bacca'ta: having pulpy, berry-like fruits, from the Latin bacca for a small, round fruit such as a berry.

Bac'charis: the etymology here is very uncertain, possibly after Bacchus, Greek god of fertility, wine, revelry and sacred drama. This was an ancient name used by Dioscorides. In Latin, bacca is a fruit or berry, which is probably where the name Bacchus came from. Umberto Quattrocchi says “Greek bakkaris, bakkaridos 'unguent made from asaron'; bakcharis, an ancient Greek name used by Dioscorides for sowbread." Asaron at least in modern terms is "a crystalline phenolic ether C 12H 16O 3 found in the oils of a number of plants esp. of the genus Asarum," and in early times asaron was the Greek and/or Latin name of wild ginger (genus Asarum). Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus did not explain the derivation of this name which was published in his Species Plantarum in 1753 so it must remain for the time being unclear.

baccif'era: bearing or producing berries.

Baco'pa: from an Indian aboriginal name in French Guiana, referred to by Jean Baptiste Christophore Fuséé Aublet in his 1775 Histoire des Plantes de la Guiane Francoise. The genus Bacopa was published by Jean Baptiste Christophe Fusée Aublet in 1775 and is called water-hyssop.

bai'leyi: named for Liberty Hyde Bailey (1858-1954), American horticulturist, botanist and cofounder of the American

Society for Horticultural Science. He was born in South Haven, Michigan, and entered Michigan Agricultural College, which is now Michigan State University, graduating in 1882. The following year he became a herbarium assistant to Asa Gray, a job he held for two years. In 1884 he returned to Michigan Agricultural College and became professor and chair of the Horticulture and Landscape Gardening Department, an advancement that was quite remarkable for such a young and relatively inexperienced person. This was the first horticulture department in the country. He moved to Cornell

University in 1888 where he was appointed chair of Practical and Experimental Horticulture. He was elected to the American Academy of Sciences as an Associate Fellow in 1900 and from 1903 to 1913 was Dean of the New York State College of Agriculture. He retired in 1913 and was elected as a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1917. Wikipedia adds: “He edited The Cyclopedia of American Agriculture (1907–09), the Cyclopedia of American Horticulture (1900–02, continued as the Standard Cyclopedia Of Horticulture 1916–1919) and the Rural Science, Rural Textbook, Gardencraft, and Young Folks Library series of manuals. He was the founding editor of the journals Country Life in America and the Cornell Countryman. He dominated the field of horticultural literature, writing some sixty-five books, which together sold more than a million copies, including scientific works, efforts to explain botany to laypeople, a collection of poetry; edited more than a hundred books by other authors and published at least 1,300 articles and over 100 papers in pure taxonomy. He also coined the words cultivar', 'cultigen', and 'indigen'. His most significant and lasting contributions were in the botanical study of cultivated plants. Bailey is credited with being instrumental in starting agricultural extension services, the 4-H movement, the nature study movement, parcel post and rural electrification. He was considered the father of rural sociology and rural journalism.”

baldschuan'ica: of the variously spelled Baldjuan, Baldschuan or Baldzhuan, Turkistan, Central Asia.

bald'winii: named for surgeon and botanist William Baldwin (1779-1819), born to a Quaker family in Newlin, Chester

County, Pennsylvania. His father was a Quaker minister. The following is excerpted from the website of the Harvard University Herbaria: “He was educated in rural schools and taught for a while before deciding to study medicine. While attending his first year of medical lectures at the University of Pennsylvania, 1802-1803, he developed a friendship with William Darlington, then also a first-year medical student. Unable to afford to attend the second year of lectures, Baldwin continued to work as an assistant of Dr. William A. Todd. During this time he met Dr. Moses Marshall, who aroused an interest

in him in botany. After serving as a surgeon on a merchant ship to Canton, China (1805-1806), Baldwin was able to a attend the 1806-1807 lectures at the University of Pennsylvania, and he received his M.D. in 1807. He moved to Wilmington, Delaware, where he met and married Hannah M. Webster (ca. 1808). Baldwin continued to practice medicine, and in 1811 joined the Delaware State Medical Society. Baldwin suffered hereditary tuberculosis, and in 1811 moved to Georgia in the hopes that the milder climate would aid his health. He began collecting plants around Savannah and St. Mary's. With the outbreak of the War of 1812, Baldwin accepted a commission as a naval surgeon, based at St. Mary's, Georgia, for 2 1/2 years and at Savannah, Georgia, for 2 years. During his years in Savannah, Baldwin began a correspondence with Stephen Elliott. With his naval service ended, Baldwin sent his family back to Wilmington while he went south and botanized, especially in East Florida (winter-spring 1816-1817). During this time he renewed his correspondence with William Darlington. From late 1817 to July 1818 he served as surgeon on the frigate Congress on its voyage to Buenos Aires and other South American ports, and he carried out some botanical exploration on the trip. After this trip, Baldwin returned to his family in Wilmington. With the encouragement of Darlington, Baldwin began work on a botanical study which was to be titled: "Miscellaneous Sketches of Georgia and East Florida, to which will be added a descriptive catalogue of new plants, with notices of the works of Pursh, Elliott and Nuttall, to which will be added an appendix containing some account of the vegetable productions on the Rio de la Plata, etc." Work on this was halted by his acceptance of an appointment as botanist on the expedition of Major Stephen H. Long to the Rocky Mountains. He left with the expedition in March 1819; his health deteriorated along the way and he was forced to leave the group. He died in Franklin, Missouri, on September 1, 1819. Though Baldwin published only two scientific papers, his unpublished manuscripts were used as contributions to works by Torrey and Gray. His herbarium passed through the hands of Zachary Collins and L. D. de Schweinitz before being sent to the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Science.”

balsam'ea: balsam-like, yielding a balsam.

balsamifera: yielding a fragrant gum or resin.

balsami'na: Gledhill says this is an old generic name for a plant called alecost (Tanacetum balsamita). A website of North Carolina State Extension says that the related species name, balasamita, is from the Latin word balsamum, meaning "an aromatic resin used for healing wounds and soothing pain. Common names include costmary and alecost. That same website says the name costmary is derived from the Latin word, costus, which is for an Asian plant used as a spice and preserve. "Mary" references the Virgin Mary and may be related to the plant being used as an herb during medieval times to relieve pain during childbirth, and that the name alecost is derived from the English who used the herb to flavor their ales. Balsamina must have a similar derivation, and the species in the Flora of Virginia, Impatiens balsamina, is commonly known as balsam, garden balsam, rose balsam, touch-me-not or spotted snapweed. Going back in history, the name balsamina derives from the Ancient Greek balsamon, which in turn derives from the Hebrew bâśâm, meaning “spice, balsam, sweet, sweet smell.

bal'ticus: from the Baltic Sea or surrounding lands.

Baptis'ia: from the Greek bapto, "to dip or dye." Stearn adds that it was sometimes used as a substitute for true indigo. A website of the Clemson University College of Agriculture says: "Blue false indigo (Baptisia australis) and yellow wild indigo (Baptisia tinctoria) were used to produce a blue dye by both Native Americans and settlers before the introduction of the better quality true indigo (Indigofera tinctoria)." The genus Baptisia was published by Étienne Pierre Ventenat in 1808 and is called wild indigo.

Barbar'ea: named for St. Barbara, the patron saint of artillerymen and miners, as this plant in the past was used to soothe the wounds caused by explosions. It was once generally known as her herb, or the Herba Sanctae Barbarae. St. Barbara was an early Christian Lebanese and Greek saint and martyr. According to legend, after having express her belief in Christianity, she was dragged before the prefect of the province, Martinianus, who had her cruelly tortured, but Barbara held true to her Christian faith. During the night, the dark prison was bathed in light and new miracles occurred. Every morning, her wounds were healed. Torches that were to be used to burn her went out as soon as they came near her. Finally, she was condemned to death by beheading. Her father, a wealthy heathen named Dioscorus, carried out the death sentence himself. However, as punishment, he was struck by lightning on the way home and his body was consumed by flame. The genus Barbarea was published by William Townsend Aiton in 1812 and is called winter cress or yellow rocket.

bar'barum: foreign.

barba'ta/barba'tus: bearded, furnished with long weak hairs, from Latin barba, "beard."

barbino'de: with beards at the nodes or joints.

barbula'ta: somewhat bearded or with a short beard.

barrat'tii: named for Joseph Barratt (1796-1882), English-born physician, teacher and naturalist based in Middleton,

Connecticut. JSTOR provides the following: Born in Little Hallam, Derbyshire, Barratt took up the study of medicine in London in 1810 and by 1816 was a practicing physician in Leicester. For an unknown reason he left England in 1819 bound for the United States and settled in Philipstown, New York, where he continued working as a medical practitioner. At this time he began to botanize and met the acquaintance of John Torrey, developing a correspondence with him by 1822. In 1824-1825 he taught at the Academy of Norwich, Vermont, and with his proximity to the White Mountains ascended

Mt. Washington while there. In 1825 he returned to Philipstown and his practice but the following year began to work as a botany, chemistry and mineralogy teacher at Captain Alden Partridge's American Literary, Scientific and Military Academy in Middleton, Connecticut. Barratt would remain in that town for the rest of his life, although the Academy closed around 1828 and at this time he resumed his activities as a physician. Very active in the community Barratt could be found attempting to re-stock the Connecticut River with salmon, investigating a boiler explosion, advising the Farmers' Club on various aspects of cultivation and fertilization or judging awards at the local agricultural society's fairs. As a collector Barratt worked until 1845 gathering all variety of specimens but was particularly interested in the willows  and became quite an expert on their taxonomy. Shipping specimens across the Atlantic to England he caught the attention of Sir William Hooker who sent Barratt specimens to identify and even asked him to contribute a section to his Flora Boreali-Americana (1838). Barratt declined but did send a synopsis which Hooker relied heavily on in this flora. He also provided Torrey with much support for the Salix section of his Flora of New York (1843) and in 1834 presented his own monograph of the North American willows to the New York Lyceum, although he was unable to publish for financial reasons. Barratt was also interested in members of the Cyperaceae family. Although he was never a member of staff at Wesleyan University, Barratt was amongst the instigators of its Cuverian Society and gave some short courses on botany. Now his 3,000 mounted specimens make up the most important part of the University's herbarium while most of his 40,000 duplicates were given directly to Torrey. In later life Barratt's attention turned to geology and in this field he developed some very eccentric ideas. Barratt's collection is almost certainly his most valuable contribution to botany, and indeed to science. An enthusiastic man with an aptitude for observation Barratt was not, however, hugely successful and was rarely able to focus on one project long enough to see it through to completion. This was probably partly because of his widespread interests, covering the fields of medicine, botany, ornithology, entomology, chemistry, mineralogy, meteorology and geology, as well as local history, ethnology and linguistics. It is said that when he was refused entry to a geology convention, he snuck in at night and decked the building with illustrations of his theory for the attendees to find in the morning. He became so obsessed with his findings that he locked himself away and neglected his business and social life and so he was committed to the Connecticut Hospital for the Insane where he died in 1882. (Photo credit: Connecticut History)

Barton'ia: named for Benjamin Smith Barton (1766-1815), an American botanist, naturalist, physician, and the first

professor of natural sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. He was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania to an Irish immigrant clergyman father who was determined to pass along his interest in botany to his son. The following is largely quoted from JSTOR: “As a boy Barton collected plants, birds and insects in the local woodlands and attended York Academy. His mother died when he was eight and his father when he was fourteen, so he moved to Philadelphia where his older brother lived and studied for a time at Philadelphia College. In 1785 Benjamin Barton joined a commission run by his uncle to map the western

boundary of Pennsylvania and travelled for five months in the interior of the state. Befriending the Native Americans there he became interested in their pathology, medicines and culture, which would remain a specialization of his throughout his life. Barton trained as a medic and soon travelled to Europe, continuing his education in Edinburgh in 1786, where his thesis on Hyoscyamus niger won him the Harveian Prize. His first book was also published there in 1787, a short work entitled Observations on some parts of Natural History. Barton returned to Philadelphia in 1789 and practised as a physician, his skill soon making him quite well known in academic circles. Barton was appointed to the newly created professorship of natural history and botany at Philadelphia College, which later merged with the University of Pennsylvania, making him the first chair of this subject in the state. Later he also taught materia medica at the university and worked as a physician at the Pennsylvania Hospital. Remaining in these positions for the rest of his life he published some interesting works including one on the snakes of North America (1796), several medical papers, works on archaeology and his Elements of Botany (1803).” He built the largest collection of botanical specimens in the country and wrote the first American textbook on botany. There is some dispute about where or even if he received a medical degree and an article about him in the University of Pennsylvania Archives and Records Center says about that: “While it has been claimed that Barton took his M.D. at the University of Göttingen, he admitted on his return to Philadelphia in the fall of 1789 that he was never granted a degree of doctor of medicine by any university. His hopes of receiving the degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Medical Department were cut short by his election as professor of natural history and botany in the Medical Department. Soon thereafter, he successfully entered into medical practice. Barton was finally awarded an honorary degree of doctor of medicine by Christian-Albrechts University at Kiel in 1796.” Wikipedia says this degree was purchased. Also the reason for his departure from the University of Edinburgh has been recounted in various ways, with Wikipedia suggesting that it was because of financial difficulties and disagreements with two professors, however The U Penn article is more on point, saying that: “A likely explanation for his departure is found in two 1791 letters addressed to Benjamin Rush, which state that, while its president, Barton borrowed a considerable sum of money from the Royal Medical Society but failed to pay it back. Though the Society did not advertise Barton’s mishandling of its funds, word of his behavior must have spread to student circles in Edinburgh, prompting his immediate departure.” The U Penn article also says: “Barton wrote a score of books and monographs on natural history, botany, paleontology, etymology, and medicine. Barton was also an advisor to the Lewis and Clark expedition and a pioneer in exploring the botanical treasures of the western continent. He was the first to erect a greenhouse in Philadelphia, which was attached to his residence on Chestnut Street, below Eighth Street.” Despite having had incidents in his life that did not reflect well on him, nevertheless he was vice president of the American Philosophical Society from 1802 to 1816, the founder and first president of the Philadelphia Linnean Society, and a member of the Linnean Society of London, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the Royal Academy of Science of Sweden. In 1809, Barton was elected president of the Philadelphia Medical Society, a position he held until his death. Having suffered from haemorrhages for many years, he made a dubious decision in 1815 to travel in an attempt to recuperate. After journeying to France and back over the summer he saw no improvement, and died on his return. The genus Bartonia was published by Carl Ludwig Willdenow in 1801 and is called bartonia or screwstem.

basira'mea: much branched from the base, from the Latin basilaris, "pertaining to or situated at the base," (from the Greek basis, "a base,") and ramus or ramulus, "a branch."

Bas'sia: named for Ferdinando Bassi (1710-1774), an Italian botanist and Prefect of the Bologna Botanical Garden. A website of the Coimbra Group hosted by the University of Edinburgh provides this description of him. “Ferdinando Bassi was born in Bologna in 1710 into a family of merchants and shipping agents. He studied natural sciences and soon became the assistant of the famous botanist Giuseppe Monti, an eminent representative of the Academy of Sciences. He introduced Bassi to the scientific world and, by letting him deal with the exchanges of scientific specimens for the Academy museum, allowed Bassi to get in touch with the chief Italian and European naturalists. As time passed, these relationships were maintained and intensified, and Bassi's name became very familiar amongst European scientists. The professional activity of Ferdinando Bassi was strongly connected, as far as his scientific research is concerned, with two main institutions, the Botanic Garden and the Academy of Sciences. In 1763 Bassi held the post of Keeper of the Garden of Exotic Plants, a post he maintained throughout his lifetime. Under his direction, the Garden became considerably larger and richer in species, and a new glasshouse was built, in which exotic plants were kept during the coldest months of the year. Bassi also expanded his contacts with other botanists, receiving plants and seeds from his correspondents. Thanks to the improved facilities of the Garden, especially the new glasshouse, Bassi succeeded in cultivating new species, and in obtaining for the first time the flowering of poorly-known plants. These new findings were communicated to his correspondents, and to the Academy of Sciences. Bassi's research activities as a member of the Academy followed two main directions: a specialised one, focused on Botany through the description of new plants and a better understanding of poorly-known species, and a more generalist one, aimed at a complete description of the natural environment of the surrounding territory. In those years, Bassi was in contact with Linnaeus, and communicated to him the main results of his botanical investigations, hoping to receive authoritative support of his findings. Unfortunately, a series of adverse circumstances consigned to oblivion what Bassi thought to be the crowning achievement of his works: the description of three new species (Cynanchum viminale, Alisma parnassifolia and Psoralea palaestina) and of the new genus Ambrosina, so that nowadays the name of Bassi in not very familiar amongst botanists and naturalists. Nevertheless, he was one of the most renowned scientists of the 18th century. At the time, there were only four noteworthy botanists in all of Italy, and Bassi was one of them.” The genus Bassia was published by Carlo Allioni in 1766 and is simply called bassia.

bayard'ii: named for Bayard Henry Long (1885-1969), American botanist at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. Born and raised in Hanover, Pennsylvania, Bayard Long attended Cheltenham High School from which he graduated in 1904, before entering the University of Pennsylvania. In 1908 he received a BSc with a major in botany and enrolled in the university's graduate school, but did not receive another degree. At some point he became affiliated with the prestigious Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, but he never accepted any salary from that institution. In 1906 Long became a member of the Philadelphia Botanical Club and from 1913 served as Curator of the club's local herbarium, a position he held until his death. Thus his custodianship of  one of the country’s finest local herbaria spanned 56 years. With other members of this club Long collected in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia  and Delaware, maintaining a herbarium of some 80,000 extremely carefully preserved specimens with detailed field notes, and gaining a reputation as a keen observer and a superb collector. In 1924-1925 Long joined the Gray Expedition to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland where he collected alongside Merritt Fernald, who stated that “If there is a keener collector or discoverer of native plants than Bayard Long, I have yet to meet him.” Because he was particularly interested in the Cyperaceae family, the sedge species Scirpus longii was named after him by Fernald, as were nine other species. Long published numerous papers on the distribution and biology of a range of plant species, including members of the Delphinium, Scirpus, Prunus, and Crepis genera. A 1970 memorial written about him in Rhodora by John M. Fogg Jr., who carried on a professional relationship and friendship with him for more than 40 years, states that “Bayard Long’s intellectual qualifications were such that he could doubtless have succeeded in any field of endeavor which appealed to him. [He] was an extremely modest and almost painfully self-effacing individual. Long’s first serious illness occurred in the early 1960s, although he continued to work at the Academy until the fall of 1962. Afterwards he was confined to his home in Elkins Park, where almost until the very end he continued by letter amd telephone to answer the questions of those who called upon him for help.”

bead'lei: named for Chauncey Delos Beadle (1866-1950), a botanist and horticulturist active in the southern United States.

He was born in St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada. Wikipedia provides the following: “He was educated in horticulture at Ontario Agricultural College (1884) and Cornell University (1889). In 1890 the landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted hired him to oversee the nursery at Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina on a temporary basis. Olmsted had been impressed by Beadle's "encyclopedic" knowledge of plants. Beadle ended up working at Biltmore for more than 60 years until his death in 1950. He is best known for his horticultural work with azaleas, and described several species and varieties of plants from

the southern Appalachian region. He and three friends, including his "driver and companion" Sylvester Owens, styled themselves the Azalea Hunters. The group traveled over the eastern United States for a period of fifteen years, studying and collecting native plants. Beadle wrote scientific papers describing new species and varieties of North American plants, for example, papers in the journal Biltmore Botanical Studies and his major work on the genus Crataegus (hawthorns) in John Kunkel Small's 1903 book Flora of the Southeastern United States.” During his time at the Biltmore estate he became an American citizen and amassed one of America's greatest collection of flowers. Besides flowers, he had a great love of books and reading. When Cornelius Vanderbilt's daughter Cornelia took over as owner of 'Biltmore', she authorized him to use the grand, two-story library at the estate as his personal library and study. Finally retiring as head caretaker and estate superintendent in January of 1950, he settled down into the cozy cottage the family had given him, overlooking 'Biltmore'. He died there later that year. His father, Delos White Beadle (1823-1905) was a horticulturist, journalist and municipal politician from St. Catharines, Ontario. He edited the Canadian Horticulturist from 1878 to late 1886, and was the author of Canada's first gardening guide, Canadian fruit, flower, and kitchen gardener. He received a law degree from Harvard University in 1847, but returned in 1854 to his native St. Catharines, Ontario, to help operate the St. Catharines Nursery, which his father, the physician Chauncey Beadle (1791-1863), had established in the 1830s. In 1859, D.W. Beadle became a constituent member of the Fruit Growers’ Association of Upper Canada (later, Ontario), where he served as treasurer, then secretary-treasurer, from 1861 through 1886. In 1864, he was chosen to conduct the horticultural department of the new Canada Farmer. D.W. was honored with the name Crataegus delosii but all the other taxa with the specific epithet beadlei were named for his son.

beal'ei: named for Thomas Chay (sometimes written as Chaye) Beale (1805-1857), a Scottish merchant and diplomat operating in the Far East during the 19th century. He was a nephew of opium trader and merchant Daniel Beale and his brother Thomas Beale. As early as 1826, he was a partner in the trading firm of Magniac & Co. in Canton, China. In the 1830s he left that company and operated on his own until 1845 when he established the Shanghai based agency house of Dent, Beale & Co. with Lancelot Dent. By 1851, Beale was Portuguese Consul and Dutch Vice Counsel in the city. He grew plants collected by Robert Fortune in his Shanghai garden before they were sent to England. Robert Fortune (1812-1880) was a Scottish botanist, plant hunter and traveller, best known for introducing around 250 new ornamental plants, mainly from China, but also Japan, into the gardens of Britain, Australia, and the USA. He also played a role in the development of the tea industry in India in the 19th century. Thomas Beale died in Shanghai and is buried in the Shantung Road Cemetery. There is a memorial to him in the church of St. Mary the Virgin in Bretteham, Suffolk.

bea'ta: abundant, prosperous, from the Latin beatus, "blessed."

Xbebbia'na: a hybrid species with parents Q. alba and Q. macrocarpa, see next entry.

beb'bii: named for Michael Schuck Bebb (1833-1895), amateur systematic botanist and a distinguished American specialist

on willows in both America and Europe. His interest in botany and horticulture was born from his boyhood on a farm in Ohio where he read about plants and began collecting and preparing botanical specimens. His father became active in politics, campaigned for William Henry Harrison in two election years, and in 1846 became the Governor of Ohio. Later the young Bebb moved with his family to Illinois where he encountered and learned new plants. He established a relationship with George Vasey which continued throughout the years and also began corresponding with Asa Gray and Henry Nicholas

Bolander. In 1861, after marrying, he moved his family to Washington, D.C. where he worked in the Pensions Office. He joined the Naturalists Club and continued collecting new plants. Two years after his wife died in 1865, he remarried, resigned from the Pensions Office and moved the family back to Illinois, beginning what would become his special study of the genus Salix. Through his study and writing he became the preeminent authority at the time on willows. (Photo credit Missouri Botanical Garden)

Belamcan'da: Latinized version of the East Asian vernacular name. The captain, Governor of the Malabar coast of India, historian, naturalist and botanist of the Dutch East Indies Company, Hendrik Adriaan von Rheede tot Drakenstein, called this plant Belam Canda schularmani in his Hortus Malabaricus and Linnaeus incorrectly transcribed it as Balemcanda. The genus was finally published by Michel Adanson in 1763. Its single species, Belamcanda chinensis, called the blackberry lily, was transferred to the Iridaceae and renamed in 2015 as Iris domestica.

Bel'lis: from the Latin for "pretty." The genus Bellis was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called English daisy.

benedic'ta: blessed, well spoken of

bentleyi: named for Stanley Lee Bentley (1946- ), no information available.

ben'zoin: from an Arabic vernacular word for an aromatic gum, Javanese frankincense.

berberifo'lia: with leaves like genus Berberis.

Ber'beris: one suggestion is that the name Berberis comes the Latinized form of the Arabic name for the fruit, barbārīs, but the etymology is disputed and there are many other hypothesis, such as that the name barbaris is an Arabic name for North Africa (Gledhill). The genus Berberis was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is commonly name as barberry.

Berche'mia: named for Jacob Pierre Berthout van Berchem (1763-1832), a well-respected naturalist, mineralogist and geologist. He was born in Holland, lived in Switzerland, and died in France. He published various notes on the fauna and flora of Switzerland, and was Secretary of the Society of Physical Sciences in Lausanne (an organization to which his father, Jacob van Berchem (1736–1794), an importer of coffee, indigo, and cotton from Martinique and a slave trader, also belonged). He wrote several works on mineralogy including Principes de minéralogie (1795) with Henry Struve. He also wrote one of the earliest Swiss guidebooks describing various routes that might be followed in the area of Chamonix and Mont Blanc. He was one of the contributing authors responsible for the 3-volume work Travels in Switzerland (1789). The genus Berchemia was published in 1825 by Noel Martin Joseph de Necker. He was also honored by the genus name Berchemiella. Not everyone agrees with this attribution, and it has been suggested by some that Berchemia could have been intended to honor one or the other, or both, of son and father. But I think it more likely that it was just for the son. The genus is called supplejack.

berlandier'i: named for Jean Louis Berlandier (1803-1851), French-Mexican botanist, anthropologist, historian, geographer

and meteorologist who was born near the Swiss border and trained in Geneva, later studying botany under Augustin-Pyramus de Candolle, and at some point serving as an apprentice to a pharmacist. Chosen by DeCandolle to make botanical collections in Mexico, Berlandier arrived at Pánuco, Vera Cruz, on December 15, 1826, and made botanical collections near Matamoros before continuing to Mexico City where he joined as a biologist and plant specialist the Mexican Boundary Commission. In 1827 the Commission left Mexico City for Texas and Berlandier conducted botanical explorations and made

collections around Laredo, Texas and San Antonio. He ammassed a great deal of information and made ethnological studies of forty native American tribes, but after contracting malaria  in 1829 he returned to Matamoros where he settled, was married, and worked as a physician and pharmacist. He subsequently made additional botanical and animal collecting trips in Texas and other parts of Mexico, and continued gathering information which was among the earliest ethnological studies of the tribes of the southern plains. At the outbreak of the Mexican-American War in 1846 he became a captain, cartographer, and aide-de-camp in the Mexican army and later was placed in charge of the hospitals in Matamoros. In 1850 his knowledge of areas both north and south of what would eventually become the border was invaluable and he was asked to participate in the International Boundary Commission to define the postwar border between Mexico and the United States. In May, 1851, at the age of 48, he drowned while crossing on horseback the swift currents of the San Fernando River near Matamoros. A devoted student of science, Berlandier kept detailed meteorological and astronomical journals throughout his lifetime. These notes continue to aid scholars and are among the oldest and most complete records of this variety for southeastern Texas and northeastern Mexico. He also made a remarkable collection of drawings and watercolors depicting several specimens of birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians, and his name was appended to more than thirty species of plants. Inasmuch as there have been various recordings of his birth year, I was pleased to receive notice from David Hollombe of an authoritative article in Biblioteca Herpetologica, Vol. 12, pp. 18-40, entitled "Where and When was Jean Louis Berlandier born?" that pinned down the correct year as 1803. (Photo credit: Texas State Historical Association)

Bertero'a: named for Carlo Giuseppe Bertero (1789-1831), an Italian physicist, physician, naturalist, botanist, bryologist

and pteridologist. He was born in Santa Vittoria d'Alba and after moving to Turin he enrolled in the faculty of medicine and graduated in 1811 with a thesis on indigenous species. He became Secretary of the Jury de Médecine and then studied herbal plants in the Alps, following which he went to Paris and gained a position as doctor on board the vessel Guadalupe. He became one of the most widely travelled Italian plant collectors of the New World. Between 1816 and 1821 he investigated the flora of St. Thomas, St. Croix, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola and northern Columbia, then returned to France and Italy.

After his mother died in 1827 he again went to France and signed on another vessel bound for Chile. As he had on his previous expedition, he alternated between botanical research and medical duties. From 1828 to 1830 he made huge collections in the central regions of Chile, the Juan Fernández Islands and Tahiti, which he sent back to Europe. He also collected seeds which contributed to the collections of both private and public gardens.  Many of his collections were of species unknown to science. He was lost in a shipwreck while sailing from Tahiti back to Valparasio. The genus Berteroa published in 1821 by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle and is called hoary alyssum.

berteronia'nus: honors the individual in the previous entry.

Be'ta: perhaps from the Celtic bett, "red," because of the red roots, in any case this was the ancient Latin name for the beet. The genus Beta was published in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus.

Bet'ula: the Latin name for the birch. A website of Washington College says "Betula comes from the Gaulish betu- meaning bitumen or asphalt. This refers to how the Gauls used extracted tar from birches." Another website entitled the A. Vogel Plant Encyclopedia says "The botanical term betula does not originate from a Latin word but rather from a Celtic term, which has its root in the syllable betu, or beth. Shakespeare’s 'Macbeth' in fact means 'son of birch'." The genus Betula was published in 1754 by Carl Linnaeus and is called birch.

bi-: from the Latin bi, 'two, twice, twofold, double."

bicknel'lii: named for Eugene Pintard Bicknell (1859-1925), international banker, botanist, ornithologist and youngest

founder of the American Ornithological Union. He worked with the banking firm John Munroe & Co. and was a prolific writer on natural history subjects and amateur botanist. Wikipedia says: “He was interested in natural history from an early age. He wrote an article on the birds of the Hudson Valley in 1878 and in 1882 he wrote about the birds of the Catskill mountains in the Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club. He collected a specimen of a thrush that was described by Robert Ridgway and named as Bicknell's thrush. He served as a secretary to the American Ornithologists' Union upon its

founding and was a member of the Torrey Botanical Club, the New York Botanical Garden and other societies. He published more on plants and discovered several new species. Some of the species were found right in New York and local observers had never noticed the fine differences that Bicknell observed. He noted that there were two species of Helianthemum with a difference that had not been noticed before. This was followed by more species in the genera Sanicula, Sisyrinchium, Scrophularia, and Agrimonia. Bicknell's works include Review of the Summer Birds of Part of the Catskill Mountains (1882) and The Ferns and Flowering Plants of Nantucket (1908-1919).  His plant collections were gifted by his wife to the New York Botanical Garden.

bi'color: two-colored, referring either to a plant that contains two colors or a plant that has two color variations, from Latin bi, "two," and color, "color, hue, tint."

bicupula'tus: having two cups, from bi-, "two," and cupulatus, meaning with, forming, or subtended by a cuplike structure, from Latin cupula, "a cask or tub."

Bi'dens: derived from the Latin bis, "twice", and dens, "tooth," hence meaning "2-toothed" and referring to the bristles on the achenes. The genus Bidens was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and has been called beggar-ticks and bur-marigold.

bidenta'ta: with two teeth.

bien'nis: biennial, completing the life cycle in two growing seasons, usually blooming and fruiting in the second.

bifar'ia: in two opposed ranks, two roots, in two parts, can apply to leaves or flowers, from Latin bifarius, "two rows, double, two-ranked."

bi'fida/bi'fidum: bifid, split or divided into two, from Latin bifarius or bifidus, "split into two parts, twofold, double, " from bi-, "two," and -fid, from the stem of findere, "to split."

biflor'a/biflor'us: two-flowered.

bi'frons: two-faced.

bigelovii: named for botanist and physician Jacob Bigelow (1787-1879), author of the first textbook on botany. The

following is quoted from the Appleton's Encyclopedia website on Famous Americans: "...born in Sudbury, Massachusetts, 27 February 1787; died in Boston, 10 January 1879. He was graduated at Harvard in 1806, studied medicine, opened his office in Boston in 1810, and displayed unusual skill. In 1811 he delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society a poem on "Professional Life," afterward published at Boston. He early made a reputation as a botanist, had an extensive European correspondence, and different plants were named for him by Sir J. E. Smith, in the supplement to "Rees's Cyclopaedia," by

Schrader in Germany, and De Candolle in France. He was one of the committee of five selected in 1820 to form the "American Pharmacopoeia," and is to be credited with the principle of the nomenclature of materia medica afterward adopted by the British Colleges, substituting a single for a double word whenever practicable. He founded Mount Auburn, the first garden cemetery established in the United States, and the model after which all others in the country have been made. The much-admired stone tower, chapel, gate and fence were all built after his designs. During a term of twenty years Dr. Bigelow was a physician of the Massachusetts General Hospital, and in 1856 the trustees of that institution ordered a marble bust of him to be placed in the hall. He was professor of materia medica at Harvard University from 1815 to 1855, and from 1816 to 1827 held the Rumford professorship in the same institution, delivering lectures on the application of science to the useful arts. These lectures were published in a volume entitled Elements of Technology, republished with the title Useful Arts considered in Connection with the Applications of Science (2 vols., New York, 1840). Notable among his papers was one entitled "A Discourse on Self-Limited Disease," which was delivered as an address before the Massachusetts Medical Society in 1835, and had a marked effect in modifying the practice of physicians. He was during many years the President of that society, and was also President of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retiring from the active practice of his profession some years before his death, Dr. Bigelow gave much attention to the subject of education, and especially to the matter of establishing and developing technological schools. In an address "On the Limits of Education," delivered in 1865 before the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he emphasized the necessity of students devoting themselves to special technical branches of knowledge. He published, besides works already mentioned, Florula Bostoniensis (1814; enlarged eds., 1824 and 1840); an edition, with notes, of Sir J. E. Smith's work on botany (1814); American Medical Botany (3 vols., Boston, 1817-1820); Nature in Disease, a volume of essays (1854); A Brief Exposition of Rational Medicine, to which was prefixed The Paradise of Doctors, a Fable (Philadelphia, 1858); History of Mount Auburn (1860); and Modern Inquiries and Remarks on Classical Studies (Boston, 1867). Dr. Bigelow was also known as a writer on other than medical subjects. He was a frequent contributor to the reviews and periodicals, and was the reputed author of a volume of poems entitled "Eolopoesis" (New York, 1855), containing imitations of American poets." (Salicornia bigelovii)

Bignon'ia: named for the Abbé Jean-Paul Bignon (1662-1743), a French ecclesiastic, statesman, writer, scholar, preacher,

and advisor and librarian to Louis XIV of France at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France from 1718 to 1741. The Bibliotheque was originally set up in 1368 and by 1719 had become the leading library in Europe. The number of volumes it carried had outgrown the most immediate database system of the time, in that the librarians could no longer rely on their memories to find titles. Bignon expanded on the classification system of his predecessor Nicolas Clement to make use of the library more manageable and reoraganized the library to accommodate to modern scholarly requirements. Toward the end of Louis

XIV's reign the library contained more than 70,000 volumes. Bignon was born in Paris and did his elementary studies at the school of the famed Abbey of Port Royal in Paris, then studied at the Collège d'Harcourt, following which he entered the Oratory of Paris, and did theological studies at the Seminary of Saint Magloire attached to it. In 1691 he completed his studies and was ordained to the priesthood. In that same year he became a member of the Académie Francaise and he worked with his uncle to prepare a new set of rules for the Academy, allowing for honorary memberships, which were signed by the King in January 1699. The new rules, however, were rejected by its members, and the rejection shocked him to such a degree that he refused to attend its meetings thereafter. In 1699 he became an honorary member of the Académie des Sciences, followed by membership in the Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1701 and editorship of the scholarly Journal des savants (1705-1714). In 1693 he was made commendatory abbot of Saint-Quentin-en-l'Isle and preacher to King Louis XIV. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1734. He was charged by the minister Colbert to head the Bignon Commission, and began the compilation of a guide to French artistic and industrial processes, published in the following century as the Descriptions of the Arts and Trades. Beside his scholarly and ecclesiastical endeavors, Bignon was a patron of Antoine Galland, the first European translator of One Thousand and One Nights, and was the author of Les aventures d'Abdalla, fils d'Hanif (The adventures of Abdalla, son of Hanif), published in 1712–1714, a novel framed as the title character's search for the fountain of youth. His protégé, Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, named the genus Bignonia in his honor in 1794, and it is called cross-vine.

bignonio'ides: resembling genus Bignonia.

bilo'ba: with two lobes.

biltmorea'na: called the Biltmore hawthorn, this epithet presumably refers to the Biltmore estate in Asheville, NC, just as Fraxinus biltmoreana is called the Biltmore ash. Crataegus biltmoreana is one of many hawthorn species named by Canadian botanist Chauncey Delos Beadle (1866-1950) when he was hired in 1890 by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted to oversee the nursery at Biltmore Estate.

bipart'itus: twice-parted, having two parts.

bipinna'ta/bipinna'tus: having leaves doubly pinnate or feathered.

bipinnatifi'da: twice pinnately cut, like a pinnate leaf whose sections are again pinnate.

biterna'ta/biterna'tum: bi-ternate, with three lobes divided into threes. Although the prefix bi usually means two in which case biternate would be two lobes divided into three, and three lobes divided into three would be triternate, bi also has the meaning of double, so biternate in this case means doubly ternate.

bi'valve: having two valves, from Latin bi or bis, "twice or double," and valva, "section of a folding or revolving door," literally "that which turns," related to volvere "to roll."