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Hibis'cus: an ancient Greek and Latin name
for some mallow-like plant. Flora of North America says: "Greek hibiscus or ibiscum, alluding to cohabitation with Ibis, stork, in marshes." The genus Hibiscus was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
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hickmanii: named for James Craig Hickman (1941-1993), American botanist, longstanding member of the California Botanical Society, and editor of the Jepson Manual. He was born in Ottumwa, Washington, and died in Alameda County, California. He went to Oberlin College as a chemistry major, but was much more interested in the biological sciences. When a sophomore he switched majors and studied fish, taking his first botany course as a senior. His decision as to whether to be a botanist or a marine biologist was literally made by the flip of a coin. He did doctoral work at the University of Oregon on plant ecology and taxonomy, after which he began working as a professor at Washington State University and then at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, where he taught botany and biology for eight years. Later he took a one-year position as a program officer for Systematic Biology at the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C. In 1977 he moved back to California, edited the journal Madrono for three years and taught some botany courses at UC Berkeley. A project with Larry Heckard to write a flora of Snow Mountain, one of the high peaks in the North Coast Ranges, eventually grew into the development of the Jepson Manual. In 1989 the job of Project Manager for the Manual was taken over by Dieter Wilken. His tragic early death came as a result of AIDS-related pneumonia. There is little question that he would have accomplished even more and greater things had he been allowed to live longer.
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hick'manii: named for John Bale Hickman (1848-1929). From Cantelow and
Cantelow, "Biographical Notes on Persons in whose Honor Alice
Eastwood Named Native Plants," (Leaflets of Western Botany 8 (5): 83-101): "Teacher, horticulturist; born in Oxford, England,
1848, died at Watsonville [actually at Aromas] California, 4 Feb 1929.
He taught school at Carneros Canyon on the Natividad road in the San
Miguel Hills in Monterey County, California, and spent his spare time
and vacations searching that area and the Monterey Bay area for interesting
plants; sent some to Prof. Greene, University of California, Berkeley,
and some to the California Academy of Sciences." And David Hollombe
adds: "He was also horticultural commissioner for Monterey County
'for years.' He came to the U.S. as an infant, lived in Marshall,
Michigan and Buffalo, New York before coming to California probably
about 1868. He married twice and had two daughters."
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hieracifo'lia: with leaves like genus Hieracium.
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hieracio'ides: having the appearance of Hieracium.
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Hierac'ium: the classical name hierakion comes from the ancient Greek hierax, "a hawk."
The Roman naturalist Pliny believed that hawks fed on this plant to
strengthen their eyesight and thus it became the Greek and Latin name
for this and similar plants, the common name of which is hawkweed. The genus Hieracium was published by Carl Linnaeus in
1753.
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Hierochlo'e: from the Greek hieros, "sacred, holy,"
and chloe or chloa, "grass," alluding to the
fact that because of its fragrance it was strewn before church doors
and on floors at holy festivals and ceremonies. The genus Hierochloe was published by Robert Brown in 1810.
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hig'ginsae: named for Ethel Bailey Higgins (1866-1963), Curator of botany at the San Diego Natural History Museum
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from 1943 to 1957 and Associate Curator from 1957 to 1963, and author in 1931 of Our Native Cacti and in 1949 of Annotated Distributional List of the Ferns and Flowering Plants of San Diego County. She was educated at the Wesleyan Seminary and Female College (now Kents Hill School) in Readfield, Maine then taught school for two years before moving to Los Angeles with her parents in 1900. She worked as a photographer specializing in botanical subjects, and during her career produced a series of some 250 wildflower portraits. She got married in 1914, and moved |
to San Diego in 1915. Her husband died in 1931 and two years later she joined the staff of the Natural History Museum. When Frank Gander retired as Curator of botany in 1943 she succeeded him, compiling the first checklists of San Diego County plants. She collected plants in Baja and on the islands of the Gulf of California. She helped build the herbarium's specimen collection and continued collecting plant specimens well into her mid-90’s.
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higuch'ii: named for Masanobu Higuchi (1955- ) of the Department of Botany, Division of Land Plants of the National Museum of Nature and Science. From 1995 to 2013 he was an associate professor in the Graduate School of Science at the University of Tokyo, and since 2013 a full professor. He was president of the Bryological Society of Japan 2010-2011, and from 2007 to 2011 the first vice-president of the International Association of Bryologists.
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Hilar'ia/hilaria'na: named for Auguste François César Provençal de Saint-Hilaire (1779–1853), French biologist,
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botanist, plant collector and traveller, born at Orléans. He was writing on botanical subjects at an early age. He travelled in South America from 1816 to 1822 and then again in 1830, concentrating particularly on parts of Brazil. On his first trip he accumulated some 24,000 specimens of 6,000 species, also 2,000 birds, 16,000 insects and 135 mammals, plus various reptiles, fishes and minerals. Many of these species were described for the first time. He spent a great deal of time attempting to describe, classify and publish, but his progress was impeded by the lingering effects |
of diseases contracted during his travels. Recognizing his value, the Académie des Sciences appointed him as a correspondent in 1819. Ffrom 1825 to 1832 he published together with Adrien de Jussieu and Jacques Cambessèdes the Flora Brasiliae Meridionalis in three volumes, a work illustrated by Pierre Jean François Turpin. He was also the author of Histoire des Plantes les plus Remarquables du Brésil et du Paraguay (1824), Plantes Usuélles des Brésiliens (1827–1828), also with de Jussieu and Cambessèdes, and Voyage Dans le District des Diamants et sur le littoral du Brésil, in two volumes (1833). His Leçons de Botanique, Comprénant Principalement la Morphologie Végetale (1840), was a comprehensive exposition of botanical morphology and its application to systematic botany. Contained within his writings was a large amount of data on history, physical geography, indigenous languages and culture, and various other subjects. He died where he was born, at Orléans. The genus Hilaria was published in 1815 by Karl Sigismund Kunth.
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hi'lendiae: named for Martha Luella Hilend (Mrs. Edgar Lee Kinsey) (1902-1964).
Born in Cannonville, Utah, got her BA at Pomona College in 1924 and
an MA at Pomona College in 1927. Her thesis was on Zauschneria.
She was an associate in botany at UCLA 1927-1933 and was married in
1933 to UCLA physics professor Edgar Lee Kinsey.
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hillebrandia'nus/hillebrand'ii: named for German physician and botanist Wilhelm Hillebrand (1821-1886). He was
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born in Nieheim, Province of Westphalia, Prussia and studied medicine at Heidelberg and Berlin. Due to a lung problem, probably pulmonary tuberculosis, he sought a warmer climate and travelled first to South Australia in 1849 for a six-month visit, moving on to the Philippines and Hawaii, which became his home for the next 20 years. He made significant contributions to the knowledge of the flora there, not least his Flora of the Hawaiian Islands published by his son two years after his death. In Hawaii he lived first at what is now Foster Botanical Garden in Honolulu, and after |
being married in 1852 he purchased a 13-acre plot of land near the Garden. By this time he was a practicing physician with a keen interest in plants, and over the years, planted a number of exotic and native trees in his garden. He was able to speak the Hawaiian language in addition to Latin, German, English and French. Upon his arrival in Hawaii, he very quickly became involved in the problem of syphilis which at the time was epidemic there. He advocated strongly for the building of more hospitals for the sick and in 1856 founded the Hawaiian Medical Society (which later became the Hawaiian Medical Association) along with nine other physicians. In 1858, he was appointed physician to the royal family of King Kamehameha IV. In the 1860s, leprosy was rapidly spreading in Hawaii, and he advocated in 1862 for the Legislature to find ‘some efficient, and at the same time, humane measure’ by which to isolate people affected by leprosy. This led to the establishment of the Kalaupapa and Kalawao leprosy settlements on Molokai Island in 1866. Wikipedia continues: “Hillebrand also served as chief (and only) physician at The Queen's Hospital (now The Queen's Medical Center) from 1860 to 1871. In 1865 he was appointed to the King's Privy Council, the Board of Health, and Bureau of Immigration. In April 1865 Hillebrand traveled to Asia and the East Indies on behalf of the Hawaiian government. He had three main goals: to find sources of labor for the sugarcane plantations, to learn about the latest treatments for leprosy, and to collect and import plants and animals that would be useful to the Islands. Hillebrand wrote an article on leprosy that was published in 1883. Hillebrand moved back to Germany in 1871. In 1877 he arranged for the first immigrants from Portugal to come to Hawaii as plantation workers. For nearly a decade he considered returning to Hawaii. In 1880, he determined that would never happen, so sold his home to shipping entrepreneur Captain Thomas Foster and his wife Mary, who lived on an adjacent lot. Years later, Mary Foster bequeathed the land to the city, which opened it to the public as Foster Botanical Garden in 1930.” In the last half the nineteenth century, Hillebrand sent much dried plant material of rare Hawaiian plants to the Melbourne Herbarium. In subsequent years, many of' these Hawaiian species became extinct and their only known plant material in the world is that housed at the National Herbarium, Melbourne. He died in Heidelberg.
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hill'manii: named for Frederick Hebard Hillman (1863-1954),
Nevada botanist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture who studied seed morphology,
and wrote on Nevada grasses and the flora of the Truckee Valley.
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hindsia'na: named for Richard Brinsley Hinds (1812-1847), surgeon in the British
Royal Navy, Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, and naturalist on HMS Sulpher, which sailed from Plymouth in December, 1835, visited Madeira and Teneriffe, Rio de Janeiro, Magnetic Island off the coast of Panama, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honolulu, Alaska, San Francisco, Monterey, Acapulco, the Galapagos Islands, China, Ceylon, Madagascar, the Cape of Good Hope, St Helena and Ascension Island, returning to England in July, 1842. Hinds was invalided home in April, 1841. He brought specimens from China which he presented to George Bentham, spent some years working on his collections, published many articles in Annals of Natural History by Sir William Hooker, and died in Australia. He matriculated at London University in 1830 and joined the Royal Navy in February, 1835. California's Frontier Naturalists by Richard G. Beidleman quotes Hinds as saying " Sulphur was the school in which I more particularly studied geographical botany."
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hinds'ii: see above entry.
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Hippur'is: from the Greek meaning "horse tail or mare's tail."
Hippuris was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
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hippuro'ides: like genus Hippuris.
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Hirschfeld'ia: named for Christian Caius Lorenz Hirschfeld (1742-1792), German horticulturist, and university
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teacher of philosophy and art history in the service of the Danish state as well as author of numerous books. He was employed as a tutor in 1765 by Friedrich August, Prince-Bishop of Lübeck for Wilhelm August and Peter Friedrich Ludwig, the sons of Georg Ludwig of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf, but was dismissed two years later. His first book, Country Life, appeared and was well received in 1767, followed by Notes on the country houses and garden art in 1773 and Theory of garden art in 1775. Catherine II appointed him secretary of a commission to |
reorganize Christian Albrechts University and he held regular lectures, and later he was made a full professor of philosphy and the fine arts. He toured gardens in Denmark (1780), Germany (1781/1783) and Switzerland (1783), but his position at the University deteriorated after the death of his mentor there Heinrich Carl von Schimmelmann. At the same time however his regional fame was growing because of his publications including Handbuch der Fruchtbaumzucht (Manual of Fruit Tree Breeding) and Theorie der Gartenkunst (Theory of Garden Art) in five parts. In Denmark a fruit tree nursery was established which was managed by Hirschfeld. He became a member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences in 1784 or 1785 and the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin accepted him as an honorary member in 1788. His major work, Theory of Garden Art, was known primarily through its French translation. He was particularly drawn to the English style of landscape gardens, although he never travelled to England. He died in Kiel at the age of 50. The genus Hirschfeldia was published by Conrad Moench in 1794.
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hirshberg'iae: named for Jerilyn Hirshberg (1942- ), Southern California
botanist at the San Diego Museum of Natural History. Her Vascular
Plants of the Cuyamaca and Laguna Mountains (2003) is an entirely
updated version of Duffie Clemons' Plants of Montane San Diego
County (1986).
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hirsutis'sima/hirsutis'simus:
very hairy, referring to the hair stems and/or leaves.
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hirsut'ula: somewhat hairy.
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hirsu'ta/hirsu'tus: covered with hair, hairy, from Latin hirsutus "rough, shaggy, bristly, hairy."
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hir'ta/hir'tum: hairy, from the Latin hirtus, "hairy."
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hirtel'la: pubescent with very small, coarse,
stiff hairs.
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hirtel'lum/hirtellus: rather hairy.
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hirticau'le: hairy-stemmed.
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hirtiflor'um: hairy-flowered.
- hir'tipes: from hirtus, "hairy, shaggy" and pes, "foot." thus hairy-footed.
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hirt'ula: somewhat hairy, same as hirtellum.
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hispan'ica/hispan'icus: of Spain, Spanish.
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his'pida/his'pidum/his'pidus/hispidis'sima: rough, with bristly
hairs, from Latin hispidus, "spiny, shaggy, rough."
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hispid'ula/hispid'ulus: with little bristly
hairs, minutely hispid.
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hitchcockia'na: named for Albert Spear Hitchcock (1865-1935), Smithsonian Institution agrostologist and botanical
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illustrator, author of Manual
of the Grasses of the United States, Manual of the Grasses
of the West Indies, and North American Species of Agrostis.
The following is quoted from a website of the Hunt
Institute for Botanical Documentation: "Botanical explorer
and systematic agrostologist Albert Spear Hitchcock was born in Owosso,
Michigan, on 4 September 1865, grew up in Kansas and Nebraska, and
attended Iowa Agricultural College (later Iowa State College and now
Iowa State University of Science and Technology) in Ames. Although
he had long been interested in |
plants and studied botany under professor
Charles E. Bessey, he earned a B.S. in agriculture and graduate degrees
in chemistry and went on to teach chemistry at Iowa State from 1886
to 1889. When he could no longer resist the lure of botany as a full-time
occupation, he accepted positions as librarian and curator of the
herbarium at the Missouri Botanical Garden and also taught in the
Engelmann School of Botany, Washington University. In 1890, he married Rania Belle Dailey, with
whom he had five children. He moved to Kansas State Agricultural College
in Manhattan, where from 1892 to 1901 he was a professor of botany
and botanist to the Experiment Station. During this period he began
to travel extensively, seeking types of grasses for his research on
the world's grass genera. Hitchcock's colleague Mary Agnes Chase knew
well Hitchcock's dedication to his science, recounting how he had
once walked 242 miles in 24 consecutive days and camped at night,
all the while toting a special wheelbarrow he had designed especially
for botanizing. On the subject of his fieldwork in the salt marshes
of the Gulf Coast, Hitchcock remarked: "I waded through water
almost up to my knees, pushed my wheelbarrow, and still managed to
keep my collection dry. The mosquitoes were very bad. I had to put
on my coat, put cheesecloth around my head and a pair of extra socks
on my hands. My shoes had worn through and my feet were blistered....
But, for all the discomforts, the collecting was magnificent, and
I felt fully repaid." The fruits of this period's botanical labors
were over 80 papers, including papers on grasses and the flora of
Kansas, and Experiment Station bulletins and circulars. In 1901 Hitchcock became assistant chief in
the U.S.D.A.'s Division of Agrostology in Washington, D.C., and in
1905 he was promoted to systematic agrostologist at the U.S.D.A. and
also appointed custodian of the newly established Section of Grasses;
Chase assumed the custodianship of the grass herbarium at Hitchcock's
death (see also: Morton, C. V. and W. L. Stern. 1966. The United States
National Herbarium. Pl. Sci. Bull. 12(2): 18). U.S.D.A. made
the grass collection a priority, and Hitchcock built upon the work
of his predecessors George Vasey and Frederick Lamson-Scribner. Determined
to build the grass collection and "insatiably eager to see every
part of the earth" (Chase, 1936, eulogy), Hitchcock visited every
state in the U.S., as well as the West Indies, Cuba, Alaska, Canada,
Mexico, the Philippines, Japan, and China, and traveled throughout
Africa, Indochina, Central and South America as well. In 1928 he was
promoted to principal botanist in charge of systematic agrostology
in the U.S.D.A. From 1905 on, he filled 45 field books with
notes, and for nearly 40 years, beginning with an account of the grasses
of Kansas (18961898), published extensively on Gramineae, authoring
over 250 works, several jointly with Chase. His publications include
A Text-Book of Grasses (1914), The Genera of the Grasses of the United
States (1920), Methods of Descriptive Systematic Botany (1925), Manual
of the Grasses of the United States (1935), and Manual of the Grasses
of the West Indies (1936), and monographs of the American species
of Agrostis, Leptochloa, Panicum (with Chase), and Aristida. Hitchcock died of heart failure on 16 December
1935, at sea on board the steamer "City of Norfolk" while
returning home with his wife from Europe, where he had attended the
Sixth International Botanical Congress in Amsterdam, visited many
European herbaria in preparation for a work on the grass genera of
the world, and celebrated his 70th birthday. Hitchcock was held in
high esteem by his peers and colleagues: "[H]e was a lovable
and unassuming man. To the student of systematic botany who knew only
his work, he was a tireless and productive student of a technically
difficult and to many botanists quite uninteresting group of plants,
the grasses. His contribution to our understanding of this economically
most important family of plants has been unequalled in America"
(Fernald, M. L. 1937. Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts Sci. 71(10): 505506).
Enriched by the hundreds of thousands of specimens acquired by Hitchcock
and Chase throughout their collaborative careers, the Smithsonsian
Institution's grass herbarium became the largest and one of the most
complete such grass collections in the world. Hitchcock and Chase
also bequeathed to the Smithsonian in 1928 their private agrostological
library; among its 6,000 books and pamphlets were Linnaean titles,
early systematic works, and rare books on the grasses."
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hitchcockia'nus/hitch'cockii/hitchcock'ii: named for Charles Leo Hitchcock (1902-1986), American botanist who published a monograph on North American Lathyrus in 1952, and was also the author of Flora of the Pacific Northwest: An Illustrated Manual (1973), and with others the 5-volume Vascular Plants of the Pacific Northwest. He discovered 20 species of plants and he taught thousands of botanists over the course of his teaching career at the University of Washington. He was Chairman of the Department of Botany at the University from 1942 to 1962. His specialties were spermatophytes and the flora of the Pacific Northwest. A hall at the University of Washington is named in his honor.
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hoff'mannii/hoffmann'ii: named for Ralph Arthur Hoffmann (1870-1932), graduate of Harvard, an ornithologist
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(author of two books on ornithology) and botanist (author of A Flora of Berkshire County, Massachusetts in 1922), and Director of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. He did a great deal of his work on the Channel Islands, in the Santa Barbara region, in the higher San Rafael Mountains, and in the desert areas of Southern California. He was a natural history teacher and author of the first true bird field guide. He was born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and attended Harvard University, graduating in 1890. He began teaching at Buckingham Browne and Nichols |
School in Cambridge and then helped to establish the Alstead School of Natural History in Alstead, New Hampshire. He was selected as the first head of the Country Day School in Kansas City.Nine years later he relocated to Santa Barbara to teach natural history at the Cate School for Boys. In 1925 he became the Director of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History in 1923 and served in that capacity until his death. He was the author of A Guide to the Birds of New England and Eastern New York (1904) and Birds of the Pacific States (1927).In 1932 he was on an expedition searching San Miguel Island for remains of the prehistoric pygmy mammoth when he fell from a steep cliff searching for a rare flower and was killed. (Photo credit: Islapedia)
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Hoffmannseg'gia: named for Johann Centurius Hoffmann, Count Von Hoffmannsegg (1766-1849), a German botanist,
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entomologist, ornithologist and co-author of a flora of Portugal. He was born at Rammenau, Germany, and by the age of seven spoke fluent French and had mastered the fundamentals of Latin. After the death of his parents he inherited the paternal family estate in 1780 and from then until 1782 he studied history, geography and natural sciences, especially botany and entomology, at Leipzig and Göttingen. According to Wikipedia, “He travelled through Europe acquiring vast collections of plants and animals. He visited Hungary, Austria and Italy in 1793–1794 [collecting |
plants and insects] and Portugal 1795/96 and from 1797 to 1801. He sent his collections to Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger, then in Brunswick, so that he could study them. Hoffmannsegg worked in Berlin from 1804 to 1816, and was elected a member of the Academy of Science of the city in 1815. He was the founder of the Zoological Museum of Berlin in 1809. Hoffmannsegg proposed Illiger for the position of Curator, and all of his collections were then transferred to Berlin." After Illiger’s death in 1813, Hoffmannsegg withdrew from the museum. He was nominated as a member of the Academy of Science in 1815 and in 1816 moved to Dresden. He was the author of Flore Portugaise (1809-1820) with botanist Johann Heinrich Friedrich Link. Later in his life he resumed the operation of the family nurseries in Dresden-Neustadt and Rammenau, built their capacity and regularly published the extensive range of what he had commercially available. In 1823, the total plant inventory of his gardens comprised about 2,000 species. He was able to draw on his own extensive collection of seeds and plant material, and sold both native and exotic ornamental and fruit trees, perennials, cut flowers, fruits and vegetables, pelargonium, dahlias and orchids. He died in Dresden. The genus Hoffmannseggia was published by Antonio José Cavanilles in 1797.
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Hoi'ta: my friend David Hollombe sent along the
following: "Hoita, with short i, long a and accent
on the middle syllable, was recorded by Victor King Chesnut (1867-1938)
as a name for "Psoralea" in the ConCow (or KonKow) Maidu
language spoken by a Native American people of the Feather River region
(Butte County, California) who were relocated to a reservation in
the Mendocino area." The KonKow Valley is about 20 miles north
of present day Oroville, California. A reference is Victor K. Chesnut,
"Plants used by the Indians of Mendocino County, Calif.", Contributions from the U. S. National Herbarium, 1902. Another
website with some interesting history and cultural information about
the Maidu tribe is www.maidu.com.
So it appears that the correct pronunciation of this name, rather
than "hoy-ta," should be "ho-IT-ay" with the middle
syllable accented. Victor K. Chesnut was also co-author of " Ilex
vomitoria as a Native Source of Caffeine," in the Journal
of the American Chemical Society 41: 1307-1313, 1919. A collection
of the papers relating to his interest in Yellowstone National Park
history and containing an original transcript of the diary from the
Folsom-Cook Expedition (a privately funded expedition in 1869 and
the first of six into what would later become Yellowstone National
Park) is in the Renne Library at Montana State University. A website
of MSU includes the following biographical information: "Victor King
Chesnut was born in Nevada City, California on June 28, 1867. He attended
high school in Oakland, California and college at the University of
California, the University of Chicago, and George Washington University
specializing in chemistry and botany. He worked for the Bureau of
Plant Industry, U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1894-1904, and
as a professor of chemistry and geology at Montana Agricultural College
(Montana State University) from 1904-1907. Following his work in Montana,
Chesnut relocated to Washington, DC where he finished his career working
in a variety of positions for the USDA. He retired in 1933 and died
in August, 1938. Letters, diary transcripts and research notes pertaining
to the 1869 Cook-Folsom expedition into Yellowstone National Park
were gathered or created by Chesnut during his employment at Bozeman
Montana (1904-1907) and Washington, D.C. (1921-1922). In 1904, Chesnut
met Charles W. Cook, an elderly farmer living in White Sulphur Springs,
Montana. Cook, along with David E. Folsom and William Peterson, had
explored the Yellowstone National Park region in 1869 and recorded
their journey in a joint "diary" which had appeared in edited
form several times during the intervening years. Cook gave Chesnut
his original manuscript version of the diary from which Chesnut prepared
a typed transcript." The original was lost when he left it in
the Chemistry Building at Montana Agricultural College which burned
Oct. 20, 1916, thus Chesnut's transcription became the earliest extant
record of the expedition. Chesnut was one of a group of scientists
that were assigned by the US Department of Agriculture to investigate
livestock losses as a result of poisonous plants, and in 1898 he published
a list of 30 such species in and on Western grazing lands. A website
of the University
of Maryland indicates that Dr. Chesnut (misspelled Chestnut) in
1916-1917 was one of the founders and the first president of the Hyattsville
Horticultural Society, one of the oldest gardening clubs in America.
The taxon Ribes victoris is also named for him. The genus Hoita was published by Per Axel Rydberg in 1919.
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hol'boellii/holboell'ii: the taxon Arabis holboellii was named from Greenland
in 1828 by Jens Wilken Hornemann, a professor of botany at Copenhagen
for the eminent Danish ornithologist Carl Peter Holbøll (1795-1856).
Actually, in Danish his name is spelled without an 'e', the second
'o' being one of those with a slash through it, one of the extra vowels
in the Danish alphabet that has a sound close to 'bird' or 'heard'
and often transcribed in English as 'oe.' He was a Royal Navy lieutenant
in 1821, travelled in Greenland in 1822, and became Royal Inspector
of Colonies and Whaling in 1825, a position he held in North Greenland
until 1828 and then in South Greenland until his death in 1856. He
also authored a book about the birds of Greenland, and his interest
in natural history led him to name and describe several species of
birds, and have several named for him. His father was Frederik Ludvig
Holboell, also a botanist and Curator of the Botanic Garden in Copenhagen.
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holcifor'mis: like Holcus, a Greek name for a type of grain.
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Hol'cus: from the Greek holkos, an ancient name for some kind
of grain or possibly grass. The genus Holcus was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
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Hollister'ia: named for (Col.) William Welles Hollister (1818-1886),
California rancher and entrepreneur. He
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came to California from Ohio
in 1853-1854 as the leader of a 2000-mile-long sheep drive accompanied
by his brother Joseph Hubbard Hollister, their sister Lucy Brown and
50 herdsmen. His idea was that the miners of the gold rush needed
plentiful meat. Although only about a thousand sheep survived, he
was able to make a considerable fortune out of it and purchased a
large amount of land that would one day bear his name. He was a founder
of the town of Hollister in San Benito County, (Because so many
California towns are named for saints, said one of the |
town
organizers of Hollister in San Benito county, lets name
this one for a sinner.), remaining for some 14 years before
selling his part of the Rancho San Justo and moving his sheep south
to Santa Barbara. He married Ann (Hannah) James in 1862. During the
1870s, William Hollister made many contributions to the Santa Barbara
area including helping to finance or develop Santa Barbara College,
the Arlington Hotel, the local newspaper, Steams Wharf, and the Lobero
Theater. He was also an avid horticulturist. In 1875 he built a wharf
at Gaviota to ship lumber, wool, cattle and grain back to markets
on the Atlantic coast. The following is quoted from an online article
called "A
Man Named Hollister" by Alton Pryor: "Money was of little
consequence to the now-wealthy Hollister. He built more than six miles
of fencing, virtually unheard of in Santa Barbara County. He established
a dairy herd and imported a landscape gardener to plant velvety lawns
and exotic flora around the property. He widened the county road,
now Hollister Avenue, linking Santa Barbara and Goleta, and bordered
it with an avenue of palms and pines. Always adventurous, Hollister
imported 25 bushels of Japanese tea plants, which he thought would
grow in the soil and climate of his Dos Pueblos Rancho. He hired two
Japanese tea planters to plant his 50,000 seedlings. A frost killed
the entire tea project overnight. The Refugio Rancho is probably the
first working cattle ranch apart from mission operation in Santa Barbara
County. In the 1860s, Chinese workers were brought to Santa Barbara
County from Canton by Colonel W. W. Hollister to work on his Goleta
Valley estate and to serve as bus boys, chefs, and waiters in his
hotel. Between 1869 and 1877, W.W. Hollister planted 25,000 almond
trees, 1,500 English walnuts, 1,500 orange trees, 1,000 lemons, 500
limes, and 750 olives. Col. Hollisters land grants included
Lompoc. Here, vast herds of his sheep grazed before he sold part of
his holdings to the Lompoc Valley Land Company in 1874. The lands
consisted of the Lompoc Rancho and the Mission Vieja de la Purisima
Rancho. The town was laid out nine miles from the coast, near the
center of the Lompoc Valley." His son was rancher and California
state senator John James Hollister, Sr. The genus Hollisteria was published by Sereno Watson in 1879.
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Holmgrenan'the: named for Arthur Herman Holmgren (1912-1992), a professor
at Utah State University in Logan,
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research botanist, expert on grasses, and co-author of the Intermountain Flora, his son Dr. Noel Herman Holmgren (1937- ) (photo at left), Senior Curator Emeritus at the New York Botanical Garden, a plant collector and explorer, and daughter-in-law Dr. Patricia May Kern Holmgren (1940- ) (photo at left), Herbarium Director at the New York Botanical Garden who worked on the the five-volume Vascular Plants of the Pacific Northwest, and helped edit the first volume of Intermountain Flora published in 1972. Prior to his professorship at Utah State University, Arthur Holmgren "worked for the Desert Range Experiment Station near Milford, Utah, 1936-37, served as Chief-of-Party of the Range and Economic Survey in Elko County, Nevada, 1937-41, and worked at the Squaw Butte Experiment Station, Harney County, Oregon (Oregon State University and Bureau of Land Management), 1942-43. He served as Professor of Botany and Curator of the Intermountain Herbarium, Utah State University, from 1943 until his retirement in 1978. In the 1980s he taught at the Teton Science School, Jackson Hole, Wyoming." (Obituary –Deseret News) He was born in Midvale, Utah and graduated from Murray High School and received a B.A. |
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degree from the University of Utah in 1936 and an M.S. from Utah State Agricultural College in 1942. He did additional graduate work at UC Berkeley. In 1972 he was the recipient of the Outstanding Educator in America award. He was active in many societies including the American Institute of Biological Science, the American Rock Garden Society, the American Society of Plant Taxonomists, the Botanical Society of America, the California Native Plant Society, the Northern Nevada Native Plant Society, the Sierra Club, the Utah Native Plant Society and the Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. He also played the violin in the University of Utah and Utah State University symphonies. He was a recognized environmentalist, conservationist, and gardener. He died at age 80 at his home in Logan. His son, Noel Herman Holmgren, was born in Salt Lake City. obtained a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1968, and joined the New York Botanical Garden as a research associate that same year. He had been associate professor at Oregon State University, and then associate curator, curator and senior curator at the New York Botanical Garden, now Senior Curator Emeritus at NYBG. He was for 14 years the editor-in chief of the journal Brittonia. His specialty was the taxonomy of Scrophulariaceae and the floristics of western North America, and made major contributions to the Intermountain Flora project. He also taught at Lehman College, City University of New York, and was lead editor on an illustrated companion volume to Gleason and Cronquist's Manual of the Vascular Plants of Northeastern United States and Adjacent Canada, published in 1997. He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute of Biological Science, the American Society of Plant Taxonomists, the Botanical Society of America, the California Botanical Society, the International Association for Plant Taxonomy, the New England Botanical Club and the Torrey Botanical Club. Patricia Kern Holmgren was professor of botany at Utah State Agricultural College, made extensive botanical expeditions to Mexico, Ecuador, Surinam, Venezuela, and Tierra del Fuego, and was Curator and Director of the herbarium of the New York Botanical Garden, currently Director Emerita of the Herbarium and Honorary Senior Curator. She received her Bachelor’s degree from Indiana University in 1962, her Master’s in 1964, and her doctorate in 1968 from the University of Washington. The genus Holmgrenanthe was published by Wayne J. Elisens in 1985. (Wikipedia; JSTOR; NYBG)
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holmgrenan'us: see previous entry.
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holocar'pa: with unlobed fruit.
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holo-: in compound words signifying "completely."
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Holocar'pha: from the Greek holos,
"whole," and karphos, "chaff," referring
to the entirely chaffy receptacle. The genus Holocarpha was published in 1897 by Edward Lee Greene.
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Holodis'cus: from the Greek holos,
"entire," and diskos, "a disk," the disk
unlobed. The genus Holodiscus was published in 1879 by Carl Johann Maximowicz.
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hololeu'ca/hololeu'cus:
wholly white.
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holopet'ala: whole-petalled.
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holop'tera: from the prefix holo-,
"complete or completely," and pteron, "wing."
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holorho'dos: from holo-, in compound
words meaning "completely," and rhodo, "red."
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holoseri'cea: woolly-silky.
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holosteo'ides: like genus Holosteum.
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Holos'teum: from the Greek holosteon, "entire bone,"
an ancient Greek and Latin plant name used by Dioscorides and Pliny
for a whitish plantain species, and derived in turn from holos,
"whole, all," and osteon, "bone." The genus Holosteum was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
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Holozon'ia: from holos, "whole, entire," and zone or zona, "a belt or girdle," hence "whole-girdled."
The genbus Holozonia was published by Edward Lee Greene in 1882.
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hood'ii: named for Robert Hood (1797?-1821). The following is quoted
from the website of the Arctic
Institute of North America: "Robert Hood was a junior officer
with the badly timed, inadequately supplied first Arctic Land Expedition
led by John Franklin in 1819-1822. Hood made a major contribution
to the expedition's incredibly accurate mapping of over 600 miles
of coastline, which, in the words of L.H. Neatby, 'put a roof on the
map of Canada.' Hood was the first to prove the action of the aurora
borealis on the compass needle and to show that the aurora was an
electrical phenomenon. He also made important contributions to our
knowledge of terrestrial magnetism, climatology, anthropology, and
natural history. Hood's journal, a less formal and more sprightly
account of the journey than Franklin's, was published with many of
his watercolour paintings 153 years after his tragic death on the
Barrenlands. ... Hood contributed in full measure to the success of
the first expedition before he paid the supreme sacrifice - and his
journals and paintings remain one of the earliest and most vivid records
of life in the Canadian North. Although his promising career was terminated
prematurely, his memory is perpetuated by a flower, the moss phlox, Phlox hoodii, a sedge, Carex hoodii, the thirteen-striped
squirrel, Citellus tridecemlineatus hoodii, and by the mighty
Hood River that plunges over Wilberforce Falls before entering the
Arctic Ocean." His manuscript, "Narrative of the Proceedings
of an Expedition of Discovery in North America under the Command of
Lieut. Franklin, R.N.," was published as To the Arctic by
Cabnoe, 1819-1821: the Journal and Paintings of Robert Hood, midshipmen
with Franklin, edited by C.S. Houston and published in 1974. Hood's
paintings of birds and other wildlife were exceptional for the time,
and at least five of the birds he painted were unknown to science.
Had they been published at the time of their arrival in London, and
the birds named, he would have received the credit for priority in
their discovery. His journals described the flora and fauna of the
regions they travelled through, and included information on geography
and the transportation, fishing and hunting techniques of the native
peoples they encountered.
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hook'eri: named for Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817-1911), botanist and
plant collector, biogeographer, and younger
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son of William Jackson
Hooker. He succeeded his father as Director of Kew Gardens in 1865,
a position he held until he retired in 1885 due to ill health. He
travelled the world on botanical quests and became a friend of Charles
Darwin and John Muir. He participated in the Antarctic expedition
of the HMS Erebus (1839-1843) as naturalist and assistant surgeon.
His two-volume Flora Antarctica (published 1844-1847), Flora
Novae-Zelandiae (1851-1853), and Flora Tasmanica (1853-1859)
were based on the specimens collected during the Erebus expedition.
He suspected |
an ancient connection between the landmasses of Africa
and South America, an idea later confirmed by the concept of continental
drift. Between 1847 and 1850 he explored the Indian subcontinent including
Nepal, work which later resulted in his seven-volume Flora Indica.
He also produced with George Bentham a major work entitled Genera
Plantarum which was a world flora including the descriptions of
some 7,569 genera and 97,000 species! In 1859 he published his Introductory
Essay to the Flora of Australia. He visited Syria in 1860 and
Morocco in 1871, and travelled to Colorado and Utah in the United
States in 1877. He also served as President of the Royal Society from
1873 to 1877.
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hook'eri: named for Sir William Jackson Hooker
(1785-1865), professor of botany and director of the Royal
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Botanical
Gardens at Kew in the mid 19th century and author of several botanical
works. Some of his friends and colleagues were the Scot David
Douglas, the Englishman Thomas Nuttall, Sir Joseph Banks, and the
American Asa Gray, for whom he named the genus Grayia.
It was under his directorship that Kew became a world center for plant
study. His first botanical expedition was to Iceland at the behest
of Joseph Banks, but unfortunately his notes, drawings and collected
specimens were lost when his ship burned on the return journey. He was largely responsible for |
botanists being appointed to government
expeditions and his herbarium received large collections from all
over the world. Published works of his included the Muscologia (1818) on the mosses of Britain and Ireland, Musci exotici (1818-1820, two volumes) on foreign mosses and other cryptogamic plants,
and Flora Scotica (1821).
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hookeria'na/hookeria'num: see previous entry.
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hoopes'ii: named for Thomas Hoopes (1834-1925), entrepreneur in West Chester,
PA., who with his brother William established a wheel works which
produced wheels for carriages and wagons for 100 years. He was related
to the well-known horticulturist Josiah Hoopes. At the end of the
1850s he was exploring in the Rocky Mountains area of Colorado and
collected a species previously unknown that was named by Asa Gray
Helenium hoopesii and which subsequently became Dugaldia hoopesii,
and is now included in Hymenoxys.
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hoo'veri/Hoo'veria: named for Dr. Robert Francis Hoover (1913-1970), an American botanist
who collected in California and whose wife was Bettina Louise Brown (1912-1992).
Robert Hoover received his Bachelor's Degree in botany from Stanford University in 1932. He was drafted into the Army toward the beginning of WWII and spent fifteen months in England and another six in France. He was one of the founding members of the California Native Plant Society, a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences, and a teaching and research assistant of Dr. Willis Lynn Jepson. He was a botany professor for over twenty years at California State Polytechnic College where he was responsible for founding the botanical garden and the herbarium which was named in his honor upon his retirement. He studied the flora of Placer County and was the author of The Vascular Plants of San Luis Obispo County, California, published in 1970, the same year he died of colon cancer. A subspecies of Dudleya abramsii ssp. bettinae, was named
by Hoover for his wife Bettina.
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hooveria'nus: see previous entry.
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hordea'ceus: having a resemblance to barley.
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hordeo'ides: like genus Hordeum.
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Hor'deum: an ancient Latin name for barley, from the Latin word horreo or horrere, for "to bristle," after the long prickly awns of the ear of grain. The genus Hordeum was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called barley. This major cereal grain grown in temperate climates was one of the first cultivated grains, particularly in Eurasia. Wikipedia says "The earliest evidence of the consumption of wild barley in an archaeological context comes from the Epipaleolithic at Ohalo II at the southern end of the Sea of Galilee, where grinding stones with traces of starch were found. The remains were dated to about 23,000 BCE. The earliest evidence for the domestication of barley, in the form of cultivars that cannot reproduce without human assistance, comes from Mesopotamia, specifically the Jarmo region of modern-day Iraq, around 11,000 years ago." 70% of barley production is used as animal fodder, and 30% as a source of fermentable material for beer and certain distilled beverages, and as a component of various foods.
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horizon'talis: flat to the ground, horizontal.
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Horkel'ia: named for Johann Horkel (1769-1846), a German plant physiologist, botanist and physician. Wikipedia says: “From 1787 he studied medicine at the University of Halle, where in 1802 he was named an associate professor. From 1804 to 1810 he served as a full professor of medicine at Halle, afterwards relocating to Berlin, where he spent the rest of his career as a professor of plant physiology at the University of Berlin. In 1800/01 he was editor of the journal Archiv für die thierische Chemie, and for a period of time, was an editor of the Deutsches Archiv für die Physiologie. He was an uncle and a significant influence to the career of botanist Matthias Jakob Schleiden.” The genus Horkelia was published in 1830 by Friedrich Gottlieb Bartling based on an earlier description by H.G.L. Reichenbach. He was also honored with the genus name Horkeliella.
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Horkeliel'la: diminutive of Horkelia. Horkeliella was published by Per Axel Rydberg in 1908.
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horne'mannii: named for Jens Wilken Hornemann (1770-1841), Danish botanist from Flackke, Marstal. He studied
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medicine and attended lectures by Martin Vahl at the Copenhagen Society for Natural History. He was a lecturer at the Copenhagen Botanical Garden and professor of botany at the University of Copenhagen, also Martin Vahl’s death the editor of Flora Danica from 1805 until his death. He travelled extensively in Germany, France, England, Denmark and Norway. From 1817 he was the Director of the botanic garden. He was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences as a corresponding member in 1815 and a foreign member in 1816. He travelled extensively in |
Denmark, England, France, Germany and Norway. The taxon Arabis holboellii was first described by Hornemann and named by him in honor of his friend the eminent Danish ornithologist Carl Peter Holbøll. There were originally two genera called Hornemannia but both have now been subsumed into other genera. His name is also on the Arctic or hoary redpoll ( Carduelis hornemanni) and there are a number of plants that currently or previously had hornemannii as their specific epithet.
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horn'ii: named for Dr. George Henry Horn (1840-1897), born in Philadelphia. He received a medical degree from the
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University of Pennsylvania in 1861, was commissioned as a cavalry surgeon and served in California for three years, during which time he studied and collected insects in California, Arizona and New Mexico, which was one of his primary interests. After moving back east he established a medical practice and was elected President of the Entomological Society of Philadelphia, which was the predecessor of the American Entomological Society, and he remained President until his death. In addition to a successful career in obstetrics, he published |
265 scientific papers, establishing 154 new genera and 1,582 new species of beetles. He travelled to European museums, attended foreign entomological society meetings, and studied type material firsthand. He became an authority especially on scarab beetles, and his collection and library is at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. While in California, he collected plants at Fort Tejon and Fort Independence in Inyo County on behalf of the eminent Asa Gray at Harvard. He was the co-author of John LeConte’s revised and expanded 1883 edition of the then-standard Classification of the Coleoptera of North America and co-author with LeConte of The Rhynchophora of America, north of Mexico. He was also the author of The Coleoptera of Baja California published in 1883. Astragalus hornii was published by Asa Gray in 1868.
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Hor'nungia: named for Ernst Gottfried Hornung (1795-1862), German pharmacist, botanist and entomologist. He
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was born in Frankenhausen as the youngest of eight siblings, and there he spent his childhood and early schooling. He attended and studied at the Pharmaceutical - Chemical Institute which had been started in 1795 by Johann Bartholomaus Trommsdorff and was considered the first pharmaceutical institute in Europe, an institute where well-respected scientists were teaching botany, minerology, zoology, mathematics, anatomy and physiology. From 1823 until his death he lived, worked and srudied in Aschersleben. The genus Hornungia was published by Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach in 1837. (Photo credit: Halophila) |
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hor'rida/hor'ridum/hor'ridus: very prickly or bristly.
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Horsfor'dia: named for Frederick Hinsdale Horsford (1855-1923), a New England botanist and collector, and Eben Norton Horsford (1818-1893), an American chemist. Frederick Horsford was born and died in Charlotte, Vermont. He was a farmer and commercial seedsman who went into the nursery business with Cyrus G. Pringle in 1883. They travelled throughout North America collecting plants and in 1893 Horsford bought out Pringle and established the F. H. Horsford Nursery in Charlotte, Vermont, a nursery which is in existence today at the same location, 125 years later. Horsford was an avid hybridizer and deserved the reputation as an international pioneer in the hybridization of lilies, of which in 1895 he offered nearly 60 varieties for sale. Eben Horsford was born in Moscow, New York, graduated in 1838 from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute as a civil engineer with a Bachelor of Natural Science degree in Engineering, and was engaged for a time on the geological survey of the state of New York under James Hall in 1837, after which he took up teaching mathematics and natural history at Albany Female Academy. He also taught chemistry at Newark College in Newark, Delaware. In 1842 he attended an event of the American Association of Geologists and Naturalists, an organization that eventually became the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and thereafter took up a study of Justus von Liebig's organic and agricultural chemistry. He decided to study with Liebig at the University of Giessen in Germany, and departed in 1844. After he qualified to work in Liebig's lab in October 1845, he took up the analysis of nitrogen content of grains, an index of their nutritive value as fodder. In February of the following year he began quantitative elemental analysis of "sugar of gelatin", then called glycocoll. On his return to the United States early in 1847, he was elected to the Rumford Chair of Physics at Harvard, and soon afterward submitted a plan for a department of analytical and applied chemistry, which led to the formation of the Lawrence Scientific School in Cambridge. In 1849 he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society, and in 1863, after 16 years, he resigned that position to engage in chemical manufacturing, and became President of the Rumford chemical works in Providence, Rhode Island. A generous supporter of higher education for women, Horsford became president of the board of visitors of Wellesley College, and donated money for books and the endowment of the library, scientific apparatus, and a pension fund for the college. He enjoyed remarkable success through his development of processes for manufacturing baking powder and condensed milk, and created the Shelter Island Public Library in Shelter Island, New York in 1885. He donated 280 volumes for the first library, which was initially housed in a closet in a building that functioned as a store, post office, telegraph station, and local meeting place. After the store burned down in 1891 a new library for more books donated by Professor Horsford was built on a nearby lot donated by his daughter Lilian, and his daughter Cornelia became the library's first president. His contributions to scientific literature include numerous articles which have appeared since 1846 in technical journals including one which outlined the results of successful practical experiments in pouring oil on rough seas. His services as a chemical expert in courts of law were in frequent demand, and in 1873 he was appointed one of the government commissioners to the Vienna exposition. The creation of a commercially successful baking powder was the basis of his wealth, enabling him to pursue personal and philanthropic interests in later life. Horsford's development of baking powder was designated a National Historic Chemical Landmark in 2006. The genus Horsfordia was published by Asa Gray in 1887.
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horten'sia: of gardens.
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horten'sis: of or pertaining to gardens.
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hortor'um: same as above entry.
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Hosack'ia: named for Dr. David Hosack (1769-1835), noted physician, botanist and educator who was the originator
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of the first botanical garden in the United States, called Elgin Botanical Garden in New York after his father's Scottish birthplace, with 1500 species of plants. He was the doctor who attended to Alexander Hamilton after his deadly duel with Aaron Burr. He had also attended to the son of Alexander Hamilton who was shot in a duel at the same location three years earlier. He was born in New York City and was sent to New Jersey academies to further his education, first in Newark and then Hackensack. He then attended Columbia College where he became enamored with |
medicine, later transferring to the College of New Jersey (now Princeton) from which he graduated with a BA in 1789 at the age of 20. In 1790 he enrolled in a medical school in Pennsylvania and received a medical degree the following year. He opened his first medical practice in Alexandria, Virginia, and then returned to New York City with his wife in 1792. At some point he went to Britain to study at the University of Edinburgh and spent much of his time in the botanical gardens there. After returning in 1796 from his time in England, he established a practice in New York City. Very soon thereafter his son died, and then his wife died in childbirth. Much of his medical work was as a family practitioner specializing in pediatric and obstetric care. He was a professor of natural history, botany, and midwifery and surgery at Columbia College, the founder and first president of the New York Horticultural Society, and was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Hosack was one of the founders and the fourth president of the New York Historical Society, President of the Literary and Philosophical Society of New York, a member of the American Antiquarian Society, one of the founders of both Belleview Hospital and the American Academy of Fine Arts, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and an honorary member of the National Academy of Design. With his second wife he had nine children, seven of whom lived to adulthood. Hosack was one of the first to introduce European-style landscape architecture into the United States. The Great Fire of New York in 1835 destroyed hundreds of buildings, and Hosack’s property loss was estimated at $300,000, over $8 million today. He died of a stroke one week later. The genus Hosackia was published by George Bentham in 1829 based on an earlier description by David Douglas.
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Howellan'thus/howellia'na/Howelliel'la/howel'lii: named in honor of
John Thomas Howell (1903-1994), assistant to
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Alice Eastwood and her
successor as Curator of Botany of the California Academy of Sciences.
He had become Assistant Curator in 1930 and was appointed as
Curator the day after she retired in 1949 serving until January 1969
and being succeeded in turn by Dennis Eugene Breedlove. With Eastwood,
he started a journal called Leaflets of Western Botany which
was published from 1932 to 1968. He was a scholar of the Eriogonums and was the author of Marin Flora: A Manual of the Flowering Plants
and Ferns of Marin County, and a co-author of A Flora
of Sonoma County with |
Catherine Best, Irja Knight and Mary Wells
as well as A Flora of San Francisco, California with Peter
Raven and Peter Rubtzoff. He was also a principal mentor of
Mary DeDecker. "More than 50 years ago, [he] came upon
wildflowers blooming in the charred 'remains' of a chaparral wildfire
on the side of Mount Tamalpais. He had never seen a display
to match it. 'It's a wonder,' he wrote, 'that ecologists don't
become arsonists in order to behold the beauty after burns.' "
(from Bay
Nature) The following memorium is from a website of the Flora
of North America Project: "Tom was born in Merced, California
and by the time he entered high school there, he had become particularly
interested in plants. He studied botany under W. L. Jepson at
the University of California at Berkeley and received his M.A. in
1927. From 1927-1929, Tom was the first resident botanist at the Rancho
Santa Ana Botanic Garden when it was still located on Susanna Bixby
Bryant's ranch in Santa Ana Canyon. There, he founded the herbarium
of the Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Garden (RSA). In 1929, Alice
Eastwood offered Tom a position in the herbarium at the California
Academy of Sciences where he spent the next 65 years in botanical
exploration, research, and public education. Although Tom collected
nearly 55,000 plants, mostly from throughout California and the western
United States, tropical botanists recognize his enormous contributions
to the study of the Galapagos Islands flora. From March to September
of 1932, Tom was a botanist on the Templeton Crocker Expedition to
the Galapagos where he collected 1,627 plants on 14 of the islands.
These collections formed the basis for some of the first serious revisionary
studies of plant groups with significant radiation in the Galapagos
Islands. Tom's publications on the Galapagos flora dealt with
such groups as Mollugo, Cactaceae, Amaranthaceae, Tiquilia, Scalesia, and Polygala. In California,
Tom collected plants in the Sierra Nevada for some 25 years with the
prospect of writing a flora of that mountain range. The 20 herbarium
cases housing specimens generated by those efforts are now being incorporated
into the Academy's herbarium. Because they were largely unmounted,
Howell's Sierran plants were not readily accessible for use by authors
of the recent Jepson Manual. Botanically, Tom was a generalist
with a particular interest in regional floras. Plants named
for Tom include an alga, a fungus, a lichen, a liverwort, a moss,
monocots, and dicots. His "specialities" included
the Asteraceae, Cyperaceae, Hydrophyllaceae, Poaceae, Polygonaceae, Rhamnaceae, and Rubiaceae. His bibliography includes more than
500 entries, most of which deal with California plants. He considered
his editing and publication of the private journal Leaflets of
Western Botany (10 volumes and index, 1932--1968) to be his most
important contribution to California botany. Another of Tom's
best known and most popular publications is Marin Flora, Manual
of the Flowering Plants and Ferns of Marin County, California.
Although Tom did not teach in a university classroom setting,
he probably taught botany to nearly as many people as most college
professors. His "students" included Junior Academy schoolchildren,
Sierra Club chapters, the California Native Plant Society, and California
Botanical Club. Tom served as leader of this latter organization
(which was founded in 1891 by Katherine Brandegee) from 1950 to 1970.
Over the years he was a mentor to a loyal following of amateur
and professional botanists. Tom's influence extended beyond
informal botanical instruction and encouragement. In many cases
he nurtured dedication among his followers that led to important collaborative
publications such as A Flora of San Francisco (1958), A
Flora of Lassen Volcanic National Park, California (1961), The
Vascular Plants of Monterey County, California (1964), and A
Catalogue of Vascular Plants on Peavine Mountain (1992). In
the years preceding his death Tom was actively involved in a collaborative
study of the flora of Sonoma County. Tom was especially proud
of having received the Willdenow Medal from the Berlin Botanical Garden
and Museum (1979) and the Fellows Medal of the California Academy
of Sciences (1986). Following his retirement, the John Thomas
Howell Curatorial Chair of Western American Botany was established
at the Academy. The endowment for this chair continues to grow
and it will be activated when sufficient funds become available. His
many friends and colleagues will miss Tom's thoughtful counsel, ever
present humor, and zest for the flora of his native state. A
biographical sketch of Tom Howell's eventful and productive life appeared
in Fremontia 17(1):11-19. 1989." The genus Howelliella was published by Werner Hugo Paul Rothmaler in 1954 and the genus Howellanthus was published in 2010 by Geneviere K. Walden and Robert Patterson. (genus Howelliella,
genus Howellanthus, also Brodiaea howellii Eastw., Cuscuta howelliana, Allium howellii, Castilleja howellii, Chorizanthe howellii, Epilobium howellii, Eriogonum howellii, Juncus howellii, Linanthus howellii, Malacothamnus howellii, Puccinellia
howellii, and other taxa)
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Howel'lia/howel'lii: named for Thomas Jefferson Howell (1824-1912) (see entry below) and his brother, the botanist and plant collector Joseph (1830-1912) who preceded him in death by only two months. Joseph Howell was born in Berwick, Pennsylvania, and died in Portland, Oregon. He and middle brother John bought the dairy farm next to their parents' land on Sauvie Island, Oregon, in 1873 and ran it successfully for many years. The genus Howellia was published by Asa Gray in 1880. (genus Howellia, Isoetes howellii, Montia howellii)
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howel'lii: named for Arthur Holmes Howell (1872-1940), American zoologist most notable for his field work on
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mammals and birds in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, and Texas. He was born in Lake Grove, New York and at the age of fifteen graduated from Brooklyn High School. As a boy in New York state, he developed an interest in natural history, especially birds, and in 1898, he visited Great Gull Island and confirmed the extinction of the Gull Island vole. In 1889 he became a member of the American Ornithologists' Union and later joined the Linnean Society of New York. In 1895, on the advice of |
the ornithologist Harry C. Oberholser, he was offered a temporary appointment by Vernon Bailey of the United States Department of Agriculture, Division of Ornithology and Mammalogy and accompanied Bailey as field assistant during surveys in Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. The website of the Smithsonian Institution Archives says: “Following a second temporary appointment in 1896, Howell became a permanent special assistant and was assigned work on the preparation of scientific study skins and the Bureau's mammal collection. Howell remained with the Biological Survey until his death and held the position of Senior Biologist in the Division of Wildlife Research, Fish and Wildlife Service, successor agency of the Bureau. During his career, Howell became one of the leading American ornithologists and mammalogists. He was a charter member of the American Society of Mammalogists, a member of the Society's Board of Directors, 1935-1940, and Chairman of the editorial committee, 1938-1940. In addition, he was a Fellow of the American Ornithologists' Union and a member of the Baird Ornithological Club, the Cooper Ornithological Club, and the Biological Society of Washington. Howell's major publications dealt with the fauna of the southeastern United States, particularly birds and mammals. Howell published 118 works. Of his 118 publications, his major works included The Birds of Arkansas [1911], Birds of Alabama [1924], and Florida Bird Life [1932]. At the time of his death, he was also preparing two manuscripts for the North American Fauna Series, A Revision of the Classification of Red Squirrels and The Mammals of Florida.” He died in Washington, D.C. ( Solidago howellii)
- howel'lii: named for Joseph Howell (1830-1912), brother of Thomas Jefferson Howell. (See entry above). (Brodiaea howellii S. Watson, Sanicula crassicaulis var. howellii)
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howel'lii: named for Thomas Jefferson Howell (1824-1912), a
collector of the flora of Oregon and Washington.
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Born in Cooper County, Missouri, he moved at the age of eight with his family in 1850 by wagon train to the Oregon territory where they settled on Sauvie Island on the Columbia River outside of Portland. Only having six months of formal schooling and some education in Latin and the sciences from his father, he mostly educated himself while farming along the Clackamas River after leaving Sauvie Island. He collected plants found near his home and established an impressive herbarium, sending many specimens to Harvard and Europe, and to botanists such as Asa Gray, |
Sereno Watson and Liberty Hyde Bailey for identification. He discovered more than 50 species and ran what may have been the region's first native plant nursery. He operated several grocery stores in the Portland area and served as the first postmaster of the Willamette Slough post office on Sauvie Island starting in 1873. He later served as the first postmaster of Creighton post office in Oak Grove, Oregon, beginning in 1904. He was the author of A Catalogue of the Known Plants (Phaenogamia and Pteridophyta) of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho which was published in 1887 and listed 2,152 species. After this was accomplished, he undertook to describe all the species in his list and despite marginal literacy (he attended only a few months of school, being educated mostly by his doctor father) and lack of funds, he wrote, produced and printed his own Flora of Northwest America to fill a gap that he perceived to exist in the botanical documentation of his country. "To defray publication expenses, he learned how to set type, composed the pages of his book himself at home, then carried them into town for individual printing. He completed the manuscript for this, his Flora of Northwest America, in 1897, and it was not completely printed and issued until 1903. It remained the most complete account of the flora of the Pacific Northwest for nearly fifty years." Howell and his brother Joseph (1830-1912) both became ardent botanical collectors and came to the attention of Asa Gray when they sent him samples for identification. The great Harvard scholar even named one species they discovered after them to honor their contribution, Howellia aquatilis. Howell's opus eventually reached 800 pages and remains a major work of the region. In 1903 Howell donated his collection of approximately 10,000 plant specimens to the University of Oregon. He spent the 1903-1904 academic year cataloging the collection for the university. An article in the Oregon Encyclopedia quotes the comments of a number of major botanical figures regarding Howell: “Willis Lynn Jepson of Berkeley wrote ‘Mr. Howell . . . deserves no small meed of praise for the courage and resolution necessary in the face of such circumstances.’ The often-cranky E.L. Greene wrote that Howell ‘accomplished the greatest amount of meritorious and valuable scientific work that was ever done by any man of any epoch, on so very rudimentary an education in letters.’ Alice Eastwood of the California Academy wrote the kindest words of all. ‘The conscientious striving for the truth which distinguishes the work of this botanist, his independence in asserting his own views, and his thorough, careful work, command our respect; while the enthusiasm and self-denial which have resulted in the publication of a work of this magnitude by any author comparatively poor in money, at his own expense, commands, again, our admiration.’ " ( Agoseris howellii, Alopecurus howellii, Amsinckia howellii, Antennaria howellii, Carex howellii, Cirsium howellii, Cryptantha howellii, Dicranum howellii, Dimeresia howellii, Draba howellii, Erythronium howellii, Festuca howellii, Fontinalis howellii, Lilium howelli, Lomatium
howellii, Minuartia howellii, Montia howellii, Pedicularis howellii, Perideridia howellii, Poa howellii, Polygonum howellii, Potentilla howellii, Saxifraga howellii, Senecio howellii, Streptanthus howellii, Tauschia howellii, Thelypodium howellii, Trifolium howellii, Viola howellii and other taxa)
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hubb'yi: named for Frank Winfield Hubby, Sr. (1841-1918). David Hollombe
sent me the following biographical information for which I express
my gratitude: "Frank W. Hubby, Ojai Valley, California. Born
in Cleveland, Dec. 23, 1841. Educated Cleveland grammar and high schools
and Kenyon College, graduating at latter with "philosophical"
honor. Treasurer Jamestown & Franklin R. R. Co. and Gen. Accountant
Mercer Iron & Coal Co., 1865-1866. Then engaged in manufacture
of axes and edge tools as treasurer and manager of Powell Tool Co.,
from its founding till it was merged with the American Axe & Tool
Co. Still retains interests in various manufacturing enterprises of
Cleveland and elsewhere. Joined with "Squirrel Hunters"
campaign in defense of the Capitol at Washington. Member of Alpha
Delta Phi and Phi Beta Kappa fraternities, the Winon's Point Shooting
Club and other clubs, and member of St. Paul's Episcopal Church. Republican
for many years; now independent." [from Progressive Men of
Northern Ohio]. "At the age of forty he retired from active
business and became an active resident of the Ojai Valley, California.
He organized the Ojai Improvement Company, which developed the Valley's
resources, and also planned and erected, with his associate, Mr. Foster,
the well-known Foothills Hotel at Ojai and laid out the tennis courts
where annual tournaments have been held for many years. Mr. Hubby
and associates were the builders of the big dam at Bear Valley in
San Bernardino County." [from History of Hollywood, 1937].
"The Hubby Herbarium, assembled about 50 years ago by Frank W.
Hubby and Nora Pettibone at Ojai, Ventura County, has been one of
the notable accessions of recent months. This herbarium is important
chiefly for specimens from Ojai Valley and supplements the fine recent
collections from the region that have been given to the Academy by
Henry M. Pollard. Among the most interesting specimens are some collected
by Miss Alice Eastwood in the 1890s around San Francisco, CA., duplicates
of specimens the Academy lost in the Great Fire of 1906. This outstanding
gift to the Academy was made by the Ojai Branch of the Ventura County
Library." [From the (California) "Academy Newsletter",
Feb. 1949]
- huddellia'na: named for Columbus Irvin Huddle (1875-1944), born in West Jefferson, Ohio, and died in Huntington Beach, California. An entry entitled "Contributions from the Rocky Mountain Herbarium: New Plants from Idaho" by Aven Nelson in the Botanical Gazette of Jul-Dec 1912 says: “This fine species was discovered by Columbus I. Huddle, supervisor of the Lemhi National Forest, Mackay, Idaho. It was growing in the loose black-limestone slide-rock, in Bear Canyon, altitude about 10,000 feet. The specimens, secured in good quantity, were in full fruit. The species is named for its discoverer, to whose courtesy the writer owes the memory of a glorious summer day's splendid collecting in the forest, under Mr. Huddle's watchful supervision, July 30, 1911.”
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Hudson'ia: named for William Hudson (1730-1793), early British botanist born in Kendal, Westmoreland, and educated at Kendal grammar school. He served an apprenticeship to an apothecary in Haymarket, London. The following is quoted from Wikipedia: “He obtained the prize for botany given by the Apothecaries' Company, a copy of Ray's Synopsis; but he also paid attention to mollusca and insects. In Pennant's British Zoology he is mentioned as the discoverer of Trochus terrestris. From 1757 to 1768 Hudson was resident sub-librarian of the British Museum, and his studies in the Sloane herbarium enabled him to adapt the Linnean nomenclature to the plants described by Ray far more accurately than did Sir John Hill in his Flora Britannica of 1760. In 1761 Hudson was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and in the following year appeared the first edition of his Flora Anglica, which, according to Pulteney and Sir J. E. Smith, 'marks the establishment of Linnean principles of botany in England.' Smith writes that the work was 'composed under the auspices and advice of Benjamin Stillingfleet.' Hudson, at the time of its publication, was practising as an apothecary in Panton Street, Haymarket, and from 1765 to 1771 acted as 'praefectus horti' to the Apothecaries' Company at Chelsea. A considerably enlarged edition of the Flora appeared in 1778; but in 1783 the author's house in Panton Street took fire, his collections of insects and many of his plants were destroyed, and the inmates narrowly escaped with their lives. Hudson retired to Jermyn Street. In 1791 he joined the newly established Linnean Society. He died in Jermyn Street from paralysis on 23 May 1793, being, according to the Gentleman's Magazine, in his sixtieth year. He bequeathed the remains of his herbarium to the Apothecaries' Company.” The genus Hudsonia was published in 1767 by Carl Linnaeus.
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hudsonia'num: of or from the area around Hudson Bay in Canada.
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Huegel'ia/hugel'ia: named for Karl Alexander Anselm Baron von Hügel (1795-1870), Austrian noble, army officer,
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diplomat, botanist, and explorer. He was born in Regensburg, Bavaria, and studied law at Heidelberg University. In 1813 he became an officer in the Austrian Hussars and fought in the armies of the sixth and seventh coalitions against Napoleon. After Napoleon's defeat, he visited Scandinavia and Russia, before being stationed with other Austrian troops in southern France and then Italy. In 1824 he moved to Vienna and established a botanical garden. He is known especially for the grand tour of Asia which he engaged in from 1831 to 1836. he travelled to the Near East, |
the Indian subcontinent, the Far East and Australasia, before returning to Europe via the Cape of Good Hope and Saint Helena. He published a four-volume work called Kashmir and the Realm of the Sikh following his return to Europe, much of which relates to his journey across northern India. His visit to Australia and Tasmania was for the purpose of observing the flora and collecting seeds for his garden. Upon his return to Vienna he founded the Imperial Horticultural Society of which he was president from 1837 to 1848. In 1849 he was awarded the Royal Geographical Society's Patron's Gold Medal for his exploration of Kashmir. On the outbreak of the 1848 revolution, he sold his garden and rejoined the Army, seeing action in the First Italian Independence War. He was Austrian Envoy Extraordinary (ambassador) to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in Florence from 1850 to 1859 and in 1860 became the Austrian ambassador in Brussels, following which he published a second work about his grand tour, this time entitled The Pacific Ocean and the Spanish possessions in the East Indian archipelago. Retiring in 1867 he settled in Devon, England and died three years later in Brussels while en route to visit Vienna. One of his sons became a well-known Catholic theologian, another an anthropologist, and his daughter is regarded as the founder of Corpus Christi Church in Boscombe, now part of Bournemouth, in Dorset, England. The genus Huegelia in the Polemoniaceae was published by George Bentham and Joseph Dalton Hooker in 1876. Two other genera Huegelia were published in his honor in two other familes, the Rutaceae and the Araliaceae.
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hullia'nus: named for Alvin C. Hull, Jr. (1909-1998). He married Mayme Laird and had four children. He was born in Whitney, Idaho, and died in Logan, Utah. He was a Forest Service employee in Idaho and Utah and worked on artificial reforestation.
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Hul'sea: named for Dr. Gilbert White Hulse (1807-1883), U.S. Army surgeon, botanist and plant collector. David Hollombe sent me a reference to an entry in the Journal of the New York Botanical Garden, Vol. 22, by John Hendley Barnhart, Bibliographer of the Garden for 30 years, that gives the following information: “Gilbert White Hulse was born 12 March 1807, in Blooming Grove township, near Washingtonville, Orange County, New York. He studied medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City, receiving his degree in 1835. He immediately entered the medical service of the United States Army, being stationed at Tampa Bay from February to April, 1836, in Arkansas during the summer and fall of the same year, returning to Fort Brooke, Florida. In 1837 he went again to Fort Gibson, Arkansas, returning to Fort Brooke in January, 1838. He was at Tallahassee in March, and before the middle of the year 1838 had settled as a medical practitioner at Rodney, Mississippi. Later he was a planter and slave owner in Louisiana, and about 1850 he visited northern California, where he collected plants for [John] Torrey as he had done in Florida and Mississippi. Throughout the Civil War he was a surgeon in the Confederate Army, and at its close, his property gone, he returned north, making his home at first with his sister, Mrs. Moffatt, at Rockford, Illinois, and later with her daughter, Mrs. Knapp, at Auburn, New York, where he died 13 November 1883.” He corresponded with John Torrey and the genus name Hulsea was given by John Torrey and Asa Gray in 1858.
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hul'tenii: named for Oskar Eric Gunnar Hultén (1894-1981), Swedish botanist, one of the greatest of twentieth
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century plant geographers, explorer of the Arctic and in his time the pre-eminent student of circumboreal floras He was born in Halla, Södermanland, and inherited an interest in plants from his father who was a priest. He was educated at Stockholm University, obtaining his Masters degree in 1919 and a Ph.D. in 1937, and then Doctor of Science in botany at Lund University in 1937. He published Flora of Kamchatka and the adjacent islands 1927-1930. From 1931 to 1933 he was curator of the herbarium at the University of Lund, and during this time he was member |
of a botanical expedition to Mexico. In 1937 he published his Flora of the Aleutian Islands. From 1945 to 1961, he was a professor and head of the Botany Section at the Swedish Museum of Natural History. In 1953, he was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. An entry by Charles H. Smith on the webpage entitled Some Biogeographers, Evolutionists and Ecologists: Chrono-Biographical Sketches says the following about Hultén: “Beyond being equally adept as a field biologist, specimen collector, herbarium organizer, literature synthesizer, and plant taxonomist, he was also an important producer of new theories. It was Hultén, for example, who first significantly challenged the earlier view that during the Ice Age most or all circumpolar lands were completely covered with ice and unfit for vegetation: his research led him to hypothesize instead that numerous refugia had existed, a conclusion that has largely proved out through many subsequent researches. Hultén coined the term "Beringia" to describe one particular such refugium he thought existed around the Bering Strait area during the glacial period days of lower sea levels, and the term has stuck and provided a foundation for thinking in an array of related fields. Hultén is also known for his theory of equiformal progressive areas, an elaboration on the "age and area" notion of J. C. Willis in which plants are viewed as changing evolutionarily as they disperse out over time from refugial centers of origin. Several of Hultén's books became classics, including those on his model of Quaternary Arctic floral evolution [ Outline of the History of Arctic and Boreal Biota During the Quaternary Period](1937), his regional surveys of Alaskan vascular plants [ Flora of Alaska and Yukon] (1941-1950 and 1968), his dot-map atlas of Scandinavian plant distribution (1950), and his phytogeographical syntheses of far-northern plant life (1958 and 1961).” In 1961 he retired, but was able to continue his exploration of Alaska until he was crippled by an apoplectic stroke which left him unable to walk and hospitalised for the rest of his life.
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humboldtia'na/humboldt'ii: named for Friedrich Wilhelm
Heinrich Alexander, Baron von Humboldt (1769-1859), a
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German geographer
who Charles Darwin described as "the greatest scientific traveller
who ever lived." The following is from a website called Enchanted
Learning: "Baron Alexander von Humboldt was a Prussian naturalist
and explorer who explored much of Central and South America. Humboldt
and his friend, the French medical doctor/botanist Aime-Jacques-Alexandre
Goujoud Bonpland (1773-1858), explored the coast of Venezuela, the
Amazon and Orinoco Rivers, and much of Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and
Mexico (1799-1805). On their many |
expeditions, Humboldt and Bonpland collected plant, animal, and mineral specimens, studied electricity
(including discovering the first animal that produced electricity,
Electrophorus electricus, the electric eel), did extensive mapping
of northern South America, climbed mountains (and set altitude records),
observed astronomical phenomena, and performed many scientific observations.
The scientist Carlos Montufar (who later became a revolutionary in
Ecuador) acconpanied them on part of the trip. Humboldt discovered
what is now called the Humboldt Current off the west coast of South
America, while he was investigating why the interior of Peru was so
dry. It is a cold ocean current that runs along much of the western
coast of South America, and is also known as the Peru Current. Humboldt
was the first European to witness native South Americans preparing
curare arrow poison from a vine. He was also the first person to recognize
the need to preserve the cinchona plant (its bark contains quinine,
which is used to cure malaria, and it was terribly over-harvested
at the time). Humboldt was the first person to make accurate drawings
of Inca ruins in South America (he visited the ruins at Canar, Peru).
Humboldt and Bonpland discovered and mapped the Casiquiare Canal,
the only natural canal in the world that connects two major rivers
(the Orinoco River and the Negro River, a tributary of the Amazon).
Humboldt was also the first person to discover the importance of guano
(the dried droppings from fish-eating birds); it is an excellent fertilizer.
After their South American expeditions, Humboldt and Bonpland visited
the USA and were guests of President Thomas Jefferson in Washington,
D.C., for three months in 1804 (their visit happened just after Jefferson
had sent Lewis and Clark to explore the western US). At the age of
60, Humboldt traveled to the Ural mountains in Siberia and to Central
Asia to study the weather. He wrote extensively of his travels and
discoveries. One of his books, A Personal Narrative, inspired
a young Charles Darwin. His last work was his multi-volume book, Kosmos,
which tried to unify all of science. Humboldt died at age 90 (leaving Kosmos unfinished), and is buried in Tegel, Germany. Many landmarks
in the Americas, including a current [the Humboldt], a river, a mountain
range, a reservoir, a salt marsh, parks, many counties and towns are
named for Humboldt. On the moon, the Mare Humboldtianum (Humboldt's
Sea) was named for Humboldt." Species named for him include
the Humboldt penguin ( Spheniscus humboldti), the Humboldt's
lily ( Lilium humboldtii), a South American Oak ( Quercus
humboldtii), an orchid ( Phragmipedium humboldtii) and other
plants. And from Wikipedia: "The childhood of Alexander von Humboldt
was not a promising one as regards either health or intellect. His
characteristic tastes, however, soon displayed themselves; and from
his penchant for collecting and labelling plants, shells, and insects
he received the playful title of "the little apothecary."
The care of his education, on the unexpected death of his father in
1779, devolved upon his mother, who discharged the trust with constancy
and judgment. Destined for a political career, he studied finance
during six months at the University of Frankfort-on-the-Oder; and
a year later, April 25, 1789, he matriculated at Göttingen, then
eminent for the lectures of Christian Gottlob Heyne and Johann Friedrich
Blumenbach. His vast and varied powers were by this time fully developed,
and during a vacation in 1789, he made a scientific excursion up the
Rhine, and produced the treatise, Mineralogische Beobachtungen
über einige Basalte am Rhein (Brunswick, 1790). His passion
for travel was confirmed by friendships formed at Göttingen with
Georg Forster, Heyne's son-in-law, the distinguished companion of
Captain James Cook's second voyage. Henceforth his studies and rare
combination of personal talents became directed with extraordinary
insight and perseverance to the purpose of preparing himself for a
distinctive calling as a scientific explorer. With this view he studied
commerce and foreign languages at Hamburg, geology at Freiberg under
Abraham Gottlob Werner, anatomy at Jena under J. C. Loder, astronomy
and the use of scientific instruments under Franz Xaver von Zach and
Johann Gottfried Köhler. His researches into the vegetation of
the mines of Freiberg led to the publication in 1793 of his Florae
Fribergensis Specimen; and the results of a prolonged course of experiments
on the phenomena of muscular irritability, then recently discovered
by Luigi Galvani, were contained in his Versuche über die
gereizte Muskel- und Nervenfaser (Berlin, 1797), enriched in the
French translation with notes by Blumenbach. In the summer of 1790
he paid a short visit to England in company with [his friend Georg]
Forster. In 1792 and 1797 he was in Vienna; in 1795 he made a geological
and botanical tour through Switzerland and Italy. He had obtained
in the meantime official employment: appointed assessor of mines at
Berlin, February 29, 1792. Although this service to the state was
regarded by him as only an apprenticeship to the service of science,
he fulfilled its duties with such conspicuous ability that he not
only rose rapidly to the highest post in his department, but was as
well entrusted with several important diplomatic missions. The death
of his mother, on the 19th of November 1796, set him free to follow
the bent of his genius, and severing his official connections, he
waited for an opportunity to fulfill his long-cherished dream of travel
to distant lands."
- humboldtien'sis: of or from Humboldt County.
- humico'la: a dweller in the earth or ground.
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humifu'sa: trailing, sprawling, spreading over the ground, from the Greek humus, "earth, ground," and fusus, "spread out, expansive, creeping."
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hu'mile/hu'milis: low-growing, humble, from Latin humus, "earth, soil."
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Hum'ulus: a Latin name of uncertain origin, although it may have
descended from the Low German word humela for hop, which is
the common name of this genus placed by Munz in the Moraceae or mulberry family, but moved by Jepson along with Cannabis into the new family Cannabaceae. The genus Humulus was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
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Hunneman'nia: named for John Hunneman (c.1760-1839), English botanist, traveller, plant collector, and botanical bookseller in Soho, London. He was an agent for dried plants and was responsible for the introduction of new plants. The genus Hunnemannia was published by Robert Sweet in 1828.
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huntia'na: named for Loren Edward Hunt (1870-1916). David Hollombe contributes
the following from various sources: Hunt was born in Austin, Minnesota,
and his family came to Santa Barbara in 1872. Hunt taught engineering
at U.C. from 1893 to 1904 and was later Principal Assistant Engineer
of San Francisco. He conceived the high-power fire protection that
was installed in San Francisco following the disastrous fire of 1906.
I don't have any details handy on his collecting in California, but
Hunt went on a collecting trip to Alaska in 1899 with Setchell, Jepson
and A. A. Lawson. He was also captain of the U.C. football team while
a student there and also for a time in charge of the U.C. forestry
experiment station.
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Husnotiel'la: named for Pierre Tranquille Husnot (1840-1929), French botanist, bryologist, agrostologist, traveller
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and plant collector. He was born at Caen in northwestern France and studied at the Ecole d'Agriculture de Grignon and at the Université de Caen. From 1862 to 1875 he travelled extensively to Europe (the Pyrenees and Alps), Africa and America, and more particularly in the Caribbean (Grenada and the French Antilles) and the Canary Islands. When he returned he took over management of the family farm and became a cotrresponding member of a number of botanical societies. In 1874 he founded the Revue Bryologique, of which he was at the same |
time the editor, the director and the publisher until the end of 1927. In 1882 he published Flore analytique et descriptive des mousses du Nord-Ouest, and other works of his included Muscologia gallica, Sphagnologia europaca and Hepaticologia gallica. He was mayor of Caen from 1865 until his death. The genus Husnotiella was published by Jules Cardot in 1909.
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Hut'chinsia/Hutchins'ia: named for Ellen Hutchins (1785-1815), Ireland’s first female botanist and a talented botanical artist who made beautiful and accurate drawings that were used by a number of botanists in their publications. She was particularly interested in cryptogams like mosses, liverworts, lichens, seaweeds and other seashore plants of the Bantry Bay and County Cork area where she lived. She also collected around Belfast and along the west coast of Ireland. Most of her collection is at Kew Gardens. She contributed to the Flora Hibernica by James Townsend Mackay, Curator of the Botanic Garden at Trinity College. She discovered a great many plants ‘new to science’ and contributed greatly to our understanding of seaweeds and other non-flowering plants. She was also an avid gardener and she tended plants in a field near her home which was referred to as Miss Ellen’s garden. Her health had been poor as a youth, and in the latter part of her life she suffered from tuberculosis and died in Cork just before her 30th birthday. The genus Hutchinsia ( Brassicaceae) was named in her honour by William Townsend Aiton in 1812 and, even if now replaced by the name Hornungia, the common name “Hutchinsia” persists in the UK for Hornungia alpina.
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hutchinsifo'lia: with leaves like genus Hutchinsia.
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hutchinson'iae: after Susan Wipfler/Whipple (Mrs. William Wilson
Hutchinson) (1880-1970). Thanks to David Hollombe for the following:
"Her name was originally Susan Wiffler, and the family name had
originally been Wipfler when her grandparents and father came to the
U.S. (She probably changed to Whipple during World War I, because
of anti-German feelings in the U.S.) She and her husband were trained
as osteopaths, but she never practiced and her husband later (1917)
earned an M.D. degree and became an anesthesiologist. They came to
Los Angeles from Detroit in 1912. Marcus Jones called her 'the best
woman botanist in California.' She encouraged Joseph Ewan (see ewanii)
to study botany and eventually gave her herbarium to the University
of Colorado."
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hutchison'ii: named for Paul Clifford Hutchison (1924-1997), senior botanist at the University of California at Berkeley who specialized in cacti. He grew up in Antioch, California and at age 12 worked at a nursery where he became enamored of Faucaria tigrina and fell in love with succulents. In 1937 he joined the Cactus and Other Succulent League of Oakland, California, and began collecting himself. He travelled to Alaska in 1941 and became interested in phytogeography, deciding at the same time to study botany at university. He enrolled at UC Berkeley, but after a year joined the Navy V-12 programme which sent him to the Hospital Corps School in San Diego. Out of the Navy, he graduated from Berkeley and in 1949 took up curatorial duties in the succulent section of the University of California Botanical Garden. He was later promoted to senior botanist, a post in which he remained until 1966. He had since 1948 been publishing articles in the Cactus and Succulent Journal (U.S.) and took trips to the Caribbean and Chile, Bolivia and Peru in 1951-1952, 1956-1957 and 1964 to research South American cacti species, amassing hundreds of living cacti, seeds and other plants. He also collected in Mexico (1962), Puerto Rico, Hawaii and Brazil (the latter in 1983). He helped to found the International Succulent Institute in Millbrae, California, in 1958. In 1966 he left the University and began a nursery called Tropic World which eventually put a drain on his energies and finances, forcing him to abandon some of his research and finally to sell the nursery in the 1990s. He had a kidney transplant in the 1970s which failed some years later, leading to years of dialysis which lasted for the remainder of his life.
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Hu'tera: named for Rupert Huter (1834-1919), Austrian clergyman and botanist. He was born in Kals, Tyrol, and was
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interested in plants from an early age. He attended seminary and studied theology in Brixen, and after ordination worked in various parishes in East and South Tyrol. From 1861 to 1881, he served as a curate in several Austrian communities, later being named an expositur in Jaufental. From 1884 to 1918, he was a priest in Ried bei Sterzing. All of his spare time was spent exploring the flora of the area, and he found a supporter of his botanical work in the Bishop of Brixen, Vinzenz Gasser, who commissioned him to create a herbarium. With Pietro Porta, who published the |
genus Hutera in 1892, and Giorgio Rigo, he participated in several botanical expeditions, including trips northeastern Italy (1873), southern Italy (1874, 1875, 1877), Spain (1879) and the Balearic Islands (1885). He collected plants and exchanged duplicates with other botanists, maintaining close contact with collectors throughout Europe, as well as in Turkey, Russia and many other countries. His goal was to create a herbarium of all the wild species of Europe, and while he didn’t achieve this he came close. His collection contains 14,646 different plant species, and several hundred type specimens carefully preserved. His herbarium of nearly 120,000 specimens was bequeathed to the Episcopal Institute Vinzentinum in Bressanone (South Tyrol) in Brixen, which is an educational institution of the Diocese of Bolzano-Bressanone for middle and high school students. He died in Sterzing in South Tyrol. (Photo credit: Osttirolheute)
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hyacinthin'a/hyacinthin'us: hyacinthine
means "light violet to purplish-blue in color," which would
fit the color at least of L. hyacinthinus. There are however other
possible and more likely derivations. One is that these names derive
from hyacinth and the Greek or Latin adjectival suffix - inus which indicates color, appearance or resemblance, thus meaning essentially
"like a hyacinth." Another stems from the fact that the
word "jacinto" in Spanish means "hyacinth," and
according to John Robinson's book on the San Jacintos, the original
Rancho San Jacinto, which was part of Mission San Luis Rey, was apparently
named for a Silesian-born Dominican missionary, Saint Hyacinth,
who was referred to as San Jacinto in Spanish, and perhaps the San
Jacinto Mts were named similarly. The connection between "jacinto"
and "hyacinth" is stronger in the case of the lupine because
it does grow there, whereas the Triteleia does not.
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hyalin'um: translucent or transparent.
- Hybanth'us: from the Greek hybos for "hump-backed" and anthos for "flower", referring to the drooping pedicels of plants that are part of this genus, which was published by Nicolaus Joseph von Jacquin (1760).
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hy'brida/hy'bridum/hy'bridus: mixed, hybrid.
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Hydril'la: possibly a diminutive of hydra, "a water serpent,"
deriving from the Greek hydor, "water," and relating
to the aquatic environment. The genus Hydrilla was published by Louis Claude Marie Richard in 1811.
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hydrocharo'ides: resembling genus Hydrocharis, from the Greek hydor, "water," and charis, "delicacy,
delight, grace, beauty."
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Hydroco'tyle: from the Greek hydor, "water," and kotyle, "a small cup." The genus Hydrocotyle was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1754.
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hydrophilo'ides: the background of this name is as follows (and thanks
to Bob Allen for providing it): In 1841, Thomas Nuttall described Senecio hydrophilus, a very water-loving species found according
to the Jepson Manual in swamps, muddy places, and tolerant of standing
saltwater. In 1900, Per Axel Rydberg described Senecio hydrophiloides,
a very similar water-loving species but one which is a little less
water-loving than S. hydrophilus, and so he gave it the name
which means "looks like [Senecio] hydrophilus.
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hydrophi'lum: water-loving.
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Hydrophyl'lum: from the Greek hydor, "water," and phyllon, "a leaf." The genus Hydrophyllum is called waterleaf and was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
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hydropi'per: from the Latin prefix hydro- for "water"
and piper, "pepper," this taxon is commonly referred
to as waterpepper or marshpepper.
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hydropipero'ides: having a resemblance to hydropiper.
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hyema'le: of the winter, flowering in winter.
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hymenely'tra: from the Greek hymen,
"membrane," and elytra, "a sheath or cover."
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Hymeno'clea: from the Greek hymen,
"membrane," and kleio, "to enclose." The genus Hymenoclea was published by John Torrey and Asa Gray in 1849.
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hymeno'ides: the -oides suffix denotes likeness
of form or resemblance to, and so this apparently means something
like, "resembling a membrane," of uncertain application.
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Hymenopap'pus: from the Greek hymen,
"membrane," and pappos, "pappus," because
of the hyaline (colorless or translucent) paleae, which are the chafflike
scales on many species of Asteraceae. The genus Hymenopappus was published by Charles Louis L’Héritierin 1788.
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hymenosep'alus: in Latin means "having
membranous sepals."
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Hymeno'thrix: from the Greek hymen,
"membrane," and thrix, "bristle," referring
to the pappus. The genus Hymenothrix was published by Asa Gray in 1849.
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Hymenox'ys: from the Greek hymen, "a membrane,"
and oxys, "sharp-pointed, sharp," and apparently
alluding to the pappus. The genus Hymenoxys was published by Alexandre Henri Gabriel de Cassini in 1828.
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Hyparrhen'ia: from the Greek hypo, "beneath, under, below,"
and arrhen, "male," alluding to the basal staminate
spikelets. The genus Hyparrhenia was published in 1855 by Nils Johan Andersson.
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hypeco'ides: resembling genus Hypecoum.
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hyper-: Greek prefix meaning "above, over," as of some
characteristic or dimension.
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hyperbor'ea/hyperbor'eal: of the Far North.
- hyperico'ides: resembling genus Hypericum.
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Hyper'icum: an ancient Greek name derived
from hyper, "above," and eikon, "picture,"
from the old practice of placing flowers above an image in the house
to ward off evil spirits at the midsummer festival of Walpurgisnacht,
which later became the feast of St. John held in late June when they
are in bloom, and thus took the name of St. John's wort. The genus Hypericum was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
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hypno'ides: moss-like.
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hypo-: Greek prefix meaning "below, under."
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Hypochaer'is: it is not at all clear to me what the correct derivation of this name is. The entry for Hypochoeris [note spelling] in Stearn's Dictionary of Plant Names says "a name used by Theophrastus
for this or a related genus," and Hypochoeris was the named published by Linnaeus in 1753. However he published it subsequently as Hypochaeris, and it may be speculated that the derivation might be different for the two names, although they applied to the same plant. The prefix hypo- means "below, beneath or under," and suggests physical directionality or location, not quantity or amount, as opposed to hyper-, "above or over." Edmund Jaeger's A Source-Book of Biological Names and Terms says that the root chaer- derives from the Greek choiros, "a young pig." The Jepson Manual 1st edition says "Greek: less then joyous, from weedy habitat." The Jepson Manual 2nd edition says "Unabridged note: Etymology differs from that in FNANM (Flora of North America North of Mexico), where the etymology on the Greek 'choeris' for pig; the correct spelling is 'chaeris' for joy." Flora of North America says: "Cat’s ear, swine’s succory [Greek hypo, beneath, and choiras, pig, alluding to pigs digging for roots]." And David Gledhill says: "a name used by Theophrastus; some suggest derivation as comparing the pig's belly bristles [i.e. those on the underside of the pig] to those on the abaxial [lower] surface of some species."Somewhere in there might lie the derivation, although how you get from pig to cat is beyond me.
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hypoleu'ca: whitish or pale beneath, as of
a leaf.
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Hypopit'ys/hypopit'ys: from the Greek hypo, "under" and pitys,
"the pine," thus found under pines. The genus Hypopitys was published by John Hill in 1856 and is called pinesap.
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hypotrich'ium: from hypo, "below," and trichos,
"hair," the original publication mentions that the leaves
are hairy below.
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Hyp'tis: from the Greek huptios for "turned
back," from the lower lip position of the flower. The genus Hyptis was published by Nicolaus Josepg von Jacquin in 1787.
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hyssopifo'lia/hyssopifolium: having leaves like Hyssopus, an aromatic herb in Greece and elsewhere. It turns out the name hyssop has quite an interesting history although only tangentially related to Lythrum. The Ricola cough drop website says “The name hyssop is thought to derive from the Hebrew êzôw or ezob, which means “healing herb.” Etymonline adds “Old English ysope, from Irish Latin hysopus (Medieval Latin ysopus), from Greek hyssopos, a plant of Palestine, used in Jewish purification rites, from Hebrew 'ezobh. Since Old English the word has been used both of a small, bushy, aromatic herb native to southern Europe and the Biblical hyssop, a different plant, used in purification rituals, variously identified.” Hyssop (Latin name Hyssopus officinalis) is a semi-evergreen perennial or sub-shrub in the Lamiaceae (mint) family native to Europe, Asia, and Africa, however, it has naturalized in some areas of the USA. A website of Hamilton College says “It is said that Hyssop was so well known in ancient times that the mention of its name never required a description. The Europeans used the herb as early as the Middle Ages, but the Greeks and Arabs used it far earlier. The mention of Hyssop in the book of Psalms, not only illustrates the “holy herb’s” purgative power, but indicates the herb’s presence in society over 2,000 years ago. “Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.” The herb is also mentioned in the New Testament. Just before Jesus died, he was offered a branch of hyssop with a vinegar/wine soaked sponge. Though, a comparative study was conducted between traditional Mediterranean herbs, which concluded that a version of Majorana syriaca is the “hyssop” of the Bible. While this evidence may suggest otherwise, many cultures still attach the purgatory connotations of the biblical herb solely to H. officinalis.” And Wikipedia weighs in with this: “A plant called hyssop has been in use since classical antiquity. Its name is a direct adaptation from the Greek ὕσσωπος ( hyssopos). The Hebrew word אזוב ( ezov, esov, or esob) and the Greek word ὕσσωπος probably share a common (but unknown) origin. The name hyssop appears as a translation of ezov in some translations of the Bible, but researchers have suggested that the Biblical accounts refer not to the plant currently known as hyssop but rather to one of a number of different herbs, including Origanum syriacum (Syrian oregano, commonly referred to as "bible hyssop"). It was burned with the red heifer and used for purification of lepers, and at Passover it was used to sprinkle the blood of the sacrificial lamb on the doorposts. Hyssop was also used for purgation (religious purification) in Egypt, where, according to Chaeremon the Stoic, the priests used to eat it with bread in order to purify this type of food and make it suitable for their austere diet.” So although it is difficult to exactly relate the modern plant hyssop with the Biblical plant hyssop, there is no question that something called hyssop has been around for a long time and has been significant in the history of the past two millenia.
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hysterici'na/hystrici'na: although there is still some uncertainty
about the spelling of this name, the Jepson Herbarium has apparently
decided that it should be spelled hystericina. At this point I'm not
sure from what it is derived, but it seems the most likely etymology
is from the Greek hystrix, "porcupine."
- hysterophor'us: from the Greek hysteria meaning 'womb' and phorus meaning 'canyon,' and referring to the large amount of fruit and seed produced.
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hystric'ula/hystric'ulus: means "like a porcupine," from
the Greek hystrix, "a porcupine," probably in reference
to the beaked fruits.
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hys'trix: bristly, porcupine-like, from the Greek hystrix, "porcupine."
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