Dac'tylis: from the Latin dactylis and the Greek daktylos for a kind of grape or grass, the Greek name in turn derived from daktylos, "a finger," referring to the finger-like appearance of the inflorescence. The genus Dactylis was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called orchard grass.

Dactyloc'tenium: from Greek daktylos, "finger," and ktenos, "a comb," alluding to the finger-like inflorescence in which the spikelets resemble small combs. Gledhill says "digitate-Ctenium, the Ctenium-like spikes are aggregated into an umbellata head." The genus Dactyloctenium was published by Carl Ludwig Willdenow in 1809 and is called crowfoot grass.

dactylo'ides: resembling genus Dactylis, having the form of fingers..

dac'tylon: from the Greek daktylos, "a finger or toe," possibly referring to the slender umbel-like inflorescence which is somewhat like the fingers of a hand.

Da'lea: named for Samuel Dale (1659-1739), an English physician, apothecary, botanist and botanical collector, and

		gardener who was the son of a silk weaver, author of several botanical works and a treatise on medicinal plants. He was an associate of several major botanical figures in England, notably John Ray, one of the founding figures of British botany and zoology, William Sherard, and Mark Catesby. Catesby sent him samples of specimens that he collected in Virginia, and it was through Dale that Catesby came to the attention of Sherard, who created the first chair in botany at Oxford, and he helped Ray with the cataloging of specimens. He also worked with William Sherard and Jacob Bobart the Younger to complete the third

section of Robert Morison's Plantarum Historiae Universalis Oxoniensis after Morison's death. He was apprenticed to an apothecary and trained for eight years and then practiced as an apothecary. He developed an interest in botany and studied under John Ray and began collecting trips around the Braintree area, helping Ray with projects like the Synopsis methodica stirpium Britannicarum (1690) and later with his Historia (published in 1710, after Ray's death). JSTOR adds: “Dale also began to produce his own works; Pharmacologia (1893) contained the descriptions of many plants and their medicinal uses, and between 1892 and 1736 he published nine papers in Philosophical Transactions on non-botanical topics. Most importantly, though, was his section on natural history which appeared in Silas Taylor's The History and Antiquities of Harwich and Dovercourt and covered marine and terrestrial plants, fossils and major zoological groups.” Dale pursued and achieved a physicians degree late in life and practiced until his death in Braintree, Essex, in 1739 where he had also been a member of the town governing council. An article by Mr. William George in the website of the Essex Field Club says: “Samuel Dale contributed nine papers to the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society including a very important account of the strata and fossils of Harwich Cliff. He published two books of outstanding merit. The first, Pharmacologia, appeared in 1693 and went through three editions. This book, written in Latin, was virtually a textbook of materia medica, pharmacology and therapeutics. The second book, The History and Antiquities of Harwich and Dovercourt, appeared in 1730 and was reissued in 1732. This book is now in print again.” He also described the wild birds of Essex. The genus Dalea was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. (Photo credit: Essex Field Club)

Dalibar'da: named for Thomas-François Dalibard (1709-1778), French botanist, physicist and author who performed the first lightning rod experiment. He was born in Crannes-en-Champagne, but little else appears to be available regarding his early youth or education. He was married to the novelist and playwright Françoise-Thérèse Aumerle de Saint-Phalier. He first met the American scientist Benjamin Franklin in 1767 during one of Franklin's visits to France and they apparently became friends. In 1750, Benjamin Franklin had published a proposal for an experiment to determine if lightning was electricity. He proposed extending a conductor into a cloud that appeared to have the potential to become a thunderstorm. If electricity existed in the cloud, the conductor could be used to extract it. At the suggestion of Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, Dalibard translated Franklin's Experiments and Observations on Electricity into French, performed Franklin's proposed experiment using a 40-foot-tall metal rod at Marly-la-Ville on 10 May 1752. It is said that Dalibard used wine bottles to ground the pole, and he successfully extracted electricity from a low cloud. It is not known whether Franklin ever performed his proposed experiment. Dalibard was the first naturalist in France to adopt Linnaeus’ system. In 1749 he published a work entitled Florae Parisiensis prodomus, ou catalogue des plantes qui naissent dans les environs de Paris, in which the plants were classified according to Linnaeus’ principles. To show his appreciation, Linnaeus named a Canadian bramble for Dalibard.

damasce'na: of or from Damascus, Syria.

dandeli'on: a contraction of dent-de-lioun, from Old French dent de lion, literally "lion's tooth" (from its toothed leaves), a translation of Medieval Latin dens leonis, from Latin dens, "tooth," and leonis, from leo, "lion."

Dasisto'ma: woolly-mouthed, from Greek dasys, "hairy," and stoma, "mouth," alluding to the lanate throat of the corolla. The genus Dasistoma was published by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque in 1819 and is called mullein foxglove.

Datur'a: from the Hindu vernacular name Dhatura meaning "thorn-apple" which gave rise to another of its common names. The genus Datura was published in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus and is called jimson-weed, a corruption of the name Jamestown weed given it by Robert Beverly in his 1705 work "History and Present State of Virginia." It may in fact have been called this earlier by white settlers following an event where English soldiers consumed it while attempting to suppress the so-called Bacon's Rebellion, an armed rebellion held by Virginia settlers against Colonial Governor William Berkeley that took place from 1676 to 1677. The English solders reportedly spent 11 days in altered mental states. In other instances English soldiers died from its ingestion, and Nathaniel Bacon himself, aged 29, died suddenly “of a mysterious fever called the "Bloodie Flux.” Some historians have conjectured that he, too, may have eaten the same fruits.

Dau'cus: from Latin daucum, in turn from Ancient Greek daukos or daukon, “carrot.” The genus Daucus is called wild carrot and was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.

david'ii: named for Pere Jean Pierra Armand David (1826-1900), missionary priest and zoologist. "Père Armand David was

a Lazarist missionary in the Franciscan order who was to travel to China and convert the populace to Roman Catholicism, but soon found a greater calling in the nature of this vast country. Born in Espelette near Bayonne in the French Pyrenees, Jean Pierre was one of three boys in a successful local family. His father Fructueux was a magistrate and doctor who had a strong love of nature and an inquisitive mind, traits that Jean Pierre inherited and embraced. Which was a good thing, since his older brother inherited everything else. Younger sons of established families would often seek a career in the clergy, and this is

where young David turned. In his day there would appear to be no conflict in a career in the church and pursuit of the natural sciences, so his great affinity for all living things was embraced by his new order, St. Vincent de Paul. While many of his brother missionaries were sent to locations as far afield as South America, Ethiopia, Africa, Persia and China, Père David was sent to teach at a school in Italy. He taught science at Savona College on the Italian Riviera for ten years, and during that time became one of the most popular teachers there. He made his classes interesting by actually involving his students, by imbuing them with his own enthusiasm and love of nature, and he was deeply missed when he was finally given the assignment he had wanted for so many years - China." (from PlantExplorers.com)  "Ordained in 1862, he was shortly afterwards sent to Peking, and began there a collection of material for a museum of natural history, mainly zoological, but in which botany and geology and palæontology were also well represented. At the request of the French Government important specimens from his collection were sent to Paris and aroused the greatest interest. The Jardin des Plantes commissioned him to undertake scientific journeys through China to make further collections. He succeeded in obtaining many specimens of hitherto unknown animals and plants, [including the butterfly bush Buddleia davidii] and the value of his comprehensive collections for the advance of systematic zoology and especially for the advancement of animal geography received universal recognition from the scientific world. He himself summed up his labors in an address delivered before the International Scientific Congress of Catholics at Paris in April, 1888. He had found in China altogether 200 species of wild animals, of which 63 were hitherto unknown to zoologists; 807 species of birds, 65 of which had not been described before. Besides, a large collection of reptiles, batrachians, and fishes was made and handed over to specialists for further study, also a large number of moths and insects, many of them hitherto unknown, were brought to the museum of the Jardin des Plantes. What Father David's scientific journeys meant for botany may be inferred from the fact that among the rhododendrons which he collected no less than fifty-two new species were found and among the Primulæ about forty, while the western mountains of China furnished an even greater number of hitherto unknown species of gentians. The most remarkable of hitherto unknown animals found by David was a species of bear (Ursus melanoleucus, the black-white bear) which is a connecting link between the cats and bears. Another remarkable animal found by him received the scientific name of Elaphurus davidianus. Of this animal the Chinese say that it has the horns of the stag, the neck of the camel, the foot of the cow, and the tail of the ass. It had disappeared with the exception of a few preserved in the gardens of the Emperor of China, but David succeeded in securing a specimen and sent it to Europe. In the midst of his work as a naturalist Father David did not neglect his missionary labors, and was noted for his careful devotion to his religious duties and for his obedience to every detail of his rules." (from the Catholic Encyclopedia) (Buddleja davidii)

davis'ii: named for Emerson Davis (1798-1866), an American clergyman and graduate in 1821 of Williams College.  He was born in Ware, Massachusetts, and was an  educator and "enthusiastic student of the genus Carex. He was an instructor and then principal at the Westfield Academy, 1822-36, and fifth Vice-President of Williams College from 1859 until his death. He was the author of  The Half Century; or, A History of the Changes That Have Taken Place, and Events That Have Transpired, Chiefly in the United States, Between 1800 and 1850. He died in Westfield, Massachusetts.

davur'ica: of or from Dauria in Asia, a region to the northeast of Mongolia. The species Rhamnus davurica is called Dahurian buckthorn.

deam'ii: named for Charles Clemon Deam (1865-1953), an American pharmacist, small business owner, surveyor, botanist,

conservationist, and forester. He was born on the family farm near Bluffton in Wells County, Indiana. His childhood was spent on the family farm where he developed a strong work ethic that would be his hallmark for the rest of his life, and he earned money through odd jobs such as building fences for another farmer. Always curious, he collected Indian relics he found on the farm, and his other interests included the natural world, something his father showed him through farm produce, garden plants, and herbal remedies. When he was sixteen, he almost died from typhoid fever. He received an herbal remedy of milk and old field

balsams or cudweed to gradually nurse him back to good health. His mother, also sick, died despite the medicine. After graduating from high school, he went into teaching at a country school, then attended DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. After 2 years, he ran out of money and felt that he “already knew more than they could teach me,” so he returned home to Bluffton, and worked on the farm, at odd jobs, for a surveyor, and then maintaining a store where he worked more than 110 hours a week. He managed to purchase an old drug store in Bluffton, and again worked long hours which began affecting his health. A doctor advised him to start taking daily walks which he did, spurring his interest in the plants he observed along the way. He was married in 1893, and remained in that state until his wife's death sixty years later.  In 1896, Deam met Bruce Williamson, a zoologist, who taught him about the scientific method and had more influence on him than anyone else. His love of plants grew, and his interest in taxonomy began to blossom. Williamson had more influence on the young Deam, teaching him how to mount specimens, encouraging him to write about botany, and introducing him to the Indiana Academy of Sciences. Their journal, Proceedings, featured Deam's first botany article, and soon he began to do an annual report on “Plants Rare or New in Indiana.” By 1897, Deam had accumulated a botanical library and began working with other botanists like John Merle Coulter who wrote Forest Trees of Indiana in 1891. Deam's focus on plant identification, migration and growth was more than just for collecting, focusing on understanding the subtle changes in the environment. Indiana University Paul Weatherwax wrote of his publications that they were "...of critical significance to plant taxonomy and ecology in Indiana and the entire Midwest. Great natural areas of the native vegetation were yielding to axe, plow, fire, and drainage; and a host of migrant species were coming in by way of railroads, highways, and agricultural practices. Deam's particular service was to leave an accurate and detailed record of what plants were here and what was happening to them." In 1911, he published his first book titled Trees of Indiana, followed by Shrubs of Indiana in 1924, Grasses of Indiana in 1929, and Flora of Indiana in 1940. His books are still sought after and used as references today. He continued to collect plants by walking, but soon used a horse and carriage, bicycle, motorcycle, and  in 1915, a Ford Model-T touring car he called the Weed Wagon. The Weed Wagon allowed Deam to go from collecting around 1,200 specimens a year to 3,760 in 1916, a year after its purchase. With his avid interest and boundless energy, it wasn’t long before Deam was recognized as one of the foremost botanists in the country. Indiana had experienced 70 years of deforestation, beginning in 1830, and by 1900, only 7% of Indiana's forests remained, compared to the height frontier settlers saw of 87%. In 1909 he was appointed Indiana’s first State Forestor, serving until 1913, then again from 1917 to 1928. Over the course of his career he collected 78,000 plant specimens, travelled through all 1,016 townships in Indiana, discovered 25 new plant species, had at least 48 plants bearing his name, had a state recreation area and a U.S. wilderness area named in his honor, and came to be known as the father of Indiana forestry. After forestry management, Deam focused on educating farmers and developing educational material to promote woodland management and sustainability. In 1900, 1.5 million acres were wooded in Indiana. That number is currently 4.5 million with timber harvesters planting more than they use. Rarely has a single individual had as much impact on the flora of any state as did Charles Deam on Indiana, and after his six decade marriage, he followed his wife in death by just a month. (Information from Wikipedia and the Indiana Forestry Department) (Photo credit Smithsonian Archives)

debeaux'ii: named for Jean Odon Debeaux (1826-1910), a French military pharmacist, botanist and malacologist. He was born in Agen in Lot-et-Garonne, and trained in Bordeaux and at the School of Pharmacy in Paris, qualifying as a pharmacist in 1854. He then joined the French Army, and from 1854 to 1859 was stationed in Algeria. Later on, he participated in a military expedition to China (1860–62), on which he collected botanical and malacological specimens during stops in the Canary Islands, South Africa, and probably Madagascar. Afterwards, he was stationed in Corsica (1870) and Perpignan (1872), later returning to Algeria, where he worked as chief pharmacist at the hospital in Oran from 1880 to 1886. He distributed a number of exsiccatae series of his own and contributed Algerian diatoms to the exsiccatae series Algues de France (1883-1893). He published on Chinese medicinal plants and floristic treatments of the Kabylie and Djurdjura regions of Algeria, the Spanish region of Aragon, Corsica, Rousillon and Lot-et-Garonne. His personal herbarium was deposited at  the Muséum National d’histoire in Paris. He retired in 1898 and settled in Tolouse, where he died.

debil'is: weak, feeble, frail. Carex debilis is called weak sedge or white-edged sedge.

decangular'e: with ten angles. The species Eriocaulon decangulare is commonly called ten-angled or tenangle pipewort because of the ribbing or angles on the scapes, which often number 10.

decapet'alus: with ten petals.

decid'ua: deciduous.

decip'iens: deceptive, in some sense not what it appears to be.

Dec'odon: from Greek deka, "ten," and odous, "a tooth," referring to the calyx which has ten teeth. The genus Decodon was published by Johann Friedrich Gmelin in 1791.

decompos'ita: more than once divided, usually much divided.

decor'a: attractive, comely, becoming.

Decumar'ia: from Latin decumae, "tenths," or decimus, "ten," and -aria, "having or possessing," alluding to the sometimes 10-merous flowers. The genus Decumaria was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1763 and is called climbing hydrangea or woodvamp.

decum'bens: prostrate.

decur'rens: with the leaf margins running gradually into the stem, that is, having a wing-like or ridge-like extension beyond the actual or apparent point of attachment, like a leaf base that seems to continue down the stem, from the Latin decurrens, "extending downward beyond the point of attachment."

deflex'us: bent, or turned abruptly downward at a sharp angle.

delphiniifo'lia: with leaves like genus Delphinium.

Delphin'ium: from the Greek name delphinion for the larkspur derived from delphinos or delphis for "dolphin" because of the flower shape in some species. The genus Delphinium was published in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus and is called larkspur.

delto'ides: triangular, like the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet, delta.

demer'sum: living under water, submerged.

dendroid'eum: tree-like.

Dendrolycopo'dium: from the Greek dendron, "tree," lykos, "wolf," and podion, "a foot," from some imagined resemblance to a wolf's foot. The genus Dendrolycopodium was published by Athur Haines in 2003.

Dennstaed'tia: named for August William Dennstedt (1776-1826), German physician and botanist, and burgomeister of Magdala, a town near Weimar. From 1817 he was scientific director of the Grand Ducal Garden in Belvedere. He was the author of Weimar's Flora in 1800, Nomenclator botanicus in 1810, and a work entitled Hortus Belvedereanus in 1820, a compilation of some 1500 plants. His last name is sometimes given as Dennstaedt accounting for the spelling of the family name Dennstaedtia. The genus Dennstaedtia was published by Johann Jakob Bernhardi in 1801.

den'sa/den'sum: compact, condensed, close, wth short internodes.

densiflor'um: densely-flowered.

Dentar'ia: Stearn has this: "from Latins dens, "a tooth," in allusion to the tooth-like scales on the rhizome which led to the supposition that it might be good for toothache." A common name for it is toothwort.

denta'ta/denta'tum/denta'tus: toothed like a saw.

denticula'tum: finely-toothed, from denticulus, “small tooth," and -atum or -atus, a suffix added to noun stems to form adjectives meaning "provided with."

Depar'ia: from the Greek depas, "dish or saucer," a reference to the minutely dish-like form of the sori in the type species. The genus Deparia was published in 1829 by William Jackson Hooker and Robert Kaye Greville.

depaupera'tum: starved, dwarved, depauperate, from the Latin depauperatus, "impoverished."

depres'sa: appearing to be pressed down flat.

Deschamp'sia: named for French botanist Louis Auguste Deschamps de Pas (1766-1842). A website of the National Herbarium of the Netherlands offers this information: "Surgeon-Naturalist of the expedition of the ‘Recherche’ in search of the explorer Jean-François de Galaup, Comte de la Perouse 1791-1793. When the expedition stranded in Java he was interned for a short interval, but Governor van Overstraten offered him to stay in Java to make natural history investigations for which he would get facilities to extend his research into the interior of the island. Deschamps accepted, as he says, in the interest of science, and took leave of his travel companions. In the subsequent years this Frenchman made numerous trips, and he certainly was the first to make botanical collections on several of the mountains and in many remote localities of Java. It is a pity that evidently none of his botanical specimens are preserved, as his diary, drawings and MS. papers are such, that we might have expected extremely valuable material. During his travels he was partly accompanied by some young assistants who were to help him with the description and drawing of plants and animals (he collected fishes too). Afterwards he settled at Batavia as a physician until 1802, in which year he sailed for Mauritius. Later he settled at St. Omer in France." The genus Deschampsia was published in 1812 by Ambroise Marie Françoise Joseph Palisot de Beauvois and is called hairgrass.

Descurain'ia: named for François Descourain (1658-1740), a French pharmacist and botanist. The genus Descurainia was published by Philip Barker Webb Sabin Berthelot in 1836 and is called tansy mustard or flixweed.

Desman'thus: from Greek desme, "a bundle," and anthos, "flower," alluding to the flowers of these herbs or shrubs that are collected together in spikes resembling bundles.

Desmo'dium: from the Greek desmos, "a band, fetter, halter or chain," alluding to the joined seedpods. The genus Desmodium was published in 1813 by Nicaise Auguste Desvaux, and has been called tick-trefoil, tick clover, beggar-lice, beggar-ticks, and stick-tights.

Deut'zia: named for Johan van der Deutz (1743-1788), Dutch amateur botanist from Amsterdam, and friend and patron of the Swedish botanist and pupil of Linnaeus Carl Peter Thunberg. He was apparently an alderman and lawyer who sponsored some of the plant expeditions of Thunberg to Cape Town and Japan, and it was Thunberg who named the genus Deutzia after his patron.

Diamor'pha: from Greek dia, "different," and morphe, "form," thus "contrary or different form," alluding to the fruit as compared with that of related genera. The genus Diamorpha was published by Thomas Nuttall in 1818 and is called elf-orpine.

dian'dra/dian'drus: furnished with two or twin stamens.

dian'thera: two-anthered, from Greek di- or dis-, "two," and anthera, "anthers."

Dian'thus: from the Greek dios, "divine," and anthos, "flower," this was the divine flower or the flower of Zeus. The genus Dianthus was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and has been called pink or carnation.

Diarrhe'na: from the Greek dias, "twice." and arren, "male," alluding to the two stamens. The genus Diarrhena was published by Ambroise Marie François Joseph Palisot de Beauvois in 1812 and is called beakgrain.

Dicen'tra: from the Greek di- or dis-, "twice, double" and centron, "spur," meaning "twice-spurred," in reference to the flower shape. The genus Dicentra was published by Johann Jakob Bernhardi in 1833 and is called bleeding hearts.

Dichanthe' lium: twice-flowering, from the Greek dich, "two," and anth or anthelium, "flowering," referring to the occurrence of two distinct flowering periods. The genus Dichanthelium was published by Frank Walton Gould in 1974 and is called panic grass, witch grass or rosette grass.

Dichon'dra: from the Greek di, "two," and chondra, "a lump of grain," hence "double grain" from the deeply lobed fruit. The genus Dichondra was published in 1776 by Johann Reinhold Forster and Johann Georg Adam Forster, and is called ponyfoot or just dichondra.

dicho'toma/dicho'tomum/dicho'tomus: forked in pairs, repeatedly dividing into pairs as with branches.

dichotomaflor'um: with a forking inflorescence.

Dichrome'na: synonym of Rhynchospora, and of uncertain derivation. The Greek root dichrous means "of two colors," but I have been unable to find out what Dichromena means except that it obviously has somethig to do with color. The genus was published by André Michaux in his 1803 Flora Boreali-Americana but IPNI has it listed as "nomen rejeciendum = rejected name," but not everyone agrees with that. The species of Dichromena were merged into Rhynchospora in the 1980s but many growers feel they were so distinct that they should have remained in their own genus.

Diclip'tera: two-fold-winged. The genus Dicliptera is commonly called fold-wing and was published in 1807 by Antoine Laurent de Jussieu.

Didip'lis: Flora of North America says this: " Derivation uncertain, Greek dis, "twice," and diploos, "double," possibly alluding to 2 stamens in 4-merous floral tube, or to 2-stamened Didiplis, segregated from 6-stamened Peplis." The genus Didiplis was published by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque in 1833 and is called water-purslane.

did'yma: in pairs, double or twin, two-fold, from the Greek didumos, "twin." For Monarda didyma, referring to the plant's double-lipped flowers.

Diervil'la: named for Marin (?) Dièreville (1653-1738 ?), a French surgeon, botanist and writer who travelled in Canada in 1699-1700 and introduced the plant to Europe. Little is known for certain about this individual, but it has been speculated that he was born at or near Pont-l’Évêque. Two forms of his name, Dièreville and Dière de Dièreville, are found on labels of plants he apparently collected. The dates of his birth and death shown above are only approximations, and even his first name is not known with any certainty. He seems to have studied medicine in Paris before leaving for New France, and became a surgeon at the hospice of Pont-l’Évêque after he returned, a position which he held at least until 1711 when he disappears from the historical record. He spent a year in Acadia seeking information about the local populations, and also gathering plants. Dièreville wrote about his observations in Acadia (a colony of New France in northeastern North America which included parts of what are now the Maritime provinces, the Gaspé Peninsula and Maine to the Kennebec River in "Relation du voyage du Port Royal de l’Acadie, ou de la Nouvelle France" which was first published in Rouen in 1708. Subjects covered included life aboard ship, weather conditions, hunting and fishing trips, the making of spruce beer and maple sugar, and particularly the customs and cooking of the Acadians and Amerindians. It was re-published with notes by L.U. Fontaine in Quebec in 1885. In a dedication to Dièreville with regard to the species Diervilla acadiensis (now Diervilla lonicera), Joseph Pitton de Tournefort wrote: “I know only one species of this genus, which M. Dierville, a surgeon of Pont-l’Évêque and very knowledgeable on the subject of plants, has brought from Acadia.” It may have been Tournefort who first so honored him with the name Diervilla, but it was Philip Miller who published it in 1754. The genus is called bush-honeysuckle.

diffor'me/diffor'mis: of unusual or abnormal form or shape, irregular,.misshapen or illformed, from the Latin dēfōrmis, from de-, “down, down from, away from,” and forma, “form, figure, shape.”

diffu'sa: spreading loosely.

diffusis'simus: the most diffuse, very diffuse, spreading very loosely.

Digita'lis/digita'lis: from the Latin digitus for "finger," because of the corolla shape. The genus Digitalis was published in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus and is commonly called foxglove.

Digitar'ia: from the Latin digitus, "a finger," from the arrangement of the inflorescence branches. The genus Digitaria was published in 1768 by Albrecht von Haller and is called crabgrass.

digita'ta: shaped like an open hand, digitate.

dig'itum: shaped like an open hand, digitate, from the Latin digitus, "finger or toe."

dilata'tum: spread out, from the Latin dilatatus, "expanded, enlarged, dilated, spread out."

dillen'ii: named for Johann Jacob Dillenius (1684-1747), German botanist and professor of botany at Oxford University.

He was born at Darmstadt and was educated at the University of Giessen, where his father (who Latinized the family surname from Dillen to Dillenius after it had already been changed from Dill to Dillen) was a professor of medicine. Dillenius qualified in medicine in 1713 and practiced in Grünberg, Hesse and then as town doctor in Giessen. He meanwhile maintained an interest in botany, which won him election to the Caesare Leopoldina-Carolina Academia Naturae Curiosum, and he published several papers and the Catalogus plantarum sponte circa Gissam nascentium (1719), enumerating more than a thousand plants

from the Giessen area along with his own illustrations. In 1721, at the encouragement of the botanist William Sherard (1659–1728), and not having received the university post in botany he desired in Germany, he decided to move to England. Dillenius published a third edition of John Ray's Synopsis Methodica Stirpium Britannicum in 1724 which incorporated plant species discovered by Samuel Brewer, and work on mosses by Adam Buddle, and remained a standard reference for British botanists until the appearance of Carl Linnaeus's Species Plantarum in 1753. In 1726 he made a tour of Wales and western England with the English cleric and botanist Littleton Brown, during which they collected plants, possibly in preparation for another edition of Ray's work. His next significant publication was a catalogue of the plants growing in the garden of Sherard's brother James at Eltham, London, entitled Hortus Elthamensis (1732). For this work Dillenius himself drew and engraved 324 plates, containing 417 figures of the plants. In 1734 Dillenius was appointed Sherardian professor of botany at Oxford in accordance with the will of Sherard, who at his death in 1728 left the University £3000 for the endowment of the chair, as well as his library and herbarium, all on the condition that Dillenius should be appointed the first professor. He also became the first president of the Botanical Society of London. Dillenius' major work was Historia muscorum (1741), which he had begun researching soon after he moved to England. Featuring 85 illustrated plates, it was a natural history of lower plants including mosses, liverworts, hornworts, lycopods, algae, lichens and fungi, and one of the first botanical texts to refer to the work of Linnaeus. He also continued to study fungi and acknowledged the help of his friend George Deering, but the projected book on the subject was never completed. Dillenius met Linnaeus in 1736 and spent a month with him while he was in Oxford, and the Swedish naturalist later dedicated his Critica botanica to Dillenius, as opus botanicum quo absolutius mundus non vidit, "a botanical work of which the world has not seen one more authoritative.” The pair exchanged a number of specimens, and later in his Species Plantarum named a genus of tropical tree Dillenia in his honor. After his death from apoplexy (stroke), Dillenius' collections of books, manuscripts, drawings and collections of dried plants were acquired by his successor at Oxford, Dr. Humphry Sibthorp, and ultimately passed into the possession of Oxford University. In 1997, the Spanish botanist Gerardo Antonio Aymard Corredor published Neodillenia, a genus of flowering plants from South America belonging to the family Dilleniaceae, named in Dillenius's honor.

Dio'dia: derivation uncertain. Many sources say it derives from the Greek diodos, "thoroughfare, passage," from dia- and hodos, "way," and -ia, from the frequent growth of these plants by the wayside. However, the website Illinois Botanizer and Gledhill's The Names of Plants say that Diodea means "two-toothed." Umberto Quattrocchi says "Greek diodos, "through," diodeia, "passage through," referring to the habitats, or from the Greek dis, "twice," and eidos, oides, "form, shape, kind," referring to the calyx." SEINet says "Diodia is the Greek word for toll or thoroughfare, and CasaBio says from "Greek diodos, "thoroughfare, passage," alluding to the fact that many species grow as weeds by the wayside." An article in Systematic Botany said that the author, John Kunkel Small, defined the related genus Diodella by the two-lobed stigma, and for a long time Diodella was considered as a synonym of Diodia. The genus Diodia is commonly called buttonweed and was published by Johan Frederik Gronovius in 1753.

dio'ica/dioi'cum/dioi'cus: dioecious, having male and female flowers on separate plants, from Greek di or dis, "two, double," and oikos, "house, home."

Dioscor'ea: named for Pedanius Dioscorides (c. 40–90 AD), Greek physician, pharmacologist, herbalist and author in about the year 77 of De materia medica (On Medical Material), a 5-volume Greek encyclopedia about herbal medicine and related medicinal substances that was widely read for more than 1,500 years. Wikipedia says: For almost two millennia Dioscorides was regarded as the most prominent writer on plants and plant drugs. Known as "the father of pharmacognosy" (the study of the physical, chemical, biochemical, and biological properties of drugs, drug substances, or potential drugs or drug substances of natural origin as well as the search for new drugs from natural sources), he was born in Anazarbus, Cilicia, Asia Minor. Cilicia was a geographical region in southern Anatolia in Turkey, extending inland from the northeastern coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. He likely studied medicine nearby at the school in Tarsus, which had a pharmacological emphasis and he dedicated his medical books to Laecanius Arius, a medical practitioner there.  He travelled as a surgeon with the armies of the Emperor Nero. Though he writes that he lived a "soldier's life" or "soldier-like life," his pharmacopeia refers almost solely to plants found in the Greek-speaking eastern Mediterranean, making it likely that he served in campaigns or travelled in a civilian capacity, less widely than supposed. The name Pedanius is Roman, suggesting that an aristocrat of that name sponsored him to become a Roman citizen. De materia medica is the prime historical source of information about the medicines used by the Greeks, Romans, and other cultures of antiquity. The work also records the Dacian, Thracian, Roman, ancient Egyptian and North African (Carthaginian) names for some plants, which otherwise would have been lost. The work presents about 600 plants in all, although the descriptions are sometimes obscurely phrased, while some of the botanical identifications of Dioscorides' plants remain merely guesses. De materia medica formed the core of the European pharmacopeia through the 19th century, suggesting that "the timelessness of Dioscorides' work resulted from an empirical tradition based on trial and error; that it worked for generation after generation despite social and cultural changes and changes in medical theory.” The genus Dioscorea was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called yam.

Diospy'ros: from Dios, an appelation or descriptive name for Zeus or Jupiter, dios being Greek for "divine," and pyros, "grain or wheat." Theophrastus used the name diospyron for the fruit of the nettle-tree, Celtis australis, and Pliny and Dioscorides used diospyros as a name for some plant. The genus Diospyros is called persimmon and was published in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus.

Diphasias'trum: from the genus Diphasium and astrum for incomplete resemblance, thus "false Diphasium." The genus Diphasiastrum was published by Joseph Holun in 1975.

diphyl'la/diphyl'lum: with two leaves.

Diphylle'ia: from Greek di, "two," and phyllon, "a leaf," alluding to the two leaves on the stem. The genus Diphylleia was published by André Michaux in 1803 and is called umbrella-leaf.

Diplotax'is: from the Greek diplous, "double," and taxis, "row," because of the double row of seeds in the seed pod. The genus Diplotaxis was published by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle in 1821.

Dip'sacus: from the Greek dipsa, "thirst," from the connate (joined or attached) leaf bases that in some ssp. hold water. The genus Dipsacus was published in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus and is called teasel.

Dir'ca: from Greek dirke, "a fountain," in reference to the moist habitat of this genus. The genus Dirca was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called leatherwood.

discoid'ea: without rays, discoid.

dis'color: can have two different meanings. It may be used as a prefix corresponding to the English 'un-' added to words to signify a negation, or it can have the meaning of two or twice corresponding to the Latin bis. Thus it could mean 'without color' or of 'two different colors,' and considering how many taxa have this as an epithet. it would not be surprising for some to have one meaning and some to have another.

disjunc'ta: distincr, not grown together, disjunct.

disper'ma: having two seeds.

dissec'ta/dissec'tum: cut into many deep segments, dissected.

disso'na: this name derives from the same source as the word dissonance, which is a lack of harmony among two or more elements, usually used in a musical sense, but which can also convey the meaning of disagreement, discrepancy, incongruity, or inconsistency, from dis, and sono, "sound." The prefix dis has a complicated history for such a small root, but generally indicates some negation as in "lack of or not." Other meanings can include "opposite of, or apart, away, asunder." The Go Botany website says that Crataegus dissona used to be considered a variety of C. pruinosa, but has now been raised to species level, and notes further that "perhaps its new species name, dissona (meaning discordant or confused) better reflects its tortured taxonomic status." It has a series of synonyms including C. franklinensis, C. disjuncta, C. incisa, and C. relicta, reflecting a complex taxonomic history.

dis'tans: separated, apart, widely-spaced, in reference to the long, exserted stamens, which are apart from each other.

Distich'lis: from the Greek distichos, "two-ranked," in reference to the arrangement of the leaves. The genus Distichlis was published by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque in 1819 and is called saltgrass.

distichophyl'la: with leaves arranged in two ranks.

distich'um: in two ranks, from the Greek distichos meaning "two ranked."

distor'tus: misshapen, of grotesque form, from Latin distortus, "misshapen," from distorquēre to turn different ways, in turn from dis-, "completely," and torquere, "to twist."

divarica'ta/divarica'tum/divarica'tus: spreading out, growing in a straggly manner, from Latin divaricatus, "spread out."

diversifo'lius: with differently shaped leaves.

divi'sa: divided.

dodecan'dra: having twelve stamens.

Dodecath'eon: from the Greek dodeka, "twelve," and thios, "god(s)."  One source implies that it was considered to be powerful medicine and under the care of the twelve leading gods, and another suggests that because the flowers sometimes appear in clusters of twelve, the Roman naturalist Pliny bestowed this name because he thought the flowers represented the twelve Olympian gods. The genus Dodecatheon was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and common names include shooting star, American cowslip, mosquito bills, mad violets, and sailor caps.

dodg'ei: named for Charles Keene Dodge (1844-1918), American lawyer and botanist from Michigan. There is little available online about this person, but the following is quoted from JSTOR (short for Journal Storage, and part of Ithaka, an organization whose mission is to improve access to knowledge): “Born on a farm in Blackman near Jackson County, Michigan, Charles K. Dodge attended Union School at Ann Arbour between 1865 and 1866 before entering the University of Michigan. He graduated in 1870 and taught in Michigan schools (Rockland and Hancock) for the following four years. At this time Dodge decided to pursue a career in law which he studied for several years until, in 1875, he was called to the bar in Port Huron. Living in that town until his death (save for two years spent in the western and southern states) Dodge practiced law until 1893. Since settling in Port Huron his interest in botany developed and he amassed a small herbarium through his own collecting activity and exchanges. In 1893 he had a change of career, becoming a deputy inspector for the U.S. customs, partly in the hope that it would give him more time to botanize. At this time he decided to concentrate on the plants of Michigan and Ontario (Canada) and collected extensively in Clair County, MI, and Lambton County, ON. Dodge published a list for these two counties in Report of the State Horticultural Society of Michigan in 1899 as well as numerous regional floras and a fern flora of Michigan.”

Doellinger'ia: named for Ignaz Döllinger (1770-1841), a German doctor, anatomist and physiologist and one of the first

professors to treat medicine as a natural science. He began his studies in his hometown of Bamberg in northern Bavaria, and continued in Würzburg, Pavia and Vienna before returning to Bamberg. He received a doctorate in 1794 and was initially a doctor for the poor, and then he became a professor of physiology and general pathology. In 1803 he was made professor of anatomy and physiology in Würzburg. He was one of the first to recognize the importance of the microscope in research and trained his students in its use. He transferred to the Munich Academy of Sciences in 1823 and was made professor of anatomy while at

the same time being the curator of their whole collection. Subjects that he emphasized were comparative anatomy and
embryology, and Louis Agazziz was one of his students. His knowledge extended to all areas of morphology and physiology, including such topics as blood circulation, secretion processes, the structure of the eye, the function of the spleen, and the early stages of embryonic development. He fell sick in 1836 and died five years later. The genus Doellingeria is called flat-topped aster and was published by Christian Nees von Esenbeck in 1832.

domes'tica: frequently used as a house plant, domesticated.

domingen'sis: most of the plants that have this eithet are associated with or occur in the Dominican Republic, the capital of which is Santo Domingo, and since Typha domingensis is a species of primarily warm, tropical latitudes, I assume some connection with that country.

do'nax: an old Greek name for a kind of reed in classical literature. The species Arundo donax was published in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus.

donia'num: named for Scottish botanist, horticulturist and plant collector George Don, Sr. (1764-1814). He was born at

Ireland Farm in the parish of Menmuir in Angus, and moved when he was about 8 or 9 to Forfar with his family. He was first a shoemaker’s apprentice in Forfar, and then a clockmaker‘s apprentice in Dunblane.  He spent time working in London as a clockmaker but by the age of 15 he went to work alongside his uncle in the gardens of Dupplin Castle, Perthshire. He then spent 8 years working in England as a gardener before resuming his trade as a watchmaker, this time in Glasgow. By 1797 he was married to Caroline Stewart. They secured a ninety-nine year tenancy on a piece of land called Doohillock to build a home and supply

Forfar with fresh fruit and vegetables. His market garden however became more of a botanic garden as his plant collection grew. He had a catalog of plants for sale and sent material all over Britain. The garden was well known for its collection of hardy plants, some of which were quite rare. He corresponded with some of the most eminent botanists of the time, such as James Edward Smith. In 1801 Don became Superintendent or Principal Gardener at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. George spent a lot of time out in the surrounding area, discovering many new species of wild flowers, lichens, mosses and fungi.  He became an Associate of the Linnean Society and a member of the Natural History Society of Edinburgh.  He also attended medical classes at the University. He started to contribute to publications, and his first herbarium (a book containing dried specimens) was issued. He only remained in the post at RBGE until 1806, resigning due to conflicts with Regius Keeper Prof. Daniel Rutherford, the restrictions of the city life and the challenge of sustaining his large family of 15 children on a £40 yearly stipend. He returned to country wandering and plant collecting and spent a great deal of time travelling and making discoveries in the hills and glens, at Forfar Loch, Restenneth Moss and the coast. He did not manage to make the garden a financial success however, perhaps because he spent so much time away from it. He published Herbarium Britannicum which today is incredibly rare with only a few complete sets in existence. By 1812 the family was almost destitute, relying on neighbors and fellow botanists for food and charity. In the autumn of 1813, George returned from a trip with a severe cold. Instead of resting and recovering, he had to keep on working, and his symptoms worsened.  He died on 14 January 1814 at Doohillock, at which time only six of his children were left alive. Two of his sons went on to become respected botanists in their own right, George, Jr. as a professional collector for the [Royal] Horticultural Society and author, and David as Librarian to the Linnean Society, then first professor of botany at King’s College London and also author of Prodromus Florae Nepalensis, the first flora of Nepal, in 1825. The three younger boys, Patrick Neill, James Edward Smith and Charles Lyell had careers in horticulture in England. The genus Donia was published by Robert Brown in 1813. (Photo credit: Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh)

douglas'sii: named for David Bates Douglass (1790-1849), an American civil and military engineer. He was born in Pompton

Township, New Jersey, an iron mining region. His uncle was the notable civil engineer, David Stanhope Bates. He received his early education from his mother and developed a passion for technology and the natural sciences, and sought higher education in civil engineering, graduating from Yale University. He entered military service for the War of 1812, seeing action at several notable battles and receiving a field promotion to 1st Lieutenant for gallantry, and then a brevet Captaincy. From 1815 until 1831 he was a professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point, and consulted on the western section of the

Erie Canal, at the request of Governor DeWitt Clinton. He accompanied the commission to determine the Canadian boundary from Niagara to Detroit in 1819 as an astronomical surveyor. In 1820, he was a member of an expedition under the direction of Governor Lewis Cass of Michigan Territory to explore the south shore of Lake Superior, and played an important role in mapping and surveying, and in collecting specimens. During his West Point years he developed an extensive correspondence with scientists around the country, with museums, other universities and private individuals, forming a broad network that facilitated the exchange of ideas and specimens. In 1820 he was also tasked with the position of Chair of the Mathematics Department, something that required him to learn French in order to read the most current texts available on calculus. Several years later he was made professor of civil engineering. In 1831 he resigned from West Point and became chief engineer for the Morris and Essex Canal in New Jersey, where he distinguished himself as the designer of the Montville inclined plane, a type of cable railway used on some canals for raising boats between different water levels by using caissons, cradles or slings. Soon thereafter he was made professor of natural philosphy at New York University,  but relinquished that role in 1833 when he found that his instructional duties interfered with his engineering, and instead moved into the professorship of civil engineering and architecture with the understanding that no duties would be required except those that he chose for himself, and he devoted much of his time to designing the University's new collegiate building in Washington Square. Other projects he was involved with included surveying the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad route, designing the Croton Aqueduct to deliver drinking water to Manhattan, and designing the Greenwood Cemetary in Brooklyn, which was one of the most fashionable and progressive cemeteries in the nation. Seeking monetary security after the financial panic of 1837, he became President of Kenyon College, and was also named professor of intellectual and moral philosophy, logic, and rhetoric. His tenure there was less than successful and he was dismissed in 1844. He spent the next few years designing and laying out cemetaries in Albany and Quebec, and then in 1848 he moved to Geneva College (now Hobart) to become professor of mathematics and natural philosophy, but not long after moving, he suffered a fall and a paralytic stroke that left him incapacitated, and that ultimately resulted in his death the following year.

Dra'ba/dra'ba: from the Greek drabe for "sharp" or "acrid" and referring to the burning taste of the leaves which supposedly had a medicinal value as a poultice. Dioscorides used the name draba for the plant now named Lepidium draba. Both generic and specific names Draba/draba have the same derivation. The genus Draba was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called whitlow-grass or just draba.

dracon'tium: dragon-like, from Greek drakontion or dracontium. "dragon or serpent." There is also a genus Dracontium. The species Arisaema dracontium is called dragon arum, dragon-root and green dragon.

dracunculo'ides: like genus Dracunculus.

Droser'a: from the Greek droseros, "dewy," referring to the gland-tipped hairs on the leaves that make them look moist. The genus Drosera was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called sundew.

drummondia'na/drummond'ii: named for Thomas Drummond (1790-1835), a Scottish naturalist who like his fellow

countryman David Douglas made an ill-fated collecting trip to North America. His older brother was the botanist James Drummond who collected plants for Sir William Jackson Hooker among others and was the Director of the Cork, Ireland, botanical garden before emigrating to Australia. Thomas Drummond was an assistant-naturalist to Dr. John Richardson with Sir John Franklin's second land expedition beginning in 1825, and spent two years collecting bird and plant specimens in western Canada, finally leaving the expedition at some point to explore the Rocky Mountains. The thousands of specimens of plants sent home

by Drummond, in addition to those collected by Douglas, Richardson, and Archibald Menzies, were described by and formed the basis of Hooker’s Flora Boreali-Americana.  In 1828 Drummond returned from North America to become the Curator of the Belfast Botanical Garden. In 1830 he again went to North America to explore this time the western and southern United States, and journeyed from the Alleghany Mountains to St. Louis and eventually to New Orleans. He had become aware of the work being done in Mexico and Texas by Jean Louis Berlandier, and on behalf of Hooker continued on a collecting mission to Texas, where he spent 21 months collecting birds and plants. Many of his travelling companions died in a cholera outbreak and although Drummond also contracted the disease, he recovered. Floods and wet weather destroyed a third of the plants he had collected, and after a second bout of cholera he sailed to Cuba to collect plants there. His plan was to visit Florida and then return to England, but he died of fever in Havana in 1835 after having sent back more than 700 plants and seeds. In addition to his distributed collections of dried Scottish mosses entitled “Musci Scotici” produced in 1824-1825 and which attracted the attention of and began his relationship with Hooker which was to be so consequential, he later assembled 50 two-volume copies of exsiccata of American mosses, entitled “Musci Americani,” and it was said by Hooker that Drummond had discovered more mosses on a single trip than were known to exist in the whole of North America. In 1830 Augustin de Candolle published the genus Drummondia in his honor, and William Henry Harvey published Drummondita in 1855 for Thomas and his brother.

Drymocal'lis: from the Greek drymos, "a forest, oakwood, coppice," and kallos, "beauty," hence a woodland beauty, from which comes the new Jepson common name of woodbeauty. The genus Drymocallis was published by Jules Pierre Fourreau in 1898 and is called drymocallis or wood-beauty.

Dryop'teris: from 2 Greek words drys, "oak," and pteris, "fern," possibly referring to the plant's habitat. The genus Dryopteris was published by Michel Adanson in 1763.

du'bia/du'bium/du'bius: doubtful, as in the sense of not conforming to a pattern, or indicating some degree of uncertainty as to identification.

dudleyi: named for William Russel Dudley (1849-1911), professor of botany and head of the Botany Department at Stanford

University. He was born in Connecticut and grew up on a farm where he was first exposed to plants. He graduated from Cornell University in 1874 after paying his way by milking cows. Following his graduation he pursued botanical study in Strassburg and Berlin. He studied natural history under Louis Agassiz and became an instructor of botany at Cornell in 1873 and assistant professor of cryptogamic botany in 1884. He was also appointed botanical collector fot the University, taught at Indiana University in 1880, and then in 1892 took over the Stanford Department of Systematc Botany. He was a leading member and for some

years the Director of the Sierra Club of California. Wikipedia says that Professor Dudley “was an early forest preservationist, often consulting for U.S. forester Gifford Pinchot, regarding developing national forests in California. He became an activist in the Sempervirens Club, devoted to protecting the coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), and was key to establishment of what is now Big Basin Redwoods State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains. In 1901 the California Legislature passed an enabling act whereby 3,800 acres (1,500 ha) of land were purchased by the state in the next year to preserve the coastal redwood forest throughout the Santa Cruz Foothills area.  Dudley was one of four men appointed to the first state board of commissioners. Big Basin Redwoods State Park was established in 1902, the first of many in that state created since then. His contributions to knowledge of the flora of California were extremely significant and his important published works include The Cayuga Flora (1886), A Catalogue of the Flowering Plants and Vascular Cryptograms found in and near Lackawanna and Wyoming (1892), The Genus Phyllospadix, and Vitality of the Sequoia gigantea. He died of tuberculosis in 1911. The genus Dudleya was published in his honor in 1903 by Nathaniel Lord Britton and Joseph Nelson Rose.

dulcamar'a: Stearn says "Latin for bittersweet," from the Latin dulcis, "sweet," and amarus, "bitter," so literally sweet-bitter. Solanum dulcamara is often called bittersweet nightshade, which name comes from the sweet and bitter taste of the leaves and roots.

Dulich'ium: Flora of North America says somewhat unhelpfully from "Latin dulichium, a kind of sedge." Charles Lewis' A Latin Dictionary refers to Dulichium as an island of the Ionian Sea, southeast of Ithaca, belonging to the kingdom of Ulysses, and this is echoed by Umberto Quattrocchi, to wit: "from the Greek Doulikion, an island in the Ionian Sea." Jaeger's Source-book of Biological Names and Terms, which is usually quite helpful, says that the Greek root dulich comes from the Greek "dolichos = doulichos," long, as a substantive, the long course; also a kind of kidney bean. I must say I don't understand this entry, but Dulichium is given as an example. The genus Dulichium was published by Christiaan Hendrik Persoon in 1805 and is called three-way sedge.

dumo'sa/dumo'sum: bushy, shrubby.

dur'a: durable, tough, hard, thick.

Dysphan'ia: from the Greek dys, "bad or with difficulty," and phanos, "a torch," from phaneros, "evident, conspicuous, visible," thus meaning "only visible with difficulty" in reference to the tiny flowers. The genus Dysphania has been called wormseed and was published by Robert Brown in 1810.