbalist to Kings Henry III, Henry IV and Louis XIII of France, worked at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Hugh Clarke adds: "He published a catalog of 1300 species grown in 1601 under the title Catalogus stirpium tam indigenarum exoticarum quam. The Paris Faculty of Medicine appointed Jean Robin in 1597 for the construction of a botanical Garden. Two of the acacia trees planted early in the 17th century by Robin, one at Jardin des Plantes, the other off the north facade of the church of St. Julien-le-Pauvre near the Notre Dame, still stand." (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

robinsonii: for Ernest Richard Robinson (1948- ), plant collector.

Robsonodendron: for Dr. Norman Keith Bonner Robson (1928- ), English botanist who made important botanical expeditions to Morocco , Zambia , and Malawi.

robynsiana: probably for Frans Hubert Edouard Arthur Walter Robyns (1901-1986), Belgian botanist and plant collector in tropical Africa (Congo), South Africa and Hawaii.

Rochea: for Daniel de la Roche (1743-1813), Swiss botanist and physician, and his son François Etienne (1780/1781-1813), botanist and physician. Originally De Candolle apparently published the name Rochea in 1802 for Daniel, and then in 1828 may have divided it into two sections, Daniela named for Daniel and Franciscea for François. De la Roche practised in Edinburgh where he got hs degree, then in Geneva and Paris. Like many physicians, he was intensely interested in botany and aided the young Swiss botanist A.P. de Candolle. Both father and son died of typhus that was brought to Paris by Napoleon's troops returning from Russia. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Rochelia: for Anton Rochel (1770-1847), Austrian botanist, surgeon and officer in the Austrian army, traveler, and Curator of the Pest Botanical Garden. Hugh Clarke adds: "He wrote a book on the Flora of Banat (1828), an eastern province of the old kingdom of Hungary, now part of Rumania, and a book (in translation) called A Botanical journey into the Banat, namely the southern and eastern borders of Hungary) (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

rochetiana: for Charles L. Xavier Rochet d'Héricourt (1801-1854), plant collector in Ethiopia. Name is variously given as Charles Francois-Xavier and C.E.X. Rochet d'Héricourt, made several trips to Abyssinia.

rodinii: for Prof. Robert Joseph Rodin (1922-1978), American botanist and plant collector, Professor of Botany at California Polytechnical University San Luis Obispo 1953-1976, studied ferns in Namibia and elsewhere, author of Ferns of the Sierra.

rodriguesiana: for a Frère Rodrigues (f. 1887-1891) who collected Canoparmelia rodriguesiana at Ambo-
sitra, Madagascar. The taxon was published in 1899 in genus Parmelia. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Roella: for Wilhelm Roell, 18th century professor of anatomy in Amsterdam and horticulturist. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

roeperianum: for Johannes Roeper (1801-1885), German botanist and professor of botany at Rostock.

Rogeria: for Baron Jacques-Francois Roger du Loiret (1787-1849), French plant collector and colonial official. Hugh Clarke adds: "[He was] a lawyer and French colonial administrator who became governor of Senegal from 1821-1827; he studied Senegal's agricultural possibilities and tried to set up plantations, unsuccessfully, both because the Senegalese trading communities were reluctant to take up agriculture and because such attempts were always subject to petty harassment by neighbouring African states; he thoroughly explored that country in 1826 with naturalist Georges Samuel Perrottet (1793-1870) and collected many plants; in 1828, he published a “collection” of  forty-three Wolof [= Senegalise language] folktales, Fables sénégalaises, with notes about Senegambia, its climate, main products, civilization and customs." (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

rogersiae: for Bertha Rogers (fl. 1928) who collected Psilocaulon rogersiae and Trichodiadema rogersiae. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names, Women and Cacti)

rogersii: for (1) Rev. Frederick Arundel Rogers (1876-1944), British-born South African botanist and missionary who collected plants in the South Africa, the Belgian Congo and Rhodesia (Albizia, Scilla) (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names), or (2) Rev. William Moyle Rogers (1835-1920), plant collector, British clergyman, appointed Vice-Principal of Bishop's College, Capetown (Gladiolus, Ornithogalum).

Rohria: for Julius Philip Benjamin von Röhr (1737-1793), Prussian-born botanist and plant collector, naturalist, medical doctor and watercolourist, who emigrated to Denmark and who sent many plants to Europe from South America and the West Indies. (Wikipedia)

rolfii: for Rolf Rawé (1870's, 1980's), German succulent plant enthusiast and authority on Conophytum.

Romulea: after the legendary Romulus, founder and first king of Rome. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

ronaldii: for a Mr. Ronald (fl. 1932). (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Rondeletia: for Guillaume Rondelet (1507-1566), French physician and botanist, zoologist and ichthyologist, professor of medicine at the University of Montpellier, France, where he became Chancellor of the medical faculty in 1556. He had two main interests, medicine and fish. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

roodeae: for Mrs. E. Rood (fl. 1921-1926), plant collector in South Africa.

Roodia: for Petrusa Benjamina Rood (1861-1946), South African plant collector. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

roodiae/roodieae: for Petrusa Benjamina (née Van Rhyn) Rood (1861-1946), succulent plan collector who sent plants and seeds to N.E. Brown, I.B. Pole-Evans, N.S. Pillans and T.N. Leslie. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

rooperi: for Capt. Edward Rooper, botanical painter who sent this plant to England. (Elsa Pooley)

rosaliae: Miss Rosalie Du Plessis (later Mrs. C. Gill) (fl. 1932-1955), staff member of the Bolus Herbarium, collected Glottiphyllum rosaliae in South Africa in 1955.

roscheri: probably for Albrecht Roscher (1836-1860) of Hamburg, German geographer and explorer, member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, plant collector in Sierra Leone and Tanazania, collected seaweeds near Zanzibar and amassed botanical knowledge of the island in 1859, author of Eine Afrika-Expedition in den Tod (An Africa Expedition to the Death?), met the explorer John Hanning Speke, discovered Lake Nyasa and was murdered by slave traders (Journal of the Linnean Society of London: Botany, Vol. 32, Wapedia)

rosenbrockii: for Alexander Johann Rosenbrock (1880-1955) German-born botanist who collected in South Africa, teacher at the German school in Port Elizabeth, married the daughter of Isaac Louis Drège.

Rosenia: for Eberhard Rosén (1714-1796), Swedish physician, botanist, and professor of practical medicine, founder of Lund Hospital and rector of Lund University, and his brother Nils Rosén (1706-1773), also a physician. Hugh Clarke adds about Nils Rosén: "Swedish professor of medicine and anatomy at Lund University; physician to various Kings of Sweden; member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; made Knight of the Polar Star when he changed his name to Nils Rosén von Rosten. He is often considered the founder of pediatrics and authored The diseases of children, and their remedies regarded as "the first modern textbook on the subject." (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

rosenii: for Count Carl Gustaf Bloomfield Eric von Rosen (1879-1948), Swedish Honorary doctor, patron, explorer and ethnographer. He participated in expeditions to Lappland, South America and the White Nile, and wrote successful books about them. I've encountered two stories involving Hermann Göring and von Rosen, one is that Göring married the sister of von Rosen's wife, and the other that he married his niece. I think the former is correct. His son Carl Gustaf Ericsson von Rosen was a pioneer aviator and flew combat missions for Finland and for the rebels in Biafra.

rossii: for Dr. James Ross, botanist who worked on the Fabaceae of S.A. (Elsa Pooley)

rossouwii: for Gerhard "Gerrie" Rossouw, gardener at NBG Kirstenbosch and Karroo Garden at Worcester, commemorated with Ornithogalum rossouwii. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Rothia/rothii: for Albrecht Wilhelm Roth (1757-1834), German botanist and physician, author of a treatise of German flora, Tenetamen florae germanica, and a book on Indian flora Navae plantarum species praesertim Indiae oriental. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Rothmannia: named for Dr. Georg Rothman (1739-1778), Swedish botanist and physician, by his friend C.P. Thunberg. Both were pupils of Linnaeus, and Rothmann was a traveller and plant collector in North Africa. After working in Tunisia and Libya from 1773 to 1776, he went bankrupt and returned to Stockholm where he died shortly thereafter. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Rottboellia/rottboellii: for Christen Friis Rottböll (Rottboell) (1727-1797), Danish botanist and physician, traveler, pupil of Linnaeus, professor of medicine, Director of the Copenhagen Botanical Garden. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

rottleri: for Johan Peter Rottler (1749-1836), missionary botanist in India and Sri Lanka who collected more than 2000 plants.

rourkei: for Dr. John P. Rourke, South African botanist at Kirstenbosch (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names), author of The Proteas of Southern Africa. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

roupelliae: for Mrs. Arabella E. Roupell (1817-1914), botanical artist who painted plants for a book on Cape flowers in 1840. (Elsa Pooley)

rourkei: for Dr. John Patrick Rourke (1942- ), South African botanist, curator of Compton Herbarium at Kirstenbosch, specialist on the taxonomy of Cape flora.

rouwenortii: for Hendrik Adriaan Willem, Baron van Rouwenoort (1741-1815). The Roowenoort family were patrons of Dutch physician and botanist David de Gorter who published the name Anthericum rouwenortii in 1783. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

rouxii: for C.H.D. Roux (fl. 1935), plant collector in South Africa. (Gunn & Codd)

rowlandii: for a Lt.-Col Anthony Rowland-Jones (fl. 1949-1951), regional ranger in Kruger National Park who collected Euphorbia rowlandii in the Transvaal.. (Trees and Shrubs of Kruger National Park)

rowleyanus: for Gordon D. Rowley (1921- ), British succulent enthusiast and author.

roxburghii/roxburghiana: for William Roxburgh (1751-1815), Scots-born medical practitioner and botanist, made two trips to the Cape where he discovered many new species of Proteas, author of Plants of Coromandel, Hortus Bengalensis, and Flora Indica. (JSTOR,Gunn & Codd)

Royena/royenii: for Adriaan van Royen (1704-1779), Dutch botanist and physician, professor of botany and medicine, Director of the Botanic Garden at Leyden 1730-1754, friend and close associate of Linnaeus who published the genus in 1753. Adriaan van Royen's major work was his flora of Southeast Asia. His nephew was botanist David van Royen (1727-1799) who was Adriaan's successor at Leyden and greatly added to his uncle's collection. It's also possible that David van Royen sent Linnaeus the description of the plant named Codon royenii, and was the person for whom Linnaeus named it. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

royffei: for a Mr. H. Royffe, plant collector in South Africa who collected Psoralea royffei.

roylei: for John Forbes Royle (1798-1858), British botanist.

rudatisii: for August Gottlieb Hans Rudatis (1875-1934), German botanist and horticulturist, worked in the Zurich Botanic Garden under Schinz, in charge of the alpine garden at the Botanical Garden in Dahlem, went to Natal in 1904, made extensive collections of plants, birds and insects mainly from his farm, seriously injured during an attempted robbery, was not successful in setting up a nursery for the sale of indigenous plants. (Gunn & Codd)

rudolfii: for Friedrich Richard Rudolf Schlecter (1872-1925), German traveller, plant collector and botamist, specialist on orchids. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names).

rudolphii: for Godlieb Rudolph Koekemoer (1936- ), father of Dr. Marinda Koekemoer who joined her on many collecting trips.

ruedebuschii: for a Mr. Rüdebusch (fl. 1927), a farmer in Namibia where German botanist Kurt Dinter was a guest on several occasions. Dinter named Schwantesia ruedebuschii in his honor. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Ruellia: for Jean Ruel (Jean de la Ruelle) (1474-1537), French botanist and physician, and author of a treatise on botany De Natura Stirpium libri tres (1536). Although called to be herbalist to François I of France, he declined the appointment saying that it would interfere with his other work. He was ordained canon of Notre-Dame de Paris and for the next twenty years he dedicated his life to the major work of translating, commenting on, and restoring the real texts of the ancient Greek medical authors such as Dioscorides, Hippocrates, Galen, Euclid, Celsus and Pliny. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

rueppelianum: see ruppelii. The taxon in southern Africa that had this specific epithet was the former Hypo-dematium rueppelianum (now H. crenatum)

ruhlandii: for Wilhelm Otto Eugen Ruhland (1878-1960), German botanist and plant physiologist, worked for a number of years at the Imperial Biological Research Center for Agriculture and Forestry, then became associate chair of botany at the University of Halle and then a full professor at the University of Tuebingen, also head of the botanical garden at the University of Leipzig.

ruhmeriana: for Gustav Ferdinand (de) Ruhmer (1853-1883), German botanist and assistant at the Botanical Museum in Berlin, spent 1882-1883 in Libya, died at Schmalkalden, Germany. He is commemorated with Lysimachia ruhmeriana. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Rumohra: for Karl Friedrich Ludwig Felix von Rumohr (1785-1843), German art expert and writer, collector of antiquities and patron of botany (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Rungia: for Rungia, a well-known botanical artist who worked for Robert Wight, the Scottish surgeon, naturalist, plant collector and Director of the Madras Botanic Garden. The genus was published by Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck in 1832.

ruppelii: for (Wilhelm Peter) Eduard (Simon) Rüppell (1794-1884), German explorer and naturalist, traveller and plant collector in Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan, author of Travels in Abyssinia, remembered as much for the zoological and ethnographical collections he brought back to Europe as for his explorations. (Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britannica)

Ruppia: for Heinrich Bernard Ruppius (1688-1719), German botanist, author of Flora jenensis. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

ruprechtii: for Franz Josef Iwanowitsch Ruprecht (1814-1870), Austrian-born Russian physician and botanist, curator of the herbarium of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, assistant director of the St. Petersburg botanical gardens between 1851 and 1855, and professor of botany in 1855 at the University of St. Petersburg, also honored by genus Ruprechtia. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses, Wikipedia)

Ruschia: for Ernst Julius Rusch (1867–1957), a Namibian farmer and businessman and one of the founders of Windhoek. (PlantzAfrica; Gunn & Codd)

Ruschianthus/Ruschianthemum: for Ernst Franz Theodor Rusch (1897–1964), Ernst Julius Rusch's son. (PlantzAfrica)

ruschiana/ruschianus/ruschii: for (1) Ernst Julius Rusch (1867–1957), commemorated with Conophytum ruschii (now Conophytum jucundum) and Avonia ruschii. Other species with these specific epithets that are probably but not certainly named for the father are Tromotriche ruschiana, Ruschia ruschiana, Piaranthus ruschii, and the former taxa Urochloa ruschii (now U. panicoides), Caralluma ruschiana (now Tromotriche umdausensis) and Elytropappus ruschianus (now Seriphium plumosum). (2) his son, Ernst Franz Theodor Rusch (1897–1964), commemorated with the above genera and with Hoodia ruschii, also probably with Salsola ruschii which the son collected in 1958.

ruschiorum: for both Ernest Julius Rusch and Ernst Franz Theodor Rusch. The taxon that commemorates both father and son is Lithops ruschiorum.

Ruspolia: for Eugenio Ruspoli (1866-1893), Italian explorer, ethnologist and naturalist, botanical and zoological collector, killed by an elephant. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

russakiana: for Christian Ferdinand Friedrich von Krauss (1812-1890), anagram of kraussiana.

Russelia: for Dr. Alexander Russel (1715?-1768), British physician, naturalist and traveller who worked in Aleppo, Syria for almost fifteen years and became the principal practitioner. He published A Natural History of Aleppo in which he recorded the progress of a plague which broke out first in 1742. In 1759 he was elected physician of St. Thomas' Hospital in London where he worked until his death. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the Medical Society of London. The generic name Russelia has now been changed to Vahlia.

rustiana/rustii: for Johann Conrad Rust (1865-1921), German farmer and merchant, emigree to SA in 1879, plant collector in Southern Africa, moved to Namibia in 1900. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names, Gunn & Codd)

rutenbergii: this being a type of moss, and Diedrich Christian Rutenberg (1851-1878) being a collector of lichens, it seems reasonable to assume that this is the derivation, but this is only an assumption. The taxon is Cryphaea rutenbergii.

Ruttya: for John Rutty (1697-1775), an 18th century physician in Dublin, naturalist, entomologist, and lichenologist. He was the author of Essay towards a Natural History of the County of Dublin which included its flora, fauna, geology, and meteorology, and of The Mineral Waters of Ireland, Natural History of the County of Dublin, Materia Medico, Antigua and Nova and A history of the Rise and Progress of the People called Quakers in Ireland. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

rycroftiana/rycroftii: for Dr. Hedley Brian Rycroft (1918-1990), South African botanist, professor of botany at Cape Town University, and the third director (first South African-born director) of Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens, author of What Protea Is That? and Our Flower Paradise, collected in South Africa and Angola. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

ryderae: for Mrs. Eleanore F. Ryder (née Fisher-Rowe), English plant collector in South Africa in the 1920's and 1930's. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

rydingianus: for Per Olof Ryding (1951- ), plant collector in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Malawi.

ryneveldiae: for a certain W. van Ryneveld, plant collector in South Africa.

sabinae: for Sabine Lüdtke (née Bleissner), plant collector in southern Africa. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses)

sacleuxii: for Father Charles Sacleux (1856-1943), French Roman Catholic missionary, plant collector in Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania, and Mozambique, and Swahili lexicographer.

Saelania: for Anders Thiodolf Sælen (1834-1921), Finnish bryologist. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Salacia: after Salacia, in Roman mythology the goddess of salt water who presided over the depths of the ocean, wife and queen of Neptune. (Elsa Pooley, Wikipedia)

salmdyckiana/salmiana/salmii: for Fürst Joseph Salm-Reifferscheid-Dyck (1773-1861), German botanist, botanical artist, horticulturist and succulent plant collector. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Saltera/salteri: for Terence Macleane Salter (1883-1969), British botanist, traveler, at the Bolus Herbarium 1930-1960, plant collector in South Africa. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

saltii: for Henry Salt (1780-1827), British traveller. (Elsa Pooley)

saltmarshei: for an E. Saltmarshe (fl. 1890), plant collector in South Africa and Swaziland.

Salvadora: for Juan Salvador y Bosca (1598-1681), Spanish apothecary, botanist, and plant collector. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Salvinia: for Antonio Maria Salvini (1633-1729), Italian writer, poet and philologist, professor of Greek at Florence, contemporary and colleague of Pier Antonio Micheli who published the genus name.(CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Sandersonia/sandersonii: for John Sanderson (1820-1881), Scottish horticulturist, botanical collector in South Africa, died in South Africa. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Sanionia: for Carl Gustav Sanio (1832-1891), German botanist and professor, earned a doctorate of medicine and botany at the University of Königsberg, made first scientific description of compression wood.

sankeyi: for Humphrey John Sankey (1885-1945), South African plant collector and forester who collected speciments for Kew in the East Cape, especially interested in orchids, died in Kenya.

Sansevieria: for (1) Count Pietro Antonio Sanseverino, an 18th century Italian patron of horticulture in Naples.
(Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names), or (2) Raimondo di Sangro (1710-1771), Prince of Sansevero, Italian nobleman and author (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names). The genus was named by C.P. Thunberg in 1794.

Santessonia: for Rolf Santesson (1916- ), Swedish lichenologist.

sardienii: probably for Tommy Sardien (1932- ), plant collector in South Africa.

sargeantii: for Mr. Percy Sargeant, resident of Cape Town, experienced mountaineer, conservationist and photographer of high altitude flora.

sauerae: for Miss Mary Sauer (fl. 1933). (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

saundersiae: for Lady Katharine Saunders (1824–1901), a well-known plant collector and artist who emigrated to South Africa in 1854 and sent bulbs of Ornithogalum saundersiae to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London, in 1887.

saundersii: for (1) Sir Charles James Renault Saunders (1857-1935), son of the above Katherine Saunders, chief magistrate in Kwa-Zulu Natal who collected Dermatobotrys saundersii, or (2) William Wilson Saunders (1809-1879) who first grew and illustrated Gladiolus saundersii in 1870. (Elsa Pooley).

Savia: for Gaetano Savi (1769-1844), Italian physician and botanist, director of the Third Botanical Garden of Pisa, taught physics and botany at the University of Pisa, elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, author of Flora Pisana, Botanicum Etruscum and Flora Italiana. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

saxbyi: for H.H. Saxby, plant collector in Ghana around 1910. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

scaettae: for Helios Francesco Antonio Scaetta (1894-1941), plant collector in Ethiopia, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mali, Rwanda and the Congo. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses)

Scaevola: for C. Mucius Scaevola, 6th century BC Roman hero whose surname means "left-handed" from the Latin scaevus, "left." Actually 'Scaevola' was a sobriquet he received after he lost his right arm. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

schaeferi/schaeferianus: for Dr. Fritz Shäfer (?-1911), plant collector born in South-West Africa, medical practitioner on the Lüderitz Bay-Keetmanshoop Railway, collected in the Klein Karras area of Namibia. (Gunn & Codd)

schaereri (Buellia):

Schefflera: for Jakob Christoph Scheffler of Gdansk, Poland, botanist and physician. (PlantzAfrica)

scheffleri: for Georg Scheffler (1873/1874-1910), German plant collector and ornithologist in Kenya (1906-1910), Tanzania (1899), Uganda and South Africa. His name is also on the Scheffler's barred owlet, Glauci-dium scheffleri. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

schellenbergii: for Dr. Gustav August Ludwig David Schellenberg (1882-1963), German botanist, specialist in the pantropical family Connaraceae. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

schelpei/schelpeana: for Edmund Andre Charles Louis Eloi Schelpe (1924-1985), well-known South African plant ecologist, taxonomist and plant collector, author of An Introduction to the South African Orchids. (Elsa Pooley)

schenckii: probably for Adolf Schenck (1857-1936), German geographer, minerologist and botanist. From 1884 to 1887 he was on a minerological expedition to German South-West Africa. Before returning home, he visited mines and goldfields in the present-day nations of South Africa, Botswana and Mozambique. He had a brother named Heinrich who was also a botanist.

schickiana/schickianum (Cheiridopsis, Conophytum): Carl Schick (1881-1953)?

schiemanniana: for Elisabeth Schiemann (1881-1972), German geneticist, crop researcher and cereal breeder. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses)

schijffii: for Hermanus Philipus ("Manie") van der Schijff (1921- ), professor of botany. (Elsa Pooley)

schimperi/schimperiana: several Schimpers show up in the botanical literature, a Georg Heinrich Wilhelm Schimper who collected Chrysocalyx schimperi, a German plant collector named Wilhelm G. Schimper who apparently collected in Ethiopia, Wilhelm Philipp Schimper, and a German botanist by the name of Andreas Franz Wilhelm Schimper. Further research turns up the following: Wilhelm Philipp Schimper (1808-1880) was a German-French botanist who was the father of Andreas Franz Wilhelm Schimper (1856-1901) and a cousin to botanist Georg Heinrich Wilhelm Schimper (1804-1878) and naturalist Karl Friedrich Schimper (1803-1867), who were brothers. The elder Schimper was curator and then Director of the Natural History Museum in Strasbourg, and then was professor of geology and natural history at the University there. He was mainly interested in bryology and paleobotany, and was the co-author of Bryologia Europaea which described all European mosses. G.H.W. Schimper did a lot of work in northern Africa, was the author of Journey to Algiers, and settled in Ethiopia, so he is probably the one who is referred to in a couple of websites as Wilhelm G. Schimper. Andreas Franz Schimper was a botanist and phytogeographer who made collecting trips to Venezuela, the West Indies, Ceylon, and Java, and was the author of Pflanzengeographie auf Physiologischer Grundlage in which he coined the term 'tropical rainforest.' He was a professor at the Bonn Botanical Institute and at the University of Basel. He was one of the first to divide the continents into floral regions. Karl Schimper apparently originated the idea of glaciation which gave rise to modern theories of ice ages and climate cycles. One problem that arises in trying to determine which Schimper goes with which taxon is that the specimen records sometimes say W. Schimper, or G.W. Schimper, or W.G. Schimper or G.H.W. Schimper or just Schimper. In one case, one of two specimen records of the same collection with the same date and number that went to different repositories has 'Schimper W.G.' as the collector and the other has 'Schimper G.H.W.' as the collector, and this is presumably from his own records. His are the most confusing entries, since his name is alternatively given as Wilhelm Schimper, George Heinrich Wilhelm Schimper, Wilhelm G. Schimper and Wilhelm Georg Schimper. Two hundred years ago, names were just not as fixed as they are today. I suspect that most of the taxa that have these names are in honor of G.H.W. Schimper. (Wikipedia, JSTOR)

schinziana/schinzianum/schinzianus/schinzii: for Hans Schinz (1858-1941), Swiss professor of systematic botany and director of the Botanical Garden in Zurich, and an explorer and botanist who collected in South Africa and Namibia. (Elsa Pooley, Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.)

Schkuhria: for Christian Schkuhr (1741-1811), German botanist. The following was translated from a German website: "Christian Schkuhr was a trained gardener and later worked as a mechanic for the University of Wittenberg. Besides his occupation, he conducted botanical studies throughout his life. Not only did he learn to draw, to engrave and to use a microscope (using selfmade instruments) to publish his “Handbook of Botany,” he also learned how to print (cf. Boehmer’s epilogue for the first volume of the handbook with a rather detailed description of the author’s life). With his rather modestly equipped work, Schkuhr not only wanted to help plant lovers to get to know the names of native plants and plants introduced to the area by using Carl von Linné’s system, which by then had been accepted almost everywhere in Germany, but also wanted them to get familiar with the value of plants with regard to medicinal use, local economy and agriculture. At the same time, he regarded his handbook as a substitute for a so far non-existent guide to the flora of Wittenberg (cf. volume 1, p.3). The plant species were classified according to Linné’s system and very frequently Schkuhr placed several species next to each other, as was the case with the sweet vernal grass. He stated both the Latin and the German name of the species and gave a brief characterization of the plant and a detailed description and explanation of the figures on the table. Furthermore, Schkuhr gave anthesis, required location, and how widespread the species was, in particular its extent of occurance in and around Wittenberg, as well as the usefulness of the species and further particulars, such as color and smell, peculiar."

Schlechteranthus/schlechteri/Schlechteria/Schlechterina: for Friedrich Richard Rudolf Schlechter (1872-1925), German botanist, traveler and plant collector in Africa, assistant to Harry Bolus, came to the Cape in the 1890's; and/or his brother Max Schlechter (1874-1960). (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

schleicheri: possibly for a Johann Christoph Schleicher (1768-1834), plant collector in Germany, France, Italy and Switzerland.

schlichtianus: for Hugo Albert Wilhelm von Schlicht (1817-1893) (sometimes given as Albert Wilhelm Hugo von Schlict), German pharmacist, apothecary, and chemist who emigrated to South Africa. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

schliebenii: for Hans-Joachim Eberhardt Schlieben (1902-1975), German botanist who collected in Tanzania and Southern Africa. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses)

Schmidelia: for Casimir Christoph Schmidel (1718-1792), German physician, naturalist, professor or medicine CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Schmidtia/schmidtii: for Johann Anton Schmidt (1823-1905), German botanist, professor of botany, traveler, plant collector. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

schmidtiana (Aloe, Haworthia): for Richard Schmidt (1862-1938), head librarian at Leipzig University.

schneideriana: for Camillo K. Schneider (1876-1951), German botanist, garden architect, horticultural journalist and author of Handworterbuch der Botanik.

schnell: for a Mrs. Schnell who collected the previously unidentified orchid in the vicinity of King Wlliamstown in 1946 and sent it to the Bolus Herbarium.

schoemanii: for Paul Schoeman, founder of Weltevrede Succulent Nursery in Port Elizabeth. (Bruce Bayer, pers. comm.)

schooneesii: for Mr. D.H. Schoonees (fl. 1931), a South African teacher at Steytlerville. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Schotia: for Richard van der Schot, chief gardener of the Imperial Garden at Schönbrun. (PlantzAfrica)

schraderi/schraderianum: for Heinrich Adolf Schrader (1767-1836), German botanist and mycologist, author of Flora Germanica, Vol. 1, Director of the Göttingen Botanic Garden. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses)

Schrebera/schreberi: for Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber (1739-1810), German botanist and zoologist, correspondent of Linnaeus. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

schreuderiana: for Anna Elisabeth Schreuder (1895-?), wife of Paul Andries van der Bijl. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

schroederi: for Friedrich Wilhelm Martin Schröder, Stationsassistent in Togo from 1897-1906, and later a secretary in the imperial colonial office. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

schroeppelii: my only clue about this name is that the Harvard University Index of Botanists does list an Adolf Schröppel (Schroeppel) (1906- ), who was a cryptogamic botanist, but the specific epithet here belongs to a genus of shrubs (Cadaba) in the family Capparaceae, so I don't know whether this is the person so honored. The name was published by Karl Suessenguth in 1951. There are JSTOR specimen records of this taxon being collected in Namibia in 1939 by Otto Heinrich Volk (1903-2000) who was a fellow German and would have been a contemporary of his.

schroeteri: possibly for Carl Schröter (Schroeter) (1855-1039), Swiss ecologist and limnologist, lecturer in botany then professor at the Technical College, Zurich, studied fossil woods and phytogeography.

schuldtiana/schuldtianus/schuldtii: for a German horticulturist named Hans Schuldt, 1936 owner of the horticultural establishment of his uncle Albert Schenkel, Hamburg. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

schultesii: for Julius Hermann Schultes (1804-1840), Austrian botanist, co-author of Volume 7 of the Roemer & Schultes edition of the Systema Vegetabilium with his father Josef August Schultes (1773-1831), Austrian physician, botanist and naturalist, author of Flora of Austria (1794) and Flora of Bavaria (1811).

schultzei: for Leonhard S. Schultze (1872-1955), a German zoologist, anthropologist, geographer and philologist.

schultzii: for Carl Heinrich Schultz (1805-1867), German physician and botanist, brother to botanist Friedrich Wilhelm Schultz (1804–1876). He was called 'Bipontinus' ( a reference to his birthplace) to differen-
tiate him from the Carl Heinrich Schultz (1798-1871), who was called 'Schultzenstein' and was also a German botanist. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; Wikipedia)

schumanniana/schumannianum: for amateur botanist Karl Moritz Schumann (1851-1904). (Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.)

Schwabea: for Samuel Heinrich Schwabe (1789-1875), German botanist, pharmacist, astronomer, and member of the Royal Society of London. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Schwantesia: for Gustav Martin Heinrich Schwantes (1881-1960), German botanist, archeologist and profes-
sor of pre-history. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

schwarzii: for Friedrich (Fritz) Schwarz, 20th century cactus collector. The Harvard University Herbarium list of botanists includes a Fritz Schwarz (1900-1988) but I am uncertain whether this is the same individual.

schweickerdtiana/schweickerdtii: for Herold Georg Wilhelm Johannes Schweickerdt (1903-1977), plant collector in Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa. (Gunn & Codd)

schweinfurthiana/schweinfurthii: for George August Schweinfurth (1836-1925), German botanist, ethnologist and traveller in Central East Africa. He made considerable advances in our knowledge of the inhabitants and the flora and fauna of Central Africa.

Schwetschkea: for Karl Gustav Schwetschke (1804-1881), bookseller of Halle. (Mosses of Eastern North America by Howard Crum)

scottii (Haworthia): for Charles Leslie Scott, 1913-2001, South African plant botanical author, authority on Haworthia, and author of The Genus Haworthia. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

scullyi: for William Charles Scully (1855-1943), magistrate, author and collector who came to Cape Town as a child. (Elsa Pooley)

scyscylowiczii: for Ignaz von Szyszylowicz (1857-1910), Polish plant anatomist, specialist in tropical flora and liverworts.

seaforthianum: for Francis Humberston Mackenzie, Lord Seaforth (1754-1815), British politician and general, Governor of Barbados 1800-1806, who introduced Solanum seaforthianum and other plants to Britain from the West Indies, Fellow of the Royal Society. (Curtis's Botanical Magazine Vol. 45; R.A. Howard's Early Botanical Records from the West Indies; Wikipedia)

Searsia: apparently named for Paul Bigelow Sears (1891-1990), American plant ecologist, professor of botany at Oberlin College, 1938-1950, and Chair of the Conservation Program, Yale University.

Sebaea: for Albert Seba (1665-1736), Dutch pharmacist, zoologist,  naturalist and author who, living in Amsterdam, obtained his large collections which he sold to the Russian czar, by asking sailors and ship surgeons to bring him exotic plants and animal products. (Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.)

seelyae: for Dr. Mary Kathryn Seely (née Jensen) (1939- ), Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa, described by Clifford and Bostock as a South African plant ecologist, but by the website "Biographies of Namibian Personalities" as an American zoologist who came to Namibia from UCLA, was Director of the Namib Desert Research Station at Gobabeb 1970-1990 and then of the Desert Research Foundation of Namibia. These two entries seem difficult to reconcile, but Gunn & Codd confirm that she was an American zoologist.

Seemannaralia: for Berthold Carl Seemann (1825-1871), German botanist and explorer, naturalist, botanical collector, naturalist to the HMS Herald, editor of Bonplandia 1853-1862, editor of the Journal of Botany 1863-1869, author of The Botany of the Voyage of HMS Herald (1845-1851). (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Seetzenia: for Ulrich Jasper Seetzen (1767-1811), German traveller, a naturalist and botanical collector. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names) "His chief interests were in natural history and technology; he wrote papers on both these subjects which gained him some reputation, and had both in view in making a series of journeys through the Netherlands and Germany. He also engaged in various small manufactures, and in 1802 obtained a government post in Jever, however, the interest which he had long felt in geographical exploration culminated in a resolution to travel. In the summer of 1802 he started down the Danube with a companion Jacobsen, who broke down at Smyrna a year later. His journey was by Constantinople, where he stayed six months, thence through Asia Minor to Smyrna, then again through the heart of Asia Minor to Aleppo, where he remained from November 1803 to April 1805, and made himself sufficiently at home with Arabic speech and ways to travel as a native. Now began the part of his travels of which a full journal has been published (April 1808 to March 1809), a series of most instructive journeys in eastern and western Palestine and the wilderness of Sinai, and so on to Cairo and the Fayum. His chief exploit was a tour round the Dead Sea, which he made without a companion and in the disguise of a beggar. From Egypt he went by sea to Jidda and reached Mecca as a pilgrim in October 1809. In Arabia he made extensive journeys, ranging from Medina to Lahak and returning to Mocha, from which place his last letters to Europe were written in November 1810. In September of the following year he left Mocha with the hope of reaching Muscat, and was found dead two days later, having, it is believed, been poisoned by the command of the Imam of San‘a’. For the parts of Seetzen's journeys not covered by the published journal (Reisen, ed. Kruse, 4 vols, Berlin, 1854), the only printed records are a series of letters and papers in Zach's Monatliche Correspondenz and Hammer's Fundgruben. Many papers and collections were lost through his death or never reached Europe. The collections that were saved form the Oriental museum and the chief part of the Oriental manuscripts of the ducal library in Gotha." (Wikipedia)

Seidelia: for Christoph Friedrich Seidel (fl. 1869), German botanist. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

seineri: for Franz Seiner (1874-1940), Austrian journalist, traveller and plant collector in South-West Africa. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

sellowianum: possibly for Friedrich Sello (changed to Sellow in later years) (1789-1931), German botanist, naturalist and explorer most known for work in South America, one of the earliest students of the flora of Brazil, worked in the Botanical Garden of Berlin under Carl Ludwig Willdenow, attended lectures by Cuvier and Lamarck, worked at the Jardin des Plantes, received financial assistance from Alexander von Humboldt, drowned in a river at the age of 42. (Wikipedia)

Semonvillea: for Hyppolite Boisel, Baron de Monville (1794-1863), French amateur botanist and plant collector. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names). Genus named by Jacques Étienne Gay in 1929.

sendtneriana: for Otto Sendtner (1813-1859), German botanist of the University of Munich, one of the first botanists to study the flora of Bosnia, collected algae, mosses, ferns and monocotyledons.

Senebiera: for Jean Senebier (1742-1809), Swiss botanist, bibliographer and linquist, clergyman, physiologist, librarian of the city of Genève. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

sephtonii: for Paul Sephton (1926-2005), a figure in the world of South African tennis and skiing, had a keen interest in and knowledge of botany, astronomy and the sciences.

Serruria: for J. Serrurier who was Professor of Botany at the University of Utrecht in the early eighteenth century. (PlantzAfrica)

serusiauxii: for Dr. Emmanuël Sérusiaux (1953- ), Dutch lichenologist, professor in the Department of Botany at Université de Liége, Belgium.

seydeliana/seydelii: for Richard Heinrich Wilhelm Seydel (1885-1972) a German farmer and collector of plant in the northern-central parts of Namibia (S.W. Africa) for the Pflanzen Physiologisches Institute, Göttingen.

shandii: for Mr. John Shand (fl. 1920?), magistrate in Ladismith, Western Cape. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

shannonii: for the Countess of Shannon, either (1) Catherine Ponsonby Boyle (1746-1827), wife of the 2nd earl, or (2) Sarah Hyde Boyle (c. 1780-1820), wife of the 3rd earl. The taxon in southern Africa that has this specific epithet is Erica shannonii. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Shantzia: for Homer LeRoy Shantz (1876-1958), American botanist, traveler in Africa and plant collector. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

shawii: for John Shaw (1837-1890), teacher, geologist, bryologist and amateur botanist.

sheilae: named for his wife by Dr. Ion Williams (1912-2001). Dr. Williams was the founder/owner of Vogelgat Nature reserve. He was instrumental in establishing the walking paths in Fernkloof Nature Reserve and the Fernkloof Herbarium. The taxa in southern Africa with this specific epithet are Acmadenia sheilae and Leuca-dendron sheilae. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Sherardia: for William Sherard (1659-1727), British botanist, traveller and plant collector in Greece and Asia Minor, British Consul to Smyrna (1703-1716), founder of the Sherardian Chair of Botany at Oxford, pupil of Joseph Pitton de Tournefort and Herman Boerhaave, and Fellow of the Royal Society. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Shutereia: for Dr. James Shuter (?-1826). (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

sibbettii: for Mr. Cecil J. Sibbett (1967- ), South African naturalist, Chairman of the Council for the Botanical Society of South Africa. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Sickmannia/sickmannianum: for Johann Rudolph Sickmann (1779-1849), German botanist. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

sieberiana/sieberianum/sieberianus: for Franz Wilhelm Sieber (1789-1844), a Bohemian botanist, traveller and plant collector, committed to the Prague insane asylum where he spent the last fourteen years of his life (PlantzAfrica, Wikipedia)

sieberi: for Franz Sieber (1789-1844), a Bohemian botanist, traveller and plant collector. (Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.)

Silene: after Silenus, in Greek mythology a woodland deity, tutor and companion to Bacchus. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

simiana/simii (Tylophora): for Thomas Robertson Sim (1858-1938), Scottish-born botanist, bryologist, botanical artist and first Conservator of Forests in Natal, author of The Forests and Forest Flora of The Colony of the Cape of Good Hope (1907), worked in the botanic gardens at Kew and at Harvard. His brother was James M. Sim who collected some mosses in the East Cape for T.R. Sim. (Gunn & Codd)

simmleri: for Gudrun Simmler (1884- ).

simpsonii: for Mr. and Mrs. Simpson (fl. 1922), station masters of the railway station at Halenberg, Namibia, in whose garden Juttadinteria simpsonii was first discovered.

simsiana/simsii (Lebeckia): for John Sims (1749-1831), British botanist, physician and botanical engraver/illustrator, served for 25 years as Editor of "Curtis' Botanical Magazine" in England.

skinneri: for W. Skinner of Thornton Heath.(David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

skottsbergii: for Carl Johan Fredrik Skottsberg (1880-1963), Swedish botanist and explorer of Antarctica, conservator at the Uppsala University Botanical Museum 1909 to 1914, appointed professor and director of the Göteborg Botanical Garden in 1919, member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses)

slackii: for Adrian Slack (c.1934- ), British landscape architect originally of Russian extraction, well known carnivorous plant grower, and author of Carnivorous Plants (2000) and Insect-Eating Plants and How To Grow Them (2006).

sladeniana/sladenii: for William Percy Sladen (1849-1900), British biologist and naturalist who specialized in starfish, and/or his wife Constance Anderson (1848-1906). They established the Percy Sladen Memorial Trust to fund expeditions. His name is given as either William or Walter. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

smalliana: for Bill Small, Forest Officer at Cobham Forest Station at the southern end of uKhahlamba Drakens-berg Park in KwaZulu-Natal, and his wife Alta, who gave great assistance to the plant authors Hilliard and Burtt in their collecting in the southern Drakensberg, commemorated with Trachyandra smalliana. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Smithia/smithiana: for Sir James Edward Smith (1759-1828), British botanist and physician, Fellow of the Royal Society, a founder and first President of the Linnean Society of London, prolific writer. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

smithiana (Vernonia): for Christen Smith (1785-1816). (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

smithiae: for Matilda Smith (1854-1926), botanical illustrator.

smithii: for (1) Gerald Graham Smith (1892-1976), engineer, amateur botanist, plant collector in South Africa and student of Haworthia (Ceropegia), or (2) C.A. Smith (possibly South African botanist Christo Albertyn Smith 1898-1956) plant collector in South Africa in 1927 (Salsola). Given the commonness of the name there may have been other Smiths. Gunn & Codd list five others but they may not have been so honored.

smitii: for Jacob Smit, teacher at Oudtshoorn.(David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

smutsii: for Jan Christiaan Smuts (1870-1950), South African statesman, soldier, philisopher and amateur botanist who rose to the position of Prime Minister of South Africa. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses)

smythae: for Mrs. D. Smythe (fl. 1926). (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

snijmaniae: for Dr. Deirdré (Dee) Anne Snijman (1949- ), South African botanist, an officer at the Compton Herbarium, worked at Kirstenbosch, travelled and collected extensively with Pauline Perry, married to Colin Paterson-Jones, a superb professional natural history photographer and writer with a special interest in southern Africa’s wildflowers.

snowdenii: for Joseph Davenport Snowden (1886-1973), English-born Ugandan economic botanist, plant collector and mycologist, member of the gardening staff at Kew Gardens, author of The Cultivated Races of Sorghum. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses)

sodenii: probably for Freiherr Julius von Soden (1846-1941), Governor of German East Africa. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Soliva: for Salvador Soliva, 18th century Spanish botanist and medical practitioner, physician to the Spanish court. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

sonderana/sonderi/sonderiana/sonderianum/Sonderina/Sonderothamnus: for Otto Wilhelm Sonder (1812-1881), German botanist and pharmacist , author with William Henry Harvey of the first three volumes of the 7-volume Flora Capensis. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

sonneratianum: for Pierre Sonnerat (1745-1814), French naturalist and draughtsman. (Elsa Pooley)

sousae: for António de Figueiredo Gomes e Sousa (1896-1973), Portuguese botanist and plant collector.

southii: this is odd because one JSTOR specimen record for Crassula southii says it was collected by a B. South in 1893 while another for the same year has the collector's name listed as B. Souter. Probably just an error by the person who typed up the specimen record. The actual name is Benjamin Herbert South (1861-1914) and he lived and died at Grahamstown, Western Cape. He worked in diamond mining in Kimberly as a youth, then became a seedsman and nurseryman. He died after the amputation of his leg following an accident in which a wagon wheel rolled across his leg. (RootsWeb; David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

spachiana/spachianus: for Edouard Spach (1801-1879), French botanist who worked at the Jardin des Roi in Paris. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Sparrmannia/sparmannii: for Anders Sparrmann (1748-1820), Swedish botanist and physician, traveler, pupil of Linnaeus, doctor on Cook's second expedition on the Resolution, was with Thunberg in South Africa. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Spielmannia: for Jakob Reinhold Spielmann (1722-1783), German botanist and physician, pharmacist and traveler. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

splitgerberi: there was a Frederick Louis Splitgerber (1801-1845) who I think was a Dutch botanist and had the genus Splitgerbera named for him, so that may be the derivation here. The genus was published in 1840 by Friedrich Anton Wilhelm Miquel who was a Dutch botanist and head of the botanical gardens at Rotterdam (1835–1846), Amsterdam (1846–1859) and Utrecht (1859–1871), so it would seem logical that he would name the genus for a fellow Dutchman.

Sponia: presumably for Jacob (Jacques) Spon (1647-1685), French physician, traveller. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

spragueanum: possibly for Thomas Archibald Sprague (1877-1958), Scottish botanist, plant collector on expeditions to Venezuela, Columbia and the Canary Islands, together with Daniel Oliver published Flora of Tropical Africa. The taxon in southern Africa that has this specific epithet is Viscum spragueanum.

sprengelii: for (1) Anton Sprengel (1803-1851), German botanist, or (2) Kurt (Curt) Polycarp Joachim Sprengel (1766-1833), Anton's father, for whom the genus Sprengelia was named. Clifford and Bostock have this name commemorating Kurt Sprengel.

sprengeri (Richardia): I think but am not certain that this is named for Carl (Charles) Ludwig Sprenger (1846-1917), German botanist . The JSTOR website refers to Richardia sprengelii being cultivated by a Mr. Sprenger of Naples, in 1902. He was an enthusiastic plant collecter and had his own nursery, which tragically was buried by the ash from a 1905 eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. In 1907 he became the supervisor of Kaiser Wilhelm's garden on the island of Corfu. He was completely deaf.

Staavia: for a particular Martin Staaf, correspondent of Linnaeus in 1772. (JSTOR, CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Staberoha: apparently for one H. Staberoh, a chemist who wrote a phamaceutical book in 1829; further details unknown (Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.)

Stadmannia: for Jean Frederic Stadtmann (1762-1807), physician, botanist and painter. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

stainbankiae: for Eliza Munro (Mrs. Henry Ellerton Stainbank) (collected around 1885). She was the wife of Henry Ellerton Stainbank (1836-1915) who came to South Africa from England with his brother Dering Lee Warner Stainbank (?-1907) and settled in Natal. The Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturists has the following entry for Henry Ellerton Stainbank: "To Natal, 1855. Merchant and coffee planter. He and his wife occasionally sent plants to Kew. Member of Committee of Durban Botanic Garden." He is listed as having gotten married in 1858. Dering's son Kenneth's name is memorialized on the Kenneth Stainbank Nature Reserve, one of the finest in the Durban area.

stalmansii: for Marc Stalmans, PhD botany student at Witwatersrand University.

standleyanus: possibly for Paul Carpenter Standley (1884-1963), American Amaranth authority.

stanfordiae: for Kate Canova Stanford (1881-1952), British-born plant collector who came to South Africa and started a nursery near Stellenbosch which was one of the first to specialize in indigenous plants.

Stangeria: Stangeria was first described by Kunze in 1836 from a sterile specimen collected by Drège. It was misidentified as a fern. Dr. William Stanger (1811-1854), an Inspecting Engineer and first Surveyor-General of Natal, sent a live plant to England and in 1851 it coned, which revealed its true identity. It was named by Moore in 1853 as Stangeria paradoxa; however, in 1892, Baillard resurrected Kunze`s specific name eriopus. Stangeria eriopus is the only member of the family Stangeriaceae. The generic name honors Dr. Stanger. (PlantzAfrica)

stanleyi: for (1) the Earl of Derby, Edward Smith Stanley (1799-1869), English statesman, three times Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and to date the longest serving leader of the Conservative Party. It was in his employ that Joseph Burke went to South Africa on collecting expeditions, commemorated with Clematopsis stanleyi, or (2) Victor Stanley Peers (1874-1940), Australian civil servant, conservationist, amateur archeologist and plant collector (Chasmatophyllum). (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Stapelia: for Johannes van Stapel, a 17th century physician and botanist who published drawings and descriptions of the first Stapeliae discovered (Orbea variegata). (PlantzAfrica)

stapfiana/stapfianum/stapfianus: for Otto Stapf (1857-1933), Austrian-born British botanist. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses)

starkeae: for Letitia Marie Starke, plant collector in South Africa, teacher of outdoor nature study classes at Kirstenbosch Gardens, commemorated with Watsonia starkeae and Glottiphyllum starkeae.

starkiana: for a Prof. Peter Stark (fl. 1934), about whom I have no information.. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

stayneri/Stayneria: for Frank J. Stayner (1907-1981), South African horticulturist, specialist on succulent plants, assistant Superintendent of Parks in the Port Elizabeth Parks Department 1935-1946, Curator of the Karoo Botanic Gardens at Worcester 1959-1969. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

steetziana/steetzii: possibly for Joachim Steetz (1804-1862), German botanist.

stegmannianum: for a Mr. and Mrs. F. Stegman on whose farm 'Kruidfontein' the holotype of Conophytum stegmannianum was found by South African plant collector Philip Albert Brand van Breda. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; JSTOR)

steineri: for Julius Steiner (1844-1918), Austrian lichenologist. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

steingroeverii: for Wilhelm Josef Steingröver (Steingroever) (?-1886), German natural historian who left Hamburg for Cape Town at the age of 26 and disappeared on an expedition to the Orange River to look for mineral deposits. He drowned with Franz Adolf Eduard Lüderitz either in the Orange River or at sea off the Orange River mouth.

stentiae/stentiana: for Sydney Margaret Stent (1875-1942), South African botanist and agrostologist who collected in South Africa and Zimbabwe. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses)

Stephania: for Christian Friedrich Stephan (1757-1814), German botanist, professor of chemistry and botany at Moscow, Director of Forestry Institute at St. Petersburg. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

stephanii: for Franz Stephani (1842-1927), author of Species Hepaticarum in six volumes, a monographic enumeration of all liverworts known at the time, along with Icones Hepaticarum, which consisted of pencil drawings of more than 9,000 species. He became a world authority on liverworts although he only pursued his scientific interest in his spare time, being professionally a salesman.
 
stephensiae: for Edith Layard Stephens (1884-1966), South African botanist, lecturer in botany at the University of Cape Town, known for her two illustrated booklets on poisonous and edible, was awarded a grant by the Cape Tercentenary Foundation which she used to buy a piece of land called Isoetes Vlei which she donated to the National Botanic Garden and is know called the Edith Stephens Cape Flats Flora Reserve. (Gunn & Codd)

Sterculia: apparently after Sterculius, the Roman god of privies and manure. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

sternbergianum: for Count Kaspar Moritz von Sternberg of Prague (1761-1838), author of the first German essay of a Geognostic-Botanical Description of the Antediluvian Flora (1825), or Caspar (Kaspar) Maria von Sternberg of Prague, Bohemian theologian, mineralogist, geognost, entomologist and botanist who established the Bohemian National Museum in Prague and is deemed to be the founder of modern paleobotany. It is very likely that these references are to the same person.

Steudelia (Molluginaceae): possibly named for German botanist and physician Ernst Gottlieb von Steudel (1783-1856), chief state physician for the Kingdom of Württemberg, author of Nomenclator botanicus in 2 vols. (1821-1824), listing of more than 3300 genera and nearly 40,000 species, and co-author with Christian Ferdinand Hochstetter of Enumeratio plantarum Germaniae (1826) and Synopsis planterum glumacearum in 2 vols. (1853-1855). (Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.)

steudneri: for Hermann Steudner (1822-1863), German physician, explorer and plant collector who worked in Ethiopia and Eritrea. (Elsa Pooley)

stevens-jonesianum: for William (Bill) Stevens-Jones of Liverpool, dates probably 1908-1976. In 1948 he was honorary secretary and treasurer of the Liverpool Cactus and Succulent Club, which later became part of the National Cactus and Succulent Society of which he acted as chairman. Louisa Bolus named Conophytum stevens-jonesianum in his honor in 1964. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; A History of the Liverpool Branch of the British Cactus and Succulent Society)

stewartae/stewartiae: for Mabel M. Stewart (fl. 1910-1911) who collected in Swaziland.

steyniae: the JSTOR website has a specimen record of Oedera steyniae being collected by a J.G. Steyn in South Africa in 1904, and there is a Hester Steyn who worked or works at the National Herbarium, Pretoria and was the co-author of South African Wildflower Guide No. 10: Cedarberg. Per pers. comm. with Hester Steyn, no relation between the two, and the taxa is probably named for J.G. Steyn.

steytlerae: for Miss J.W. Steytler (fl. 1928-1940), secretary of the National Botanic Garden at Kirstenbosch. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names, Women and Cacti)

Stirtonanthus/stirtonii: for Charles Howard Stirton (1946- ), South African botanist, associate professor of botany University of Natal, botanist and Deputy Director at Kew Gardens, National Botanical Garden of Wales, senior resident fellow at University of Birmingham.

Stoeberia: for the late Mr. E. Stoeber from Luderitz.

stohriae: possibly for a Mrs. Stohr (née Elsa Maude Stanley Hall) (1877-1976), Australian-born concert pianist and wife of Otto Frederick Stohr (originally Stöhr or Stoehr) (1871-1946), medical practitioner in Zambia, keen ornithologist and occasional plant collector in Zambia and the Transvaal. She was the author of an autobiography entitled The Good Die Young, published in 1969. She did not die young and was in her 100th year at the time of her death. The taxon in southern Africa with this specific epithet is (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; Australian Dictionary of Biography)

Stokoeanthus/stokoei: for Thomas Pearson Stokoe (1868-1959), artist and plant collector, a Yorkshireman who emigrated to South Africa in 1911. Nivenia stokoei was only properly documented in 1924, after it was collected by T.P. Stokoe who collected numerous specimens in the Kogelberg, many of which were named after him, including the now extinct Mimetes stokoei. His ashes are scattered near Stokoe's Bridge in the Kogelberg Reserve. His long career included both plant collecting and mountaineering, and he discovered many high-altitude plants. (Cape Nature website, Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names, CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

stoltzii/stolzii: for Adolf Ferdinand Stolz (1871-1917), German missionary and merchant, plant collector in Angola and Malawi who specialized in orchids. (JSTOR; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

straussiana: for Obergartner Strauss, Berlin gardener. (Elsa Pooley)

streetiae: for Mrs. Sarah Street (fl. 1867-1892), plant collector in Madagascar, commemorated with Cheilanthes streetiae.

Strelitzia: for Queen Sophia Charlotte, the wife of George the 3rd of England. She was a princess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, hence the genus name Strelitzia. Strelitzia reginae arrived in England in 1733. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

streyana/streyi/streyianus: for Rudolf Georg Strey (1907-1988), German farmer and botanist of the Natal Herbarium and the National Botanical Research Institute in Durban. (PlantzAfrica, Elsa Pooley)

strubeniae: for Miss Edith Struben (1936- ), gardener and artist in South Africa, member of the Botanical Society of South Africa. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

stuhlmannii: for Franz Ludwig Stuhlmann (1863-1928), German army officer and naturalist from Hamburg, director of the Biological-Agricultural Institute at Hamburg (1903), then secretary of the Colonial Institute (1908) and eventually director of the Weltwirtschaftinstitut in Hamburg. He collected extensively in Africa and later in India, Sri Lanka and the British and Dutch East Indies (1900-1901).

Sturmia: for Jacob Sturm (1771-1848), German engraver, naturalist and botanical artist, who was also honored with genera named for him in the Rubiaceae and Poaceae. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

stylesii: for David G.A. Styles, South African botanist, commemorated with Plectranthus stylesi, only known from material collected by him during a joint botanical expedition to the Lupatana River Gorge in the Eastern Cape. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

suckertii: for E. Suckert (fl. 1930-1933), plant collector.

Suessenguthiella/suessenguthii: for Karl Suessenguth (1893-1955), German botanist, professor of botany at the University of München, Curator of the Botanische Staatssammlung (a natural history collection in Munich). (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Susanna: for Mrs. Susan Phillips, née Kriel, second wife to South African botanist Edwin Percy Phillips (1884-1967). (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

susannae: for (1) Susanna Amelia Koekemoer (née Kruger) (1939- ), mother of Dr. Marinda Koekemoer. She joined her daughter on many collecting trips, and was honored by her when Dr. Koekemoer published the name Amphiglossa susannae, or (2) Suzanne Lavranos (fl. 1962), former wife of succulent plant collector John Jacob Lavranos (1926- ) (Crassula).

Sutera: for Johann Rudolf Suter (1766-1827), Swiss botanist and physician, professor of philosophy and Greek at Berne. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Sutherlandia: for James Sutherland (1639-1719), Scottish botanist, King's Botanist for Scotland, first Superintendent of the Royal Botanical Gardens and professor of botany at Edinburgh, and author of Hortus medicus edinburgensis. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

sutherlandii: for Peter Cormack Sutherland (1822–1900), a medical doctor from Aberdeen, Scotland, who was the Surveyor-General of Natal in 1855; he made many plant collections during his term of office. He was also the first person to send specimens of the tree to England. He is commemorated with Argyrolobium sutherlandii, Greyia sutherlandii, Begonia sutherlandii, Vernonia sutherlandii and the former Hebestretia sutherlandi, now synonymized to H. dura. There are other taxa with this specific epithet in Delosperma, Lotononis, Millettia, Cryptocarya, Lobelia, Helichrysum and Philenoptera, and since P.C. Sutherland is the only one of that name on the JSTOR list of plant collectors in Africa, it is my unconfirmed assumption that they are all named for him. But there are other Sutherlands on the HUH list of botanists, so this may not true in every case. (PlantzAfrica; David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

suttoniae: for a Miss Sutton (fl. 1966) with no further information. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

swanepoelii : for Jac Swanepoel (fl. 1971), owner of San Marina Nursery, Joostenbergvlakte, RSA.

Swartzia/swartzii: for Olof Peter Swartz (1760-1818), Swedish botanist, taxonomist and physician, the first specialist in orchid taxonomy. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Swertia: for Emanuel Swert (1552-1612), Dutch herbalist, florist, cultivator of bulbs, author. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

swinnyi: for either (or both) H.H. Swinny (1876-1958), British-born South African plant collector with the Forestry Department, also collected butterflies, birds and small mammals in Tanzania, or A. Swinny, both of whom are listed on the JSTOR specimen record as having collected Bersama swinnyi in the Port St. Johns area of South Africa in 1914, and thus are presumed to be related. (Gunn & Codd)

swynnertonii: for Charles Francis Massey Swynnerton (1877-1938), Indian-born African farmer and biologist, plant collector in Zimbabwe. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses)

sykesii: probably for an F.W. Sykes, plant collector in Zambia and Mozambique around 1905.

symonsii: for Roden E. Symons (1884-c.1974), South African game warden, naturalist and plant collector.

Synnotia: for Captain Walter Synnot (1773-1851), Irish plant collector at the Cape of Good Hope. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)