-
Cichor'ium: the Latinized version of an Arabic
name for one species of this genus from the Greek kichore,
which usually carries a common name of chicory or endive. The genus Cichorium was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called chicory.
-
Cicu'ta: an ancient Latin name for poison hemlock. The genus Cicuta has been called water-hemlock and was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
-
cicutar'ium:
refers to the leaves which resemble those of Cicuta, the
ancient Latin name for poison hemlock.
-
cilianen'sis: Gledhill says of or from Ciliani in northern Italy, and it may well mean that for certain species, but for the species Eragrostis cilianensis, SEINet says "Cilianensis refers to the hairs along the leaf margins," and this seems more likely.
-
ciliar'e/ciliar'is: edged or rimmed with hairs, from Latin ciliaris and cilium, "eyelid or eyelash."
-
cilia'ta/cilia'tum/cilia'tus: see ciliare.
-
cilino'dis: with finely hairy nodes. Presumably cilinodis and cilinodus mean the same, and derive from the same Latin cilium, "hair," and nodus, "node," referring to the fringe of hairs at each vegetative node.
-
Cimicifu'ga: from Latin cimex, "a bug," and fugo, "to drive away," from the use of one of the species as an insect repellant. The genus Cimicifuga was published by Johann Jacob Wernischeck in 1763.
-
ciner'ea: ashy-gray, from the Latin cinis, “ashes," usually eferring to the foliage.
-
Cin'na: from the Greek kinna, a name for a kind of grass. Wiktionary says likely from Etruscan. There is very little information on the internet regarding this generic epithet, but a website called NameDoctor says "The name Cinna is a Shakespearean name. In ancient Rome, one Cinna was the father-in-law of Julius Caesar and another was a conspirator against Caesar. Cinna's literary fame was established by his magnum opus Zmyrna, a mythological epic poem focused on the incestuous love of Smyrna (or Myrrha) for her father Cinyras, treated after the erudite and allusive manner of the Alexandrian poets. He was a friend of Catullus. When the Zmyrna was completed in about 55 BC Catullus hailed it as a great achievement, nine harvests and nine winters in the making." The genus Cinna was published in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus and is called woodreed.
-
cinnamo'mea/cinnamo'meum: brown like cinnamon for the fertile fronds which appear in early spring but quickly turn brown.
-
cinno'ides: resembling genus Cinna.
-
Circae'a: named for Circe (pronounced sir-see),
the enchantress of Greek mythology. According to a website called
Characters of Greek Mythology, Circe is the daughter of Helios,
the Sun God, and Perse. She was a powerful witch who had no love for
mortals. Initially, she was married to a king and poisoned him in
hopes of taking over the kingdom. But, she was banished from the city
and went to live on the Island of Dawn, Aeaea. She is best known from
The Odyssey where she turned Odysseus' men into animals with a magic
potion. Of course, the gods helped Odysseus, and Hermes was sent to
give him an herb that would make him immune to Circe's magic. She eventually
agreed to turn his men back, but only on the condition that Odysseus
sleep with her. Then she warned him of the perils in the next part
of his journey. Odysseus and Penelope's son, Telemachus, is said to
have married her. The genus Circaea was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called enchanter's nightshade.
-
Cir'sium: derived from the Greek kirsion,
"a kind of thistle," in turn from kirsos, "a
swollen vein or welt," because thistles were often used as a
remedy against such things. The genus Cirsium was published by Philip Miller in 1754 and is called thistle.
-
cis-: a prefix meaning "on this side," e.g. cismontane, on this side of the mountain.
-
cisatlan'ticum: of, relating to, or characteristic of the side of the Atlantic Ocean regarded as the near side, as opposed to transatlantic.
-
Citrul'lus: the Latin diminutive of Citrus, possessing a similar
odor and flavor. The genus Citrullus was published by Heinrich Adolph Schrader in 1836.
-
Cit'rus: Stearn says "Latin name for the citron (Citrus medica), the fruit of which was substituted in ancient Jewish ritual for the cone of the cedar (Cedrus libani) which had detested associations with Bacchus (Dionysos), but applied by Linnaeus and earlier authors to the whole genus which includes, oranges, lemons, limes and grapefuit."
-
Cla'dium: from the Greek kladion, "a small branch or branchlet" or klados, "a branch," referring to the highly branched inflorescences. The genus Cladium was published in 1756 by Patrick Browne and is called sawgrass or twig-rush.
-
clandesti'num/clandesti'nus: private, furtive, concealed, hidden, secret, from the Latin clandestīnus, "secret, concealed,” from clam, "secretly," from adverbial derivative of base of celare, "to hide," in turn from Proto-Indo-European root kel-, "to cover, conceal, save."
-
clau'sa: closed, shut, enclosed, from Latin claudo, "to shut." The species Gentiana clausa is sometimes called the closed gentian.
-
cla'va-her'culis: Hercules' club, from Latin clava, "club," and herculis referring to Hercules whose favorite weapon was a large gnarled wooden club. Native Americans and early settlers reportedly chewed the bark and leaves of this tree as a toothache remedy (oils produce a tingling/numbing sensation in the mouth), hence the additional common names of toothache tree, tingle tongue and pepperbark.
-
clava'tum: "club-shaped" from the Latin clava, "club."
-
clavella'ta: shaped like a small club.
-
Clayton'ia: see next entry. The genus Claytonia was published by Carl Linneus in 1753 and is called spring beauty.
-
claytonia'na/clayto'nii: named for John Clayton (1694-1773), Clerk to the County Court of Gloucester County, Virginia from 1720
until his death, one of the earliest collectors of plant specimens
in that state, and described as the greatest American botanist of
his day, who supplied materials for an 18th century flora of Virginia
called Flora Virginica (published 1739-1743) by Jan Frederik Gronovius.
Clayton conscienciously and systematically took samples of everything he
encountered, and sent them to Mark Catesby at Oxford, who in turn
sent them to Gronovius in Leiden, Holland, where they were examined
by Linnaeus. He was also the attorney general for the colony of Virginia.
He did not publish much himself but his specimens were of considerable
taxonomic and nomenclatural significance, and Gronovius based his
work at least in part on a manuscript by Clayton. Since his were some
of the first North American specimens studied by Linnaeus, many were
type specimens for Linnaean names. The specimens that were studied
by Gronovius were bought by Sir Joseph Banks and subsequently passed
to the British Museum (now the Natural History Museum) in London,
where they have recently (1988-1990) been separated from the main
collection and curated as the Clayton collection. 1686 has often been
given as his date of birth rather than 1694, but this is the date
used by the John Clayton Herbarium of the Natural History Museum of
London. He was also honored with the genus name Claytonia.
-
Cleis'tes: FNA says from the Greek kleistos, "closed," alluding to the lip and petals that diverge only near the apex, forming a tube for most of their length, the flower thus appearing closed. The genus Cleistes was published by John Lindley in 1840 after a previous publication by Louis Claude Marie Richard in 1840 was ruled illegitimate, and the common name of this former genus was rosebud orchid or small-spreading pogonia.
-
Cleistesiop'sis: resembling genus Cleistes. The genus Cheistesiopsis was published in 2009 by Emerson Ricardo Pansarin and Fábio de Barros, and it has the same common names that Cleistes had.
-
Clem'atis: in Greek means "long, lithe
branches" and is an ancient name for some climbing plant. The genus Clematis was published in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus and is called leatherflower, virgin's-bower or just clematis.
-
clemati'tis: with long vine-like branches.
-
Cleo'me: an ancient name of some mustard-like
plant. Flora of North America says: "Origin obscure, perhaps from Greek kleos, "glory," or after Kleo, Greek muse of history, first used by Priscian, fourteenth-century medical writer. The genus Cleome has ben called spider flowers, spider plants, spider weeds, or bee plants, and was published in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus.
-
Cleth'ra: from Greek klethra, "alder," alluding to the resemblance of its leaves to alder. The genus Clethra has been called pepperbush, white-alder and clethra, and was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
-
clinopo'dia: see Clinopodium.
-
clinopodio'ides: resembling genus Clinopodium.
-
Clinopo'dium: possibly from the Greek klino, "to slope or recline, to lean, bed" and podos or podios, "a foot, one foot, little foot." The Jepson Manual gives the meaning as "savory," but this might be because that is one of the common names for members of the genus, formerly Satureja. Gledhill says "Bed-foot (Dioscorides' name for the knob-shaped appearance of the inflorescence.)" The genus Clinopodium was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called calamint.
-
Clinton'ia: named for DeWitt Clinton (1769-1828), naturalist, state legislator, U.S. senator, Mayor of New York City, and
 |
|
7th Governor of New York. Known chiefly for his role in the construction of the Erie Canal, also known as "Clinton's Ditch," he was also a keen naturalist and is credited with having discovered a native American wheat species. He was extremely interested in humanitarian and philanthropic causes, as is demonstrated by his role as the primary organizer of the Public School Society of New York City, the chief patron of the New York Orphan Asylum and the New York City Hospital, the founder of the New York Historical Society, a founding member of the Literature and Philosophy Society, the second |
president of the American Academy of Art, and the vice president of the American Bible Society and the Educational Society of the Presbyterian Church. He was born in Little Britain, New York, and attended Kingston Academy and began his college studies at what was then called the College of New Jersey (now Princeton) before transferring to King's College (which was renamed Columbia College while he was a student there.) He was the nephew of George Clinton, two-time Vice-President of the United States, and first Governor of New York, the brother of U.S. Representative George Clinton, Jr., and the half-brother of U.S. Representative James Clinton. He was a delegate to the New York State Constitutional Convention in 1801, and was introduced to politics as the secretary for his uncle George Clinton who was then the Governor of New York. He went on to being a member of the New York State Assembly, and then was elected to the State Senate before being appointed to the U. S. Senate in 1802 to fill a vacancy. He resigned this office in 1803 to become Mayor of New York City, a position which he held from 1803 to 1807, from 1809 to 1810, and again from 1811 to 1815. From 1810 to 1824 he was one of the earliest members of the Erie Canal Commission, and after he took office as Governor of New York in 1817, he was largely responsible for its construction. When the canal was finished in 1825, Clinton opened it and traveled in the packet boat Seneca Chief along the canal to Buffalo. After riding from the mouth of Lake Erie to New York City, he emptied two casks of water from Lake Erie into New York Harbor to celebrate the first connection of waters from the East with waters from the West. The canal was an immense success, carrying large numbers of passengers and a huge amount of freight traffic. The cost of moving freight between Buffalo and Albany fell from $100 to $10 per ton, and the state was able to quickly recoup the funds that it had spent on the project by collecting tolls along the canal. He was reelected Governor in 1820 and served until 1822 when he wasn’t renominated. He maintained his position on the Canal Commission and oversaw the design and eventual construction of the 363-mile long Erie Canal which provided easier access than was then possible for Eastern commerce from the Atlantic to inland areas such as Ohio, Illinois and Indiana. He was elected Governor of New York four times and heavily influenced the development of infrastructure both in New York State and in the United States as a whole. In 1824 his opponents in the New York State legislature voted for his removal from the Canal Commission, which caused such a wave of indignation among the electorate that he was nominated for governor by the People's Party and was re-elected governor, defeating the official candidate of the Democratic-Republican Party, his fellow Canal Commissioner Samuel Young. He served another two terms until his sudden death in office. He ran once unsuccessfully for President in the election of 1812 against James Madison. Thomas Jefferson and De Witt Clinton exchanged a number of letters and even gifts between 1802 and 1825. Jefferson admired the Erie Canal project greatly, writing that "N. York has anticipated by a full century the ordinary progress of improvement." Clinton himself had authored the gift that Jefferson’s note acknowledged, a widely respected publication entitled Letters on the natural history and internal resources of the State of New York, chock full of scientific information. The book analyzed New York’s natural wealth and potential for development and prosperity, featured detailed geological descriptions, and included reports of previously undocumented plant, bird, and fish species in New York. Clinton had gathered notes and observations a dozen years earlier, while serving on the Canal commission. The intervening years provided tantalizing support for Clinton’s conviction that scientific knowledge of the land and its resources could work hand in hand with infrastructure improvements to transform American life and drive economic growth. Clinton was a Freemason and was elected Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of New York. He was essential in establishing the Grand Encampment of Knights Templar in the United States and served as its first, second, and third Grand Master from 1816 to 1828. He was a director of New York's earliest savings bank established to serve laborers and the poor, the Bank for Savings in the City of New York. Clinton accomplished much as a leader in civic and state affairs, such as improving the New York public school system, encouraging steam navigation, and modifying the laws governing criminals and debtors, but when he died suddenly of heart failure in Albany on February 11, 1828, he left his family in poor financial condition. While he was a fine administrator in government, he had handled his own financial affairs rather poorly. As a result, the Clinton family was badly in debt and had no means of support after the governor's death or money to properly bury him, so for 16 years his remains were placed in the family vault of Dr. Samuel Stringer, an old friend and fellow Mason, until sufficient funds were collected to have him reinterred. During his lifetime his name was usually spelled De Witt. The genus Clintonia was published by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque in 1818 and is called bluebead lily or simply clintonia.
-
clintonia'na: named for George William Clinton (1807-1885), lawyer, politician, judge, author, and amateur naturalist. He was the son of DeWitt Clinton, naturalist and Mayor of New York City, U.S. Senator, Governor of New York and "Father of the Erie Canal.". George William was Mayor of Buffalo 1842-1843, a U.S. District Attorney, and a state court judge in 1854. He grew up in Albany, New York, and attended Albany Academy, graduating from Hamilton College in 1825 and Norwich University in 1827. In 1828, he attended the Litchfield Law School and then completed his legal studies with Judge Ambrose Spencer and was admitted to the bar in 1831. From 1838 to 1842 he was Collector of Customs at Buffalo. JSTOR provides the following: "He co-founded the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences, where he lectured on botany and geology, and was elected as its first president from 1861-1881. During the American Civil War (1861-1865), G.W. Clinton was a vocal supporter of the Union and gave speeches supporting President Lincoln. When peace returned, Clinton was appointed to various positions within the University at Buffalo becoming Vice-Chancellor in 1881. In the following year, the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences dedicated his plant collections as the Clinton Herbarium, to become one of the earliest established herbaria in the United States. Clinton was one of those rarest of individuals, a politically effective advocate of natural history; he was instrumental in the appointment of Charles Horton Peck as State Botanist in 1883. Clinton's interest in botany continued throughout his life and is evident from diary obervations that he made from as early as 1826, accompanying his father on the newly completed Erie canal. George William Clinton died on 7 November 1807 while walking through a cemetery in Albany. He was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery (a place that his office had set apart as consecrated ground in 1850) still clutching a piece of clover that he was holding when he died." He was the author of Catalogue of the Native and Naturalized Plants of the City of Buffalo and its Vicinity published in 1882. From 1856 until his death he was a Regent of the University of the State of New York and became Vice Chancellor of the Board. He was married to Laura Catherine Spencer and had seven children.
-
Clitor'ia: from the Greek kleitoris, "clitoris," which refers to the shape of the flower resembling the female genitalia. Gledhill says the name is analogous to the legume in its persistent flower parts. The genus Clitoria was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called butterfly pea.
-
Cni'cus: various etymologies have been noted. Stearn says a Latin name of the safflower, from
Greek knekos, "a thistle," but the A. Vogel plant encyclopedia says "Cnicus is derived from the Greek word knizein, which means ‘to torment’ and refers to the plant's thorns." Gledhill attributes it to the name of a thistle used in dyeing, and Merriam-Webster says "New Latin, from Latin cnicus, cnecus, "safflower," from Greek knēkos, "safflower, thistle, yellow." The genus Cnicus was published in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus.
-
Cnidosco'lus: derived from the Greek words knide, "nettle," and skolops, "thorn or prickle, pointed stake." The species Cnidoscolus stimulosus has been called bull nettle, spurge nettle, tread-softly and finger rot, and is a perennial herb covered with stinging hairs. The genus Cnidoscolus was published by Johann Baptist Emanuel Pohl in 1827.
-
coactil'is: derivation uncertain. Gledhill says "growing densely, crowded." But in an article about the Australian orchid species Caladenia coactilis, Wikipedia says "The specific epithet (coactilis) is a Latin word meaning "made thick," referring to the thickness of many of the organs of this orchid." And other sources give the meaning as "thick-fulled cloth or felt."
-
coarcta'ta/coarcta'tum: pressed or crowded together, from Latin coarctatus, perfect participle of coarcto, “to press together, compress, contract, confine,” from co-, “being or bringing together,” and arcto, “to draw or press close together.”
-
coccin'ea/coccineus: scarlet or bright, deep
pink, from the Latin word coccineus which means "scarlet" or "crimson," from the Latin coccum derived from Ancient Greek κόκκος, and usually translated as berry, but referring specifically to the gall of the Kermes Oak (Quercus coccifera), used in the past to create a scarlet dye.
-
Coc'culus: from the Latin cocculus, a diminutive of Latin coccum and Greek kokkos, a berry, in allusion to the scarlet fruits of these evergreen climbers or shrubs. The genus Cocculus was published by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle in 1817 and is called coralbead or snailseed.
-
cochinchinen'sis: of or from the region of what used to be called Cochinchina, which either referred to the whole of Vietnam or only the southern part.
-
coeles'tinum: from the Latin coelestinus for sky blue or heavenly.
-
Coeloglos'sum: from the Greek koilos, meaning "hollow," and glossa, meaning "tongue," together meaning "hollow tongue" in reference to the short, sac-like nectar spur on the flower. The genus Coeloglossum was published by Carl Johan Hartman in 1829 and is called frog orchid or long-bracteate orchid. The 'frog' in frog orchid refers to the shape and colour of the flowers.
-
Coelora'chis: hollow rachis, from the Greek koilos or koilon, meaning "hollow or cavity," and rachis for "axis," referring to the concave depressions along the inflorescence axis. Sometimes this genus is confused with the differently-spelled Coelorhachis, but that genus is outdated and invalid. The genus Coelorachis was published by Adolphe Brongniart in 1831 and is called jointgrass.
-
coerules'cens: bluish, becoming blue, from the Latin coeruleus, 'blue.'
-
cogna'ta: closely related to, from Latin cognatus, “related by blood," from cum, “with,” and natus, “born.”
-
Coin'cya: named for Auguste Henri Cornut de la Fontaine la Fontaine de Coincy (1837-1903), French botanist who specialized in the Spanish flora and collected specimens from Morocco. He was the author of Ecloga plantarum hispanicarum, a five-part series on Spanish flora published from 1893 to 1901, and several papers involving the botanical genus Echium. He was particularly interested in the Nature Park of the Montgó Massif which he visited between 1889 and 1890. He was a member of the Botanical Society of France. An award issued by the Société botanique de France for excellence in taxonomic research was established in his name, along with the genus Coincya published in 1891 by French botanist Georges Rouy.
-
-cola/-colus: a suffix signifying "an inhabitant of or dweller
in," from Latin incola, "an inhabitant", e.g.
deserticola, "dwelling in the desert", monticola, "dwelling
in the mountains", saxicola, "growing among rocks",
serpentinicola, "living on serpentine soils," arenicola, "dwelling in or on sand."
-
Coleataen'ia: from Greek koleos for "sheath" and tainia for "ribbon or band." The genus Coleataenia was published by August Heinrich Rudolf Grisebach in 1879 and is one of the genera called panic grass. Panicum is also called panic grass and the term panic grass apparently refers to their dense flower clusters called panicles.
-
col'lina: pertaining to hills, hill-loving. Name almost certainly derives from or is related to Collina, goddess of the hills. One source, the Obscure Goddess Online Directory, refers to the name Collatina, Goddess of Hills and Downs, and says "A variant of Her name, Collina, shares its name with one of the four earliest regions of Rome. The two major hills which formed the Collina region, the Viminal and the Quirinal, were the only two of the seven major hills which were commonly designated collis ('hill', 'mound', or 'ridge') rather than mons ('mountain', 'huge rock'), though the Capitoline, the smallest of the seven, could occasionally be called collis."
-
Collin'sia/collins'ii: named for Zaccheus Collins (1764-1831), a minerologist, botanist, merchant, plant collector and
 |
|
herbarium owner from Philadelphia, Vice-President of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, and an authority on the lower plants. He was a correspondent of John Torrey, Thomas Nuttall, George Engleman, Alexander von Humboldt, Eli Ives, Jacob Bigelow, Henry Muhlenberg, and Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, and was frequently consulted by other botanists although he appears to have never published anything himself. He was also Director of the Library Company of Philadelphia founded by Benjamin Franklin. He was born into a Quaker family in Lynn, Massachusetts, and engaged in business |
in Marblehead before going to Philadelphia. He was an avid collector and his herbarium contained a nearly complete collection of the plants from the vicinity of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He also received specimens from correspondents particularly from South Carolina and Georgia, but also from Arkansas, Missouri, and the Mississippi River area and westward. He was especially interested in cryptogamic plants (organisms that do not produce seeds and include algae, fungi, mosses, and ferns). He died after spending more than six months incapacitated by paralysis. Thomas Nutall honored him by naming Collinsia for him in 1817 which was described “to have been a sort of lifetime achievement award.” The genus is called blue-eyed mary. (Photo credit: American Philosophical Society.)
-
Collinson'ia: named for Peter Collinson (1694-1768), an English gardener, botanist and horticulturist. He was born in
 |
|
London, the son of a Quaker woolen draper, and entered his father’s business. While living with relatives who had an impressive garden he first developed a love of botany and travelled with these relatives to nurseries around the city. Most of his botanical training was self-acquired. In 1724 he married Mary Russell and around this time took over the family business with his brother who died in 1762 leaving Peter to continue alone for another four years. The cloth merchant's trade afforded him a comfortable living, although he was never particularly rich. In 1728 he was proposed for Fellowship in the Royal |
Society. He was a founding governor of the Foundling Hospital, a charitable institution that would welcome babies abandoned by their mothers, and which was granted by Royal Charter by King George II. Although Collinson was a cloth merchant by vocation, largely trading with North America, his real love was gardening. Through his business contacts, he obtained samples of seeds and plants from around the world. Collinson's personal plant collections, first at Peckham and later at Mill Hill, became famous. He came to realise that there was a market for such things in England and, in the late 1730s, began to import North American botanical seeds for English collectors to grow especially from John Bartram, and became best known for the introduction of many important ornamentals to cultivation in England. Collinson was also the patron of the artist and natural historian Mark Catesby, whose publication Natural History of Carolina (1731-1743) was largely funded by him. He maintained an extensive correspondence with notable scientists in London and abroad including Sir Hans Sloane, President of the Royal Society, Carl Linnaeus, Jan Frederik Gronovius, Johann Jacob Dillenius, Dr. John Fothergill, Cadwallader Colden, and Benjamin Franklin, and once complained to Linnaeus that his new system of classification was too difficult and would exclude all but professors from the study of plants. Collinson was always supportive of the work of ordinary gardeners and plantsmen, such as Philip Miller, the gardener of the Chelsea Physic Garden, and the nurseryman James Gordon, who helped maintain the extensive gardens of Lord Petre, Collinson’s close friend and patron of scientific endeavors. His own library also represented an important collection of Americana and included many works on American native peoples. He was a particular patron of the Philadelphia scientific community assisting the fledgling American Philosophical Society founded by Bartram and Franklin in 1743, and also served for many years as the purchasing agent for the Library Company of Philadelphia. It was through Collinson that Franklin first communicated to the Royal Society what would in 1751 be published as Experiments and Observations on Electricity. He was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1747. He eventually wrote numerous essays on natural history topics for the Gentleman’s Magazine, and he contributed many reports to the Society of Antiquaries and to the Royal Society. Benjamin Franklin wrote about him: “If we may estimate the goodness of a man by his disposition to do good, and his constant endeavors and success in doing it, I can hardly conceive that a better man has ever existed.” The genus Collinsonia was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called horsebalm, richweed or stoneroot.
-
colo'num: Gledhill says "forming a mound, humped," but other sources give "colonist, colonial, farmer, inhabitant," from colo, "to till or cultivate." There seems to be disagreement about the spelling of the specific epithet. The Tropicos website of the Missouri Botanical Garden and the World Flora Online website spell it colona, whereas IPNI and the Plants of the World website of Kew Gardens as well as the Flora of Virginia spell it colonum. Someone on the website eFloraofIndia says: "Many authors also spell it Echinochloa colonum, instead of colona, as an exception to the rules of ICBN (International Code of Botanical Nomenclature). Actually this should be Echinochloa colona only. Related with the gender of the plant. There is no exception for this plant except for the fact that the basionym was Panicum colonum L. so it may be that some people think of maintaining the gender which is usually not the accepted way."
-
colora'ta/colora'tum: colored.
-
columbia'na/columbia'num: of British Columbia or the Columbia River.
-
colum'binum: pigeon-like, dove-like, supposedly becaue the leaves are like a bird's foot, from the Latin columba, “dove,” or “pigeon.” A related epithet although not in Virginia is columbariae as in Salvia columbariae.
-
Coman'dra: from the Greek kome, "hair," and ander,
"man," referring to the hairy attachment of the stamens.
The genus Comandra was published by Thomas Nuttall in 1818 and is called bastard toadflax.
-
combs'ii: named for Robert Combs (1872-1899), American agrostologist who died of consumption in Phoenix, Arizona at the age of 27. He was a collector of plants in Florida and Cuba, and author of Plants collected in the district of Cienfuegos, province of Santa Clara, Cuba, in 1895-1896. JSTOR lists him as a co-collector of botanist Carleton Roy Ball who was in charge of the U.S. Bureau of Plant Industry and whom he probably met at Iowa State College of Agriculture. At the time of his death he was in the employ of the government. For three years he was one of the professors in the college at Ames, Iowa.
-
Commeli'na: named for the two Dutch botanists Jan Commelin (1629-1692) and his nephew Caspar Commelin (1667-
 |
|
1731), known to Charles Plumier, a French Franciscan monk, botanist and traveler, and Carl Linnaeus who named the genus Commelina. Jan Commelin was the son of book publisher and historian Isaac Commelin and Cornelia Bouwer. In 1641 the family moved to Amsterdam. Jan Commelin (or Johannes Commelijn) was a doctor, commercial plant trader and the director of botany at the Hortus Medicus (Medical Garden) in Amsterdam, who worked with many tropical plants that had been collected in Asia and sent back to Holland. He was the author of the “Horti Medici Amstelodamensis Rariorum,” published in Amsterdam in 1697. As an independent merchant, Jan ran a wholesale business for medicinal plants which he delivered to hospitals and pharmacies in Amsterdam and elsewhere. He was elected to the city council in 1672. He was also the author of Nederlantze Hesperides (1676) which dealt with the cultivation of citrus fruits, Catalogus plantarum indigenarum Hollandiae (1683) which was the first flora of the Netherlands, and for fourteen years he edited eleven of the twelve volumes of the Hortus Indicus Malabaricus by Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede tot Draakenstein. His major work was the |
 |
Catalogus plantorum horti medici Amstelodamensis rariorum which was partially finished and published posthumously, the remainder being completed by his nephew Caspar. The Municipal Council of Amsterdam commissioned alderman Jan Commelin and burgomaster Johan Huydecoper van Maarsseveen to build and direct a botanical garden for medicinal plants originally called the Hortus Medicus but eventually the Hortus Botanicus. Caspar Commelin was also a botanist and Jan’s nephew who after Jan’s death continued his work and completed his books. He graduated with a degree in medicine at Leiden and settled in Amsterdam. In 1696 Caspar was appointed to the post of botanist at the Hortus and eventually succeeded his uncle Jan. Between Jan and Caspar, they described hundreds of species from Africa, the Americas, and Asia. The Commelins are considered among the most important of the early botanists. In 1703, he published a work on the systematics of rare exotic plants, and in 1706 was appointed as professor at the Athenaeum Illustre school in Amsterdam. The story is that Linnaeus who established this genus decided to commemorate the Commelins because the dayflower has two large petals (for Jan and Caspar) and a third small petal (for another Commelijn who died young before he could accomplish anything in botany), but this may well be an apocryphal though convenient explanation. The genus Commelina was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
-
commun'is: from the Latin communis, "common, public, shared by all or many," from a combination of the Latin prefix com-, "together," and munis, which has to do with performing services, thus growing together in communities.
-
commuta'ta/commuta'tum/commuta'tus: changeable, changed or changing, from the Latin commutatus, and used for a species that
is very similar to one already known.
-
como'sa/como'sum: tufted, furnished with a tuft
of some kind, from Latin coma, "hair," and comosa, "hairy, leafy."
-
compac'ta: growing in
compact form.
-
complana'ta: flattened, levelled, referring to some feature of the plant.
-
compos'itum/compos'itus: with flowers in a head, composite.
-
compres'sa/compres'sus: from Latin compressus, "compressed, flattened, restrained, repressed."
-
Compton'ia: named for Henry Compton (1632-1713), botanist and Bishop of London from 1675 to 1713. He was born in
 |
|
Warwickshire, England, the sixth and youngest son of the 2nd Earl of Northampton, and was educated at Queen's College, Oxford, but left in 1652 without a degree, and then travelled in Europe where he spent the majority of his time in Italy. He did not return to England until the restoration of Charles II in 1660, after which he became a cornet in his brother Charles's troop of the Royal Regiment of Horse. The profession of a soldier proved distasteful to him after a few months' trial and he soon quit the army for the church. He went to Cambridge, where he was admitted M.A. in 1661, and in the following year took |
holy orders. Early in 1666 he entered Christ Church, Oxford, as a canon commoner and then was incorporated M.A. of Oxford. He became rector of Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, and in 1667 was appointed master of the hospital of St. Cross at Winchester, then in 1669 was installed canon of Christ Church on the death of Dr. Richard Heylin. He graduated as a Doctor of Divinity in 1669. He was made Bishop of Oxford in 1674, and in the following year was translated to the see of London, and appointed Dean of the Chapel Royal. He was also appointed a member of the Privy Council, and entrusted with the education of the two princesses and future Queens, Mary and Anne. In 1676 he was instructed by Lord Danby to conduct an ecclesiastical census of the population, which became known as the Compton Census. He was strongly opposed to Roman Catholicism and on the accession of James II in February 1685 he consequently lost his seat in the council and his position as Dean of the Chapel Royal, and was himself suspended by James's Ecclesiastical Commission in mid-1686. The suspension was lifted in September 1688, two days before the Commission was abolished. At the so-called Glorious Revolution Compton embraced the cause of William III and Mary II, being one of those who invited William to invade England, and presided over the ceremony of their coronation. During the reign of Anne he remained a member of the privy council, and was one of the commissioners appointed to arrange the terms of the union of England and Scotland; but, to his bitter disappointment, his claims to become Archbishop of Canterbury were twice passed over. Aside from his ecclesiatical career, he was a successful botanist which is why he was honored with this generic name. After his suspension in 1686, Compton retired to Fulham and threw himself with ardor into his favourite botanical pursuits. He has some claim to rank as a botanist. He planted his grounds at Fulham with a greater variety of curious exotic plants and trees than had at the time been collected in any garden in England. John Ray, in his History of Plants (1688), describes fifteen rare plants from Compton's specimens, and Leonard Plukenet, James Petiver, Paul Hermann, and Jan Commelin all acknowledged Compton's assistance in botanical investigation. Petiver engraved many specimens from Fulham, and quotes from a book in his possession which he calls Codex Comptoniensis. In 1761 Sir William Watson published in the Philosophical Transactions, xlvii. 241-7, an account of Compton's garden, and describes thirty-three of his exotics. Compton obtained most of his rare plants from correspondents in North America. He died at Fulham on 7 July 1713, and was buried at All Saints Church, Fulham. The genus Comptonia was published by William Aiton in 1789 and is called sweet-fern.
-
concatena'ta: from con-, "with, together," and catenare, "to chain or bind." thus joined together, forming a chain, roots also for the word concatenation, the linking together of things in a series.
-
concinno'ides: no certain meaning or derivation known. The -oides suffix is usually meant to imply some resemblance and can be attached to a genus name such as Aster (asteroides) or Acrostichum (acrostichoides), or to indicate some resemblance to an object like the specific epithet drepanoides from the Greek drepane or depranon, "a
sickle," thus resembling a sickle.
The Latin concinnus means "neat or skillfully joined," and the Online Etymology Dictionary defines the word concinnity as "state of being well put-together, skillful and harmonious fitting together of parts, from Latin concinnitas, from past-participle stem of concinnare 'to make ready, make into,' from concinnus, 'set in order, neat,' " so that may have something to do with the etymology. See also next entry.
-
concin'num: Gledhill says well-proportioned, neat, elegant, harmonious, symmetrical. .
-
con'color: of the same color throughout, as in the leaf
surfaces.
-
conden'sa: crowded together.
-
conglomera'tus: crowded together, conglomerate. Latin meanings include gathered into a ball or rounded mass, to roll together, collect, heap up, or concentrate. The name was originally published in the 1700s by Swedish physician and botanist Johan Andreas Murray.
-
Conioselin'um: a name derived by combining the generic names Conium and Selinum. The genus Conioselinum is called hemlock parsley and was published in 1814 by Friedrich Ernst Ludwig von Fischer.
-
Co'nium: derived from the ancient Greek name coneion for hemlock. The genus Conium is called poison hemlock and was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
-
conjunct'a: joined. One source says referring to the crowded spike clusters of the inflorescence.
-
conna'ta/conna'tum: united,
having opposite leaves joined together at their base.
-
Conoclin'ium: Flora of North America says from Greek konos, "cone," and kline, "bed," alluding to the conic receptacles. The genus Conoclinium is called mistflower and was published in 1836 by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle.
-
conoid'ea: conelike.
-
Conoph'olis: FNA says: "from Greek conos, "cone," and pholis, "scale," alluding to conelike inflorescences." The genus Conopholis was published by Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Wallroth in 1825 and is called squawroot or bearcorn.
-
Conrin'gia: named for Hermann Conring (1606-1681), a German polymath, journalist, jurist, antiquary, professor and noted
 |
|
intellectual at the University of Helmstedt, Germany,
whose
primary disciplines were physics and medicine, who was one of the
first of the early German political scientists who used the term "statistics" (although they meant it in the sense of the study of states), who
lectured on the political constitutions of states and was considered
the founding father of the history of German law, and whose historical
critique of Roman law helped emancipate Germany from its medieval
past. He was also physician to Queen Christina of Sweden. Conring was the author of New Discourse on the Roman-German
Emperor. |
The genus Conringia was published in 1759 by Philipp Conrad Fabricius. The genus Conringia was published in 1759 by Lorenz Heister.
-
consanguin'eum: closely related.
-
Consol'ida: solid, stable, from the Latin consolido,
"to make firm." The genus Consolida was published in 1722 by Samuel Frederick Gray and is called annual larkspur.
-
contor'tum: twisted, from Latin contortus, past participle of contorquere "to whirl, twist together."
-
contrac'ta: drawn together, contracted.
-
Convallar'ia: Stearn says "lily-of-the-valley, from Latin convallis, 'a valley,' the late medieval name being Lilium convallium taken from the Vulgate Bible translation of the Song of Solomon." The epithet convallaria means "of the valley" and purports to be in reference to the plant's natural geographical habitat. The genus Convallaria was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
-
Convol'vulus: from the Latin convolvere or convolvo,
"to twine around, to roll round or up, coil, twist, wrap round," referring to the way the stems wrap around the branches of other plants. The genus Convolvulus was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called bindweed.
-
Cony'za: derived from the Greek word for flea konops, and used by Pliny and Theophrastus as a name for some kind of a fleabane.
The genus Conyza was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called horseweed.
-
copalli'num: from a Nahautl name, kopalli, yielding gum copal. a resin very similar to amber.
-
copula'ta: joined, coupled, united.
-
Corallorhi'za: from the Greek korallion,
"coral," and rhiza, "root," thus meaning
having coral-red roots. The genus Corallorhiza was published in 1760 by Jean Jacques Châtelain and is called coralroot.
-
corda'ta: heart-shaped.
-
cordifo'lia/cordifo'lium/cordifo'lius: in Latin means with "heart-shaped
leaves."
-
cordifor'mis: heart-shaped, from the Latin cordi meaning "heart" and forma meaning "shape."
-
cordig'erum: derivation obscure, but one source says from the Latin cordiger, "carrying a heart."
-
cor'ei: unknown derivation and meaning, could have something to do with Greek koris, "a bedbug."
-
Coreop'sis: from the Greek koris,
"a bedbug," and -opsis, indicating a resemblance, therefore
meaning bug-like, referring to the achenes which look like ticks. The genus Coreopsis is called tickseed and was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
-
coria'ceum/coria'ceus: from the Latin corium, "leather," and
the -acea suffix indicating resemblance, thus "resembling leather,
leathery." Also thick, tough.
-
Corian'drum: derives from the Greek koriandron, a name used by Pliny, from koris, referring to the unpleasant smell of the unripe fruits which disappears when they are ripe and dry. A website of the National Institutes of Health says "The etymology of coriander starts with the Greek koriannon, a combination of koris, "a stinking bug," and annon, "a fragrant anise." In Latin, it was spelled coriandrum, and by way of Old French it came into English as coriander in the 14th century. The genus Coriandrum was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called coriander.
-
cornicula'ta/cornicula'tus:
horned, from the Latin corniculata or corniculatus meaning "equipped with horns," in turn from cornu, "horn."
-
Cor'nus: FNA says from Latin cornu, "horn," alluding to the hard wood. The genus Cornus was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called dogwood or cornel.
-
cornu'ta: bearing horns or spurs, usually the
flowers.
-
corolla'ta: from Latin corolla, "a garland, a little crown," diminutive of corona, "crown, garland," so like a corolla or having a corolla.
-
coronar'ia/coronar'ius:
used for or belonging to garlands or crowns.
-
Coronil'la: little garland or crown, diminutive of corona, "crown, garland" referring to the umbel. The genus Coronilla was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
-
corruga'ta: corrugated, wrinkled.
-
Cortader'ia: from cortadera, a native
Argentinian word meaning "cutting," because of the leaf
margins. The genus Cortaderia was published by Otto Stapf in 1897.
-
Cory'dalis: from the Latin Corydalus and the ancient Greek korydalos or korydos for the crested or tufted lark, korys being "helmet or helm." Stearn says: "Greek word meaning a lark; the flowers have spurs like those of larks." The genus Corydalis was published in 1805 by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle and is called simply corydalis.
-
cor'yli: Gledhill says "(parasitic on) hazel," referring to the genus Corylus. A website of the Northern Great Plains Herbaria for the species Cuscuta coryli says "Coryli means 'of Corylus', a genus in the Betulaceae family, possibly referring to an association between the two." The plant bug species Phylus coryli and the caterpillars of the European moth Colocasia coryli both feed on the species Corylus avellana, and the fungal species Amanita coryli lives on the lower surface of the leaves of that same species. Cuscuta coryli has been called the hazel dodder.
-
Cor'ylus: Gledhill says "helmet, the Latin name refers to the concealing of hazel's calyx. Flora of North America says "from Greek korus [or korylos] meaning "helmet," for shape and hardness of nut shells." The genus Corylus was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called hazelnut or filbert.
-
corymbo'sa/corymbo'sum: corymbose, that is, provided
with corymbs, or flat-topped flower clusters in which the flower stalks
emanate from different points on the stem.
CasaBio says "From the Greek corymbus, "a cluster of fruit or flowers," in particular a flat-topped or convex open flower-cluster.
-
Cos'mos: from the Greek kosmos, "ornament,
decoration," from the Latinized form of Greek kosmos,"order, good order, orderly arrangement," a word with several main senses such as "to order and arrange," or "to deck, adorn, equip, dress." Thus kosmos had an important secondary sense of "ornaments of a woman's dress, decoration." Pythagoras is said to have been the first to apply this word to "the universe," perhaps originally meaning "the starry firmament," and the word cosmos often suggested especially "the universe as an embodiment of order and harmony." The genus Cosmos was published by Antonio José Cavanilles in 1791.
-
Co'ta: FNA says "Possibly from a pre-Linnaean generic name used as an epithet in Anthemis cota L." No one seems to know anythng about the derivation of this species or is even willing to hazard a supposition. The Greek word kotos means "anger, rancor," and that could be a possible root, as could be the Greek kotis, "the top and back of the head, cerebellum," but these are just wild guesses. Cota tinctoria (aka Anthemis cota) is called golden marguerite, yellow chamomile, or oxeye chamomile. The genus Cota was published by Jacques Étienne Gay in 1845.
-
cot'ula: from the Greek kotule meaning "a small cup" and referring to a hollow
at the base of the amplexicaule leaves.
-
covill'ei: named for Dr. Frederick Vernon Coville (1867-1937), botanist on the Death Valley Expedition of 1890-91, first
 |
|
Director of the United States National Arboretum, chief botanist of the USDA and Honorary Curator of the National Herbarium 1893-1937. He was born in New York and matriculated at Cornell University where he received his B.A. in 1887. He briefly taught botany and then took a position with the USDA as assistant botanist for the Geological Survey of Arkansas in 1888. He remained with the Department of Agriculture for the rest of his life, and published around 170 papers and books. He took part in C. Hart Merriam and T. S. Palmer’s Death Valley Expedition and was the author of Botany of the Death Valley |
Expedition (1893). He was particularly interested in medicinal and desert plants and conducted in 1897-1898 the Medicinal Plants Survey. Wikipedia says: “Coville also participated in and wrote on the 1899 Harriman Alaska Expedition, although he never completed his Flora of Alaska. He was involved with the establishment of the Carnegie Institution's Desert Botanical Laboratory in 1903, the USDA Seed Laboratory, and spearheaded efforts that lead to the foundation of the United States National Arboretum in 1927. Coville was considered the American authority on Juncaceae and Grossulariaceae. After 1910 he began to work on blueberry, and was the first to discover the importance of soil acidity (blueberries need highly acidic soil), that blueberries do not self-pollinate, and the effects of cold on blueberries and other plant. In 1911, he began a program of research in conjunction with Elizabeth White, daughter of the owner of the extensive cranberry bogs at Whitesbog in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. His work doubled the size of some strains' fruit, and by 1916, he had succeeded in cultivating blueberries, making them a valuable crop in the Northeastern United States. For this work he received the George Roberts White Medal of Honor from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. In 1919, Coville played an instrumental role in drawing attention to the threatened state of the only known box huckleberry colony, sparking a revival of interest that led to the discovery of many new specimens of the plant. From 1920 to his death, he was chairman of the National Geographic Society' Research Committee and was very influential in deciding areas of exploration. At the time of his death he was working on a revision of Botany of the Death Valley Expedition as a flora of the Valley.”
-
crac'ca: from the Latin cracca, a classical name given to a vetch. There is also a genus Cracca published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
-
crassifo'lium: thick-leaved.
-
crass'ipes: with a thick stalk (compare brevipes, planipes, gracilipes,
filipes).
-
Cratae'gus: from the Greek krataigon, "thorn," from Greek kratos, "strength," and akis, "a sharp tip," alluding to thorns of some species, an ancient name for a flowering thorn used
by Theophrastus. Crataegus is a genus of several hundred species called variously quickthorn, may-tree, thornapple, whitethorn, mayflower, and hawberry, but most commonly hawthorn, and the name haw, originally an Old English term for hedge (from the Anglo-Saxon term haguthorn, "a fence with thorns,") also applies to the fruit. The genus Crataegus was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called hawthorn.
-
Xcravenen'sis: a hybrid oak species with parents Q. incana and Q. marilandica, named for Craven County, North Carolina, one of the places where it has been found.
-
craw'ei: named for Ithamar Bingham Crawe (1792-1847), physician, botanist and minerologist. He was born in Enfield, Connecticut, and in 1802 moved with his family to Madison County, New York. He worked on his father’s farm during the summers and attended the local school in the winters until he was 19. As a youth he demonstrated a passion for the study and collection of plants, and for several years despite ill health followed these pursuits enthusiastically. He taught at a district school in Augusta for three terms, and then in 1817, his health having improved, he went on a fishing excursion to Newfoundland. In March 1818 he began studying with Dr. Hastings of Clinton, with whom he remained for several years. This would likely have been Dr. Seth Hastings, Jr. He attended lectures at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City and graduated from there in 1822. In that year he received a county license to practice medicine. and then moved to Watertown, in Litchfield County, Connecticut, where he practiced as a physician. Subsequent to this he moved to Ogdensburgh, New York, and then was employed for some reason to superintend a lead-mining operation in Lubec, Maine. This enterprise failed and he spent several years in residence at Pontiac, Michigan, following which he returned to Watertown and was occupied both by his professional activities and by his botanical and minerological researches. Asa Gray at Harvard, having become acquainted with him, asked him to procure some samples from Perch Lake, and he willingly undertook that mission with two others in a leaky boat. Although an excellent swimmer, he was encumbered by clothing and heavy boots and drowned before reaching the shore. He was a skilled physician, a noted pathologist and physiologist. He discovered and described several new plants, one of which, Carex crawei, was named for him. He was a member of the County Medical Society, and served as its secretary and president, was appointed a delegate to the State Society in 1834 and 1844. and in 1846 the Regents of the University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Medicine degree. He was widely known by men of science both in this country and in Europe, and was widely and favorably respected.
-
craytonii: named for Frank Marion Crayton (1871-1960), longtime landscape gardener and nurseryman of the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC. He began working there as a young man of 21 when the estate was still a dream of George Vanderbilt. With Chauncey D. Beadle, the horticulturist and gardener in charge of the grounds, he travelled over a large part of the United States, gathering azaleas and other plants for the gardens. Despite the great variety of plants growing at Biltmore, it was the thousands of azaleas that amazed visitors. He lived in a farmhouse on top of a nearby hill, and spent a good part of his life in a fruitless search for a wild specimen of Franklinia, a small deciduous tree that has been extinct in the wild since the early 19th century. Crayton never received a formal education, but despite not knowing the common or native names, he was able to reel off the botanical names of flowers and shrubs as though Latin was his first language. After 35 years at Biltmore, he went into business for himself. At the time in an article in the Asheville Citizen-Times in 1955, he said that over the past 18 months he had collected 338 species and more than 25,000 specimens for the Cherokee Arboretum and the Cherokee Historical Association. His goal was to have every plant, flower and shrub in western North Carolina displayed there. His greatest source of satisfaction was in finding rare plants. He discovered the shrub Elliottia racemosa which had been lost for 75 years, and he claimed to be the only man alive who knew where to find Kalmia cuneata, a relative of the mountain laurel. He died in Asheville, his only regret being that none of his children followed in his professional footsteps.
-
crebriflor'a: from the Latin creber, crebra, crebrum,
"thick, crowded, frequent," with dense or thickly clustered flowers.
-
crena'ta: cut in rounded scallops, crenate.
-
Crepidoma'nes: crepidatus means shaped like a sandal or a slipper, so the use of the root crepido- seems to have something to do with slippers or sandals, and Jaeger says manes is for "a cup," although another source says "flowing." Ancient Greek crepido has various meanings, basis, foundation, pedestal, a raised causeway, embankment, a projecting ledge or rim, and on and on. So this for the moment remains unknown. The genus Crepidomanes was published in 1851 by Carl Presl and is called filmy fern.
-
Cre'pis: from the Greek krepis, "a
sandal," and an ancient plant name. The genus Crepis was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called hawksbeard..
-
crin'ita: long-haired, having long hair.
-
cris'pa/cris'pus: from Latin meaning
"curled or wavy" in reference to the leaves.
-
crista'ta/crista'tus: tufted, crested or comb-like, from the Latin crista, “the comb or tuft on the head of animals."
-
cristatel'la: having a small crest.
-
Crocanth'emum: from krokos, the saffron plant, and anthemon, "flower." The genus Crocanthemum is called frostweed or rockrose, and was published by Édouard Spach in 1836.
-
cro'ceus: saffron-colored.
-
Crop'tilon: meaning and derivation obscure, all of the usual sources drew a blank. The website Grovida Gardening says: "The genus name Croptilon derives from the Greek kropion meaning "a scythe - a long curved cutting tool" and ptil(o) meaning "a feather, wing, down" perhaps referring to the curved, pinnately toothed leaves," but I can't confirm this and I have my doubts about kropion. The root ptilon, "feather," is used in other generic epithets such as Monoptilon and Ptilagrostis. The genus Croptilon is called scratch daisy and was published in 1837 by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque who was notorious for leaving no record about the meaning of names he chose.
-
Crotalar'ia: from the Greek krotalon, "a rattle, clapper," referring to the sounds of the seeds rattling in the inflated seed pods. The genus Crotalaria, which was published in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus, has the common name of rattlebox.
-
Cro'ton: from the Greek word kroton meaning
"a tick" because of the way the seeds look in some members
of the family. The genus Croton was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called croton, doveweed or rushfoil.
-
Crucia'ta/crucia'ta: in the form of a cross, from Latin crux, "cross." The genus Cruciata was published by Philip Miller in 1754.
-
crucifor'mis: in the form of a cross.
-
cruen'tus: blood-colored, gory, from Latin cruor, "blood," and -entus, "abounding in, full of."
-
crus-cor'vi: raven's spur, from the Latin crus, "the leg or thigh," and Corvus, the genus of ravens. Carex crus-corvi is called raven's-foot sedge.
-
crus-gal'li: from the Latin crus, "the leg or thigh," and gallus, "a cock," this specific epithet is supposed
to mean "cock's spur." The Flora of Virginia does not hyphenate the name.
-
crux-an'dreae: St. Andrew's cross. The x-shaped cross on which Saint Andrew is said to have been martyred by crucifixion. The species Hypericum crux-andraea is called St. Peter's-wort, St. Andrew's cross and St. Peter's cross, and it does have a yellow flower with four petals in the shape of a cross. There is another species however that is also called St. Andrew's cross and that species is Hypericum hypericoides and apparently resembles H. crux-andreae closely. So there seems to be some etymological confusion here regarding St. Andrew and St. Peter, and what the connection is I don't know. And since these are both species of Hypericum, called St. John's-wort, there are a lot of Saints involved here.
-
cryptanth'um: having concealed flowers, from Greek kryptos. "hidden" and anthos, "flower," referring to the relatively small and inconspicuous flowers or flowers that are hidden by enclosing bracts.
-
cryptolep'is: from Greek kryptos, "secret, hidden," and lepis, "scale."
-
Cryptotae'nia: from Greek kryptos, "hidden," and taenia for "band or ribbon," thus obscured ribbons. The genus Cryptotaenia is called honewort and was published in 1829 by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle.
-
Cten'ium: from Greek kteis or ktenos, "comb," referring to the one-sided, awned, spikelike inflorescence. The genus Ctenium was published by Georg Wolfgang Franz Panzer in 1814 and is called toothache grass. Its common name comes from the belief that it can relieve toothache. Chewing the roots does produce a numbing sensation in the tongue and gums.
-
cuben'se: of or from Cuba.
-
cuculla'ta: hoodlike, having sides or apex curved inwards to resemble a hood.
-
cucumerifo'lius: with leaves like cucumber, Cucumis.
-
Cucu'mis: from the Greek kykyon, "cucumber." Wiktionary says "A wanderwort (a migrant or loan word) likely ultimately from Sumerian for “cucumber,” or an unidentified pre-Indo-European Mediterranean substrate language." The genus Cucumis was published in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus.
-
Cucur'bita: a Latin name for the gourd. The Wiktionary website says "Possibly related to cucumis, “cucumber,” or to corbis, “basket,” or corbīta, “freight vessel.” Maybe from Sanskrit." The genus Cucurbita was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
-
-cula/-culus: in Latin a suffix added to form a diminutive.
-
cumberlanden'sis: of the Cumberland (referring to the Cumberland River drainage). Carex cumberlandensis is called Cumberland sedge.
-
cunea'ta: wedge-shaped, from the Latin cuneus, "wedge, wedge-shaped."
-
cuneifo'lius: with leaves tapered to the base.
-
Cunil'a: Latin name for a fragrant herb, possibly marjorum. The taxon in the Flora of Virginia is Cunila origanoides, the specific epithet of which means resembling genus Origanum, the marjorum. The genus Cunila was published by David Royen in 1759 and is called common dittany, wild oregano or stonemint.
-
Cu'phea: from Greek kyphos, "curved," from the shape of the seed capsule. The genus Cuphea was published by Patrick Browne in 1756 and is called waxweed.
-
curassavi'cum: the -icum suffix indicates that this is a place name from Curacao, an island
in the Dutch West Indies.
-
curtiflor'a: with short flowers, from Latin curtus, "short,"and flora, "flower."
-
curtipen'dula: seemingly derived from the Latin curtus, "short,
shortened, mutilated," and pendulus, "hanging down,"
because of the hanging spikelets.
-
curtis'ii: named for Moses Ashley Curtis (1808-1872), a priest, teacher, botanist, and mycologist born in Stockbridge,
 |
|
Massachusetts. His father was the principal of Stockbridge Academy, and from him young Moses received his early education. After graduating from Williams College in 1827, he taught in local schools for two years then became a tutor for the children of former North Carolina Governor Edward Bishop Dudley in Wilmington, North Carolina. In college he had been interested in the natural sciences and he engaged in a study of local plants but returned to Boston in 1833 to study theology. He continued his study in Wilmington, then was ordained to the Episcopal priesthood and served various churches in |
North Carolina. He became Rector of the Protestant Episcopal Church at Hillsborough, North Carolina in 1841 and was put in charge of a parish at Society Hill, South Carolina from 1847 to 1856. Meanwhile he received a Doctor of Divinity degree from the University of North Carolina in 1852 before returning to the Protestant Episcopal Church at Hillsborough in 1857. Wikipedia adds this: “As a botanist, Curtis explored the southern Appalachian Mountains, embarking on a major expedition in 1839. He maintained a herbarium of dried specimens and contributed specimens to John Torrey and Asa Gray. He collected lichens for Edward Tuckerman and corresponded with many other botanists, including mycologist Miles Joseph Berkeley to whom he sent many specimens with descriptions and notes. Gray said of him that ‘No living botanist ... is so well acquainted with the vegetation of the southern Allegheny Mountains ...’ and that he ‘... was among the first to retrace the steps and rediscover the plants found and published by the elder Michaux, in the higher Allegheny Mountains.’ ” In effect he led two completely separate lives, one as a devout and unselfish priest, and the other as a knowledgeable scientist. He was recognized as a keen observer and a pioneering discoverer of many American plants. He was also appreciated as a musician and a linguist said to have known German, French, Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. The Civil War was a particularly sad occasion for Curtis for a number of reasons. Although born in New England, he came from a slaveholding family. His sympathies lay wholly with the South, and one of his sons was killed at the Battle of Bentonville in 1865. His contact with fellow churchmen and scientists throughout the country and abroad was suddenly cut off. News of the death of his father reached him in 1862, only through the kindness of a Union chaplain in occupied New Bern. He botanized also in South Carolina and Georgia, particularly in the mountains. It was Curtis who first brought to the attention of the whole country the unique position of North Carolina in climate, soil, and forest products. He pointed out "that North Carolina has a difference of elevation between the east and west which gives a difference of climate equal to 10 or 12 degrees of latitude." A.W. Chapman’s Flora of the Southern United States, published in 1860, was dedicated to Curtis. For the last twenty-five years of his life, he studied and became a recognized authority on mycology. He discovered that the flavor of edible mushrooms varied with the type of material in which they grew, and he reported that he had collected and eaten forty species found within two miles of his own house. Curtis was the author of several books, including A Catalogue of the Plants of the State, With Descriptions and History of the Trees, Shrubs, and Woody Vines (1860), A Catalogue of the Indigenous and Naturalized Plants of the State (1867), and The Woods and Timbers of North Carolina (1883). He had completed a book on edible fungi when the war began, but it was never published. Plants were apparently not his only interest as evidenced by a 1983 article in the North Carolina Historical Review entitled “Moses Ashley Curtis (1808-1872): Contributions to Carolina Ornithology.” He died in Hillsborough 1872. (Much of the information presented here was extracted from an article about him on a Geni.com website)
-
curtis'sii: named for botanist Allen Hiram Curtiss (1845-1907). He was born in Central Square, Oswego County, New York, but moved to Virginia with his family in 1862 and began his botanical collecting in that state the following year. He collected extensively in Bedford County, Virginia, and many of his specimens are identified as from the Peaks of Otter. From 1875 Curtiss was based in Florida where he continued his professional collecting activities in connection with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Later in his life he began to extend his botanical activity to some parts of the West Indies. Curtiss was editor of the Florida Farmer and Fruitgrower and also produced several floristic works including Catalogue of the phaenogamous and vascular cryptogamous plants of Canada and the north-eastern portion of the United States (1873) and List of Forest Trees of Florida (1884). He collected in the West Indies (1902-1905), Florida, Georgia, and Virginia (1884-1899), and Texas and Arkansas (1881-1886). His specimen collections were widely dispersed to institutions such as the British Museum, the Herbarium of the National Museum of Ireland, the Herbarium of the Botanic Garden in Geneva, Kew Gardens, the Herbarium of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Herbarium of Botanische Staatssammlung München, the Herbarium of the Botanical Museum, University of Oslo, the Department of Botany, Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, and others. Curtiss died in Jacksonville, Florida.
-
curv'ula: slightly curved, diminutive of curvus.
-
Cuscu'ta: a name of Arabic derivation meaning
"dodder." The genus Cuscuta was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called dodder.
-
cuspida'ta/cuspida'tum: tipped
with a firm point, usually the leaves, from the Latin cuspidata, "having a cusp, tip or point, cusped, pointed," and in turn from cuspis, "a point."
-
Cuthbert'ia/cuthbert'ii: named for Alfred Cuthbert (1857-1932), an amateur naturalist with a main interest in botany who was born in Summerville, Georgia. The 1860 census lists Alfred Cuthbert as a 2 year old, born in Georgia, living in Wayne Township, Passaic County, New Jersey with his father, Alfred Cuthbert (34, a farmer, born in Georgia), his mother Annie Cuthbert (31, born in South Carolina in July, 1828), Mary Cuthbert (2 months, born in Georgia). The 1880 census lists Alfred Cuthbert, 25 years old, a school teacher, and living in Randolph Township, Morris County, New Jersey. The 1900 census lists him as a coal dealer living back in Summerville, GA. He collected plants from the age of 30 and into his late 60’s, mostly from northern Georgia and northern Florida. Professor Mintin Asbury Chrysler of Rutgers University purchased specimens from him a few times, and Cuthbert donated some specimens to the Chrysler Herbarium of Rutgers University. He was a member of the Torrey Botanical Club. Walter Hoxie attested to his additional interest in ornithology. JSTOR lists him as a co-collector of John Kunkel Small (1869-1938) who published the generic epithet Cuthbertia for him in 1903. The genus has the common name of roselings.
-
cyan'us: William Stearn says "Old name of a dark blue subtance now the specific epithet for the cornflower," azure, blue.
-
cyathophor'a: a conglomeration of two Greek words, kyathos, "a cup," and phoros, "a bearing," which translates to, "cup-bearer," referring to the cup-shaped base of the flower.
-
Cyclachae'na: FNA says "Greek cyclo-, "circular," and Latin achenium, "achene," allusion uncertain, perhaps to the ring of cypselae in each fruiting head." For the genus Achyrachaena which has the same latter part of the epithet, FNA says "Greek achyron, "scale," and Latin achaenium, "fruit," alluding to the cypselae," so the reference is clearly to the fruit. Another possible root though less likely is the Greek chaino, "to gape." The single species, xanthiifolia, in the genus Cyclachaena is native to North American prairies. The genus Cyclachaena was published by Johann Baptist Georg Wofgang Fresenius in 1836 and is called rag sumpweed or giant sumpweed.
-
Cyclolo'ma: from the Greek words cyclos, "ring or circle," and loma, "border." The genus Cycloloma is commonly called winged pigweed and was published by Christian Moquin-Tandon in 1840.
-
Cyclosper'mum: from the Greek kyklos, "circle, ring," and sperma, "seed," referring to the shape of the
fruit and its seeds. The genus Cyclospermum was published by Mariano Lagasca y Segura in 1820 and has the common name of marsh parsley.
-
cylin'drica: cylindrical, long and round.
-
Cymbalar'ia: a name for ivy-leaved toad
flax, from the Greek kymbalon and/or the Latin cymbalum for "cymbal," and referring to the rounded cymbal-like leaf shapes of
some species. The genus Cymbalaria was published in 1756 by John Hill and is called kenilworth-ivy.
-
cymo'sa: bearing cymes, more or less
flattened flower heads blooming from the middle out.
-
Cynan'chum: from the Greek kyon or kynos, "dog," and anchein, "to strangle," in reference to its supposed
use or capacity as a dog poison. The genus Cynanchum is called swallow-wort and was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
-
Cy'nodon: from the Greek meaning "dog
tooth" from the hard tooth-like scales on the rhizomes or stolons.
The genus Cynodon was published in 1805 by Louis Claude Marie Richard. The species Cynodon dactylon which is called Bermuda grass may in fact have been introduced into the United States from Bermuda, but like its compatriot Bermuda buttercup it is not native to Bermuda.
-
Cynoglos'sum: Greek for "dog's tongue" from kynos,
"dog," and glossa, "a tongue." The genus Cynoglossum was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
-
cynosba'ti: from Greek kynos, "dog," and batis, a plant name. Sometimes called dog thornbush or dogberry.
-
cynosuro'ides: resembling genus Cynosurus.
-
Cynosur'us: from the Greek kynos or kyon, "a dog," and oura, "a tail," thus dog's tail. The genus Cynosurus was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called dogtail grass.
-
cyparis'sias derived from Greek kyparissos, "cypress," a Latin name for a kind of spurge. The species Euphorbia cyparissias is known as the cypress spurge.
-
Cy'perus: from a Greek word kupeiros meaning 'sedge.' The genus Cyperus was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and was called flatsedge.
-
Cypripe'dium: Lady's slipper, moccasin flower aka the slipper orchids. Stearn says "from Greek Kypris, or Kupris, and Latin Cypria, an early reference in Greek myth to Aphrodite (aka Venus), who was worshipped especially on Cyprus, and pedilon, "a slipper," unfortunately Latinized as pedium by Linnaeus, from the shape of the flower." With regard to the second part of the name, FNA suggests that there may have been an orthographic error, and it was pes, "foot," and not pedilon, "slipper." Flora of Wisconsin website says incorrect Latinization of ancient Greek words meaning "Venus's shoe. " The genus Cypripedium was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753. Other common names include references to things such as feet, moccasins, and shoes.
-
Cyril'la: named for Domenico Maria Leone Cirillo (1739-1799), an Italian physician, professor of botany at Naples,
 |
|
statesman and patriot executed by the Bourbons for his liberal opinions. I know nothing about his early life or schooling, but while still a young man he was appointed to a botanical professorship so he must have had some considerable education in the natural sciences. He went for some years to England where he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society, and to France, where he was in close contact with famous French naturalists of his time such as Jean Antoine Nollet, Georges-Louis Buffon, Jean le Rond d'Alembert and Denis Diderot. After returning to Naples he gained the chair of medical practice and then |
the chair of theoretical medicine at the University of Naples, and taught botany and medicine. He wrote copiously on scientific subjects and practiced medicine extensively. His favorite subject was botany but Linnaeus considered him also an entomologist. He wrote several treatises on medical and scientific subjects in Latin and Italian, and introduced numerous medical innovations to Naples, particularly inoculation against smallpox. In the year 1799 Italy became embroiled in political conflicts involving the French and British, and Cirillo found himself on different sides, at one time being elected as the president of the legislative commission of the revolutionary Jacobin government. He had been physician to Ferdinand IV, King of Naples, but he supported reform when the Parthenopean Republic was established. The Parthenopaean Republic was a short-lived, semi-autonomous republic located within the Kingdom of Naples and supported by the French First Republic. The republic emerged during the French Revolutionary Wars after King Ferdinand IV fled before advancing French troops. The Republic existed from 21 January to 13 June 1799, collapsing when the French withdrew and Ferdinand returned to restore monarchial authority and forcibly subdue Republican activities. As a reformer and essentially a revolutionary, Cirillo was condemned to death and hanged. Cirillo was the first to investigate, with the help of his students, the entomological fauna of Naples and its environs. The results are presented by him in the work Entomologiæ Neapolitanæ Specimen primum in which he depicted new and already known species on 12 colored tables, but unfortunately he managed to publish only one part of this work. He was also the author of De essentialibus nonnullarum plantarum characteribus commentarius and Plantae rarae Regni Neapolitani. The genus Cyrilla was published in 1767 by Alexander Garden and is called ti-ti.
-
Cyrto'mium: arched, from Greek kyrtos, "an arch," in reference to the veining of the leaves. The genus Cyrtomium was published by Karl Boriwoj Presl in 1836 and is called holly fern.
-
Cystop'teris: from the Greek cystis or kystis, "bladder," and pteris, "fern," alluding to the subglobose indusium. The genus Cystopteris was published by Johann Jakob Bernhardi in 1805 and is commonly called bladder fern or brittle fern.
-
Cy'tisus: from kutisus or kytisos, a Greek name
for a kind of clover with reference to the similar-looking leaves. The genus Cytisus was published in 1798 by René Louiche Desfontaines and is called broom.
|