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fa'ba: Latin for the broad bean, Vicia faba, from Latin faba, "bean." This is a native of Europe where it is more common due to the wetter and cooler climate, although it is a garden escape in the U.S. Vicia faba, also called the fava bean, was made famous by Hannibal Lechter's malevolently calm statement in The Silence of the Lambs, "I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti," one of the most oft-quoted lines in the history of film.

fa'beri: named for Rev. Ernst Friedrich Ludwig Faber (1839-1899), German Protestant missionary to China and sinologist.

He was born at Coburg in Bavaria the son of a tinsmith and was educated at the University of Basel and the University of Tubingen which was especially known as a center for the study of among other things plant biology and medicine. He also went to the Geographical Institute in Gotha to learn cartography. He determined early to become a missionary and entered the Seminary at Barmen before he was twenty. Not content with theological knowledge alone, he studied botany and zoology to widen his knowledge. After six years of higher education, he sailed for China in 1864 for the Rhenish Missionary Society.

For many years he evangelized in Canton Province, establishing schools and providing medical assistance to the Chinese when he could. All the while, he studied the botany and zoology of China, and began producing valuable books in Chinese, English, and German. He was fluent in Chinese, German, English and a number of other languages, and his main scholarly activity was on the study of Chinese culture, traditional Chinese literature, and customs. He wrote more than ten volumes of important works in Chinese, and he was an indispensable figure in the area of Sino-Western cultural communication. He saw himself as an intercultural agent who gradually came to be a Christian humanist working with the Chinese rather than necessarily trying to convert them, and he thought that the doctrine of the Gospel was in harmony with the mind of China. He was one of the most prolific writers of the German Protestant missionaries in China and among his works were A Systematical Digest of the Doctrines of Confucius, An Introduction to Chinese Religious Studies, German Daoism and the Historical Nature of Daoism, China in the Light of History, Confucianism, Introduction to the Science of Chinese Religion, Famous Women of China, Botanicon sinicum: notes on Chinese botany from native and western sources, Historical Nature of Daoism, Chronological Handbook of the History of China, and others. He also collected plants there among which was the type specimen of the so-called Faber or Yunnan fir (Abies fabri). He also made scientific discoveries and although not a trained doctor nevertheless handled numerous medical cases. In 1870, Faber became engaged, but his fiancée died in Germany before they could get married. He remained a lifelong bachelor, pouring his time and energy into what he saw as his calling. Eventually he worked almost exclusively on literary projects, convinced that the way to change the hearts of the educated class in China was through books. His decision seemed confirmed when he developed throat problems that made it increasingly difficult for him to speak. Faber died of dysentery in Qingdao and his remains were buried there in a German cemetery.

Fagopy'rum: from Latin fagus, "beech," and Greek pyrus, "wheat," alluding to the resemblance of the achene to a beech-nut. The genus Fagopyrum was published by Philip Miller in 1754 and is called buckwheat.
Fa'gus: the Latin name for the beech derived from the Greek phegos, which, besides meaning the beech, meant "edible," and sometimes meant "oak." Both beech and oak are in the same family which takes its name, Fagaceae, from this root. The genus Fagus was published by Carl Linnaeus and is called beech.
Falcar'ia: two derivations appear in the literature. One is "of the sickle-maker, sickle-shaped," from the Latin falx or falcis, "a sickle." The other is "helmetlike," referring to the hood over the column. The latter is from the Flora of Wisconsin website, which says also that Falcaria is called sickle-weed which goes with the other derivation. The genus Falcaria was published by Philipp Conrad Fabricius in 1759.
falca'ta/falca'tum: from Latin falcata, "sickle-shaped." A website of the Metropolitan Museum says: "The falcata was a popular type of sword in the Iberian Peninsula from the fifth to the first century B.C. Closely related in form to slashing weapons found in Greece, it is distinguished by the fact that its blade is double-edged for about half of its length, whereas Greek specimens normally have a single cutting edge." A couple of websites refer to it as being falcon-shaped. The name of the sword derives from falx, the Latin work for sickle, of uncertain origin.
fal'lax: deceitful, deceptive, false, bent, Latin fallacia, "deception, deceit."

Fallo'pia: named for Gabriele Falloppio (1523-1562), often known by his Latin name Fallopius, who was one of the most

illustrious and important anatomists and physicians of the sixteenth century. He was born in Modena and died in Padua. Being poor, he joined the clergy and became a canon at the Cathedral of Modena, but soon took up a medical education at the University of Ferrara, receiving his MD in 1548. After working at several medical schools, he became a Professor of Anatomy at Ferrara, then the following year was called to the University of Pisa. In 1551 he was appointed Chair of the Department of Anatomy and Surgery at the University of Padua, and at the same time held the professorship of botany and the

superintendency of the botanical garden. He dealt much with the anatomy of the head, in particular the eyes and ears. He also studied and contributed much to knowledge about the reproductive organs and discovered the tubes that connect the ovaries to the uterus, now known as fallopian tubes. He was the author of Observationes anatomicae published in 1561. Wikipedia adds: “He published two treatises on ulcers and tumors, a treatise on surgery, and a commentary on Hippocrates's book on wounds of the head. In his own time he was regarded as somewhat of an authority in the field of sexuality. Fallopio was the first to describe a condom (in his writings, a linen sheath wrapped around the penis), and he advocated the use of such sheaths to prevent syphilis. In an early example of a clinical trial, Fallopio reported that he tested these condoms in 1,100 men, none of whom contracted syphilis. Falloppio was also interested in every form of therapeutics. He wrote a treatise on baths and thermal waters, another on simple purgatives, and a third on the composition of drugs. The genus Fallopia was published in 1763 by Michel Adanson and is called false buckwheat or climbing buckwheat.

farfar'a: with a mealy surface, a name used by Pliny for butterbur. The specific epithet farfara is the ancient Latin name for the wildflower colt's-foot (Tussilago farfara). The etymology of the Latin and species name is sometimes ascribed to farfarus, an archaic name for the white poplar tree whose leaves have a lobed margin that is similar to those of coltsfoot.
farino'sa: mealy, powdery.
fascicular'is: see fasciculata.
fascicula'ta/fascicula'tum: derived from the Latin word fasciculus, "a small bundle, bunch, or collection," diminutive of fascis meaning "bundles" and describing the way the leaves are attached to the leaf stem in little bunches or 'fascicles.'
fastigia'ta: with upright branches, or erect clusters of twigs or stems.
Fatou'a: derivation obscure, but possibly named for Jean Baptiste Ambroise Fatou (1786-1858), Navy doctor and pharmacist. In the Fatou family there were many naval officers, and three of his sons were doctors. He was born in Chateau, Versailles, and in 1816 married Jeanne Marguerite Mougeat, whose father was an Army doctor and pharmacist. No further information available. The genus Fatoua was published by Charles Gaudichaud-Beaupré in 1830 and is called crabweed.
fat'ua: foolish, insipid, worthless, not good, from Latin fatuus, “foolish, silly, simple.”
fau'cibus: this Latin name appears to be the dative form of the word fauces, "the upper part of the throat, a pharynx or gullet."

Xfaxon'ii: a hybrid oak species with parents Q. alba and Q. prinoides, named for Charles Edward Faxon (1846-1918),

American botanist and botanical illustrator at the Arnold Arboretum. He was born in Jamaica Plain then in the town of Roxbury, Massachusetts, and his interest in natural history was sparked by his older brother who took him and his other siblings out into the open spaces of greater Boston. Faxon was educated in the local public schools and taught himself a great number of European languages before he graduated as a civil engineer from the Lawrence Scientific School (Cambridge) in 1867. After working for the family leather business for several years and in 1876 travelling to Europe for six months, Yale

botanist Daniel Cady Eaton in the late 1870's asked Faxon and his brothers to make collections for him. Faxon also contributed watercolor illustrations to Eaton's Ferns of North America, published in two volumes in 1879 and 1880. From 1879 to 1884 Faxon was employed as a botany instructor at the Bussey Institute, a respected biological institute at Harvard University named for Benjamin Bussey, who in 1835 endowed the establishment of an undergraduate school of agriculture and horticulture and donated land in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts that became the Arnold Arboretum. In the late 1870's Yale botanist, Daniel Cady Eaton, asked Faxon and his brothers to make collections for him. Faxon also contributed watercolor illustrations to Eaton's Ferns of North America, published in two volumes in 1879 and 1880. Faxon was knowledgeable regarding the flora of New England, and in 1882 was invited by Charles Sprague Sargent, the Director of the Arboretum, to join the staff as the Assistant Director. Here he took charge of development of the herbarium and library, and worked closely with Sargent. He was well known for his beautifully composed and botanically accurate illustrations of trees, and immediately began to work on the illustrations for The Silva of North America, a project Sargent had just embarked upon. In total he produced 744 plates for the 14-volume Silva over 21 years. He also made hundreds more plates for Sargent's Manual of the Trees of North America (exclusive of Mexico) (1905), Forest Flora of Japan (1894) and Trees and Shrubs (1902-1913) as well as for the horticultural journal Garden and Forest (1888-1898). He rarely left Boston, save for two trips to the South (Florida and Texas) and one to the West Indies with Sargent in 1885, and remained at the Arboretum until his death in 1918.

-fer/-fera: from Latin fero, "to bear."

fernald'ii: named for Merritt Lyndon Fernald (1873-1950), American botanist and educator. He was born in Orono, Maine,

on Oct. 5, 1873. His father taught and was for a while President of the Maine State College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts, which later became the University of Maine. Fernald attended Orono High School and it was there that he decided to be a botanist. He collected plants around Orono and had two botanical papers published while still at high school. He began his college studies at the State College in 1890; in February, 1891, Sereno Watson offered him a position at the Gray Herbarium that would allow him to work and study part-time at Harvard. Fernald accepted in March, 1891, and enrolled

in Harvard's Lawrence Scientific School the following fall. He graduated cum laude with an S.B. in 1897 and remained at the Gray Herbarium in one capacity or another for the rest of his life. He worked as an assistant in the herbarium from 1891 to 1902; as an instructor of botany from 1902 to 1905; as an assistant professor from 1905 to 1915; and as Fisher Professor of Natural History from 1915 to 1947. He was also curator of the Gray Herbarium, 1935-37, and director, 1937-1947. Fernald is known for his work on phytogeography. He combined extensive field work with his herbarium work, concentrating on the flora of eastern North America. He did much exploring in Quebec in his younger years; when older, he worked in Virginia. With Benjamin Lincoln Robinson he produced the 7th revision of Gray's Manual, which appeared in 1907. He wrote Edible Wild Plants of Eastern North America with Alfred C. Kinsey, published in 1943. His major work was the 8th revision of Gray's Manual, published in 1950. Before his death, he was planning a large work on plant distribution. During his lifetime he produced over 750 papers and memoirs. He was active in the New England Botanical Club, serving as editor-in-chief of Rhodora for many years. Fernald married Margaret Howard Grant in 1907. They had three children, one of whom died young. Fernald died on Sept. 22, 1950.

Xfernald'ii: a hybrid oak species with parents Q. ilicifolia and Q. rubra, see previous entry.

Xfernow'ii: a hybrid oak species with parents Q. alba and Q. stellata, named for Bernhard Eduard Fernow (1851-1923),

chief of the USDA's Division of Forestry of the United States. was born in Hohensalza (Inowrocław) in the Prussian Province of Posen. After finishing his secondary studies, Fernow spent seven years in the Prussian Forest Service. He then studied at the University of Königsberg and the Royal Prussian Academy of Forestry at Münden, his studies being interrupted for military service in the Franco-Prussian War. Before graduating from college, he met Olivia Reynolds, an American woman accompanying her brother during his studies in Germany. In 1876 he travelled to the United States to

attend the American Forestry Association meeting and to reunite with his American fiancée. He found little market at first in the United States for his skills as a professional forester, and worked various odd jobs until 1878 when he found work in Pennsylvania managing the 15,000 acres of woods which were used to obtain charcoal for the foundry of Cooper-Hewitt and Co. Fernow's observation and works like Report on the Forests of North America (Charles S. Sargent, 1884) showed him the need for proper forest management in the U.S., and he lectured on the subject. He married in 1879 and became a U.S. citizen. Through his job and trade connections, he got to know Abram S. Hewitt, who was influential in President Grover Cleveland's decision to give Fernow a job at the USDA. Fernow quickly got involved in the budding forest preservation movement. As the only trained forester in the country until 1891, his ideas garnered attention and carried much weight. Moreover, his position as executive secretary of the AFA from 1883 to 1895 and as chief of the Division of Forestry from 1886 to 1898 put him in a position to steer the forest preservation movement toward embracing forest management. In his dual roles, he was pivotal in publicizing the cause of forestry from a scientific standpoint. Fernow’s appointment as the third chief of the Division of Forestry eventually brought a shift in the division’s fortunes and purpose. The division had been created to give advice to farmers and agriculturalists wanting to learn about trees and shrubbery. It was chronically underfunded and improperly staffed. He was its only trained forester and he had no forested land to manage—the federal forests would remain in the Department of the Interior until 1905. Fernow succeeded in laying the foundation for federal forest management before leaving office. During his twelve years as chief, he recruited experts around the country to contribute to scientific forestry literature while carrying out his own experiments and inspections. He gave the first college lectures on forestry in the country and suggested school curriculums, highlighting the need for forestry education in North America. Producing more than 6,000 pages of reports, bulletins, circulars, and other forms of information, he published more than his two predecessors combined, and laid much of the groundwork for the establishment of the United States Forest Service in 1905. He worked with interested congressmen to draft forestry legislation, including the Forest Reserve Act (1891) and the Forest Management Act (1897). In 1898 Fernow left the Division of Forestry to become the first dean of the New York State College of Forestry at Cornell, the first four-year forestry school in the United States. His time there was rife with controversy and his plans for logging and replanting were only partially carried out, resulting in his most notable professional failure. In 1899, Fernow was recruited as a member of New York's E. H. Harriman expedition to Alaska during which he was only able to study coastal and not inland forests, concluding that Alaska would never be a good sorce of timber. At some point he became the nation's first consulting forester, with an office in New York City, and in 1907, became the first professor of forestry in a four-year baccalaureate degree program at the Pennsylvania State University, then the first head of the Faculty of Forestry at the University of Toronto. In 1907, Fernow became the founding Dean of the University of Toronto's Faculty of Forestry, Canada's first university school devoted to forest science. He served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Forestry, which he had started at Cornell in 1902, until his death in 1923. He became a member of the Commission of Conservation of Canada on its organization in 1910. Fernow's reputation and legacy may have suffered because of the success and efforts of his successor Gifford Pinchot and others who did not share his Prussian-style vision for professional forestry, but he was considered among the pioneers of forestry education in America, and not without justification has been called the "father of professional forestry in the United States."

Festu'ca: from the Latin festuca, "a grass stalk or straw." Wikipedia says: "The word festuca is a Latin word meaning 'stem' or 'stalk' first used by Pliny the Elder to describe a weed. The word Festuca first appears to describe grasses in Dodoens' Stirpium historiae pemptades sex, sive libri XXX in 1583. However, the plant Dodoens described as Festuca altera is truly Bromus secalinus. Other authors before Linnaeus used the name to describe other various species of Bromus. In the first edition of Genera Plantarum, Linnaeus describes seven species of Festuca, five of which are truly Bromus grasses with the other two being Festuca gigantea and Festuca pratensis. In 1753 the genus is accepted as first being formally described, in Linnaeus' Species Plantarum. Eleven species were described, with F. ovina being the type species."
festuca'cea: similar to Festuca.
Ficar'ia: classical Latin name for the fig. Stearn says "Medieval plant name probably from Ficus, fig, with reference to the tubers somewhat resembling little figs. The genus Ficaria was published by Jean Étienne Guettard in 1754 and is called lesser celandine.
Fi'cus: from Latin ficus, an old name for the edible fig, Ficus carica.
Fila'go: from the Latin filum, "thread," referring to the hairs. (infortmation from the Prabook Biographical Encyclopedia). The genus Filago was published in 1753 by Pehr Loefling.
filamento'sa: furnished with filaments or threads.
filici'nus: resembling a fern, from Latin filix, "a fern."
filicul'mis: having thread-like stalks.
filifor'mis: thread-like.
Filipen'dula: from Latin filum, "a thread," and pendulus, "hanging," alluding to the root tubers in Filipendula vulgaris that hang together with threads. The genus Filipendula was published by Philip Miller in 1754 and is called queen-of-the-prairie.
fimbria'ta: fringed, borrowed from Latin fimbriātus, “fibrous, fringed," from fimbriae, “fibers, threads, fringe,” and -atus, an adjectival suffix used to form adjectives from nouns indicating the possession of a thing or feature, fringe, having a fringe.
Fimbristy'lis: from the Latin fimbriae, "shreds, fringe," and stilus, "style," in reference to the ciliate style. The genus Fimbristylis was published by Martin Vahl in 1805 and is called fimbry.
Firmia'na: named for Karl Josef Gotthard von Firmian (1718-1782), Governor of Lombardy when that was a province of the Austrian Empire, and a patron of the Padua botanical garden.

Firmia'na: named for Carl Joseph Gotthard von Firmian (1716-1782), Austrian/Tyrolean noble, politician, diplomat, art

collector, painter, engraver and bibliophile, who was a patron of the arts and of the Padua botanical garden. He was born in Mezzocorona in Italy and was educated in the Abbey School of Ettal in Bavaria, and then at Innsbruck, Salzburg and Leiden University. His proper name was Karl Gotthard von Firmian, and in Italy was known as Carlo Giuseppe di Firmian. He was the nephew of Leopold Anton von Firmian, Archbishop of Salzburg, who was a great lover of science and the arts. He was also related to Leopold Maximilian von Firmian, Archbishop of Vienna. After attending university he traveled

extensively through France and Italy in the early 1740s, after which he was attached to the imperial court at Naples in 1746. He was recruited in 1753 by Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor, as Ambassador to Naples, then in 1758 he was appointed as Minister Plenipotentiary to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Governor-General of Lombardy, and served for many years until his death. He is remembered as an avid promoter of the arts and sciences, patronizing both the artists Johann Joachim Winckelmann and Angelica Kauffman. Mozart first performed for Firmian, probably at his Palazzo Melzi in Milan, on 12 March 1770; later performances for Firmian are known but not securely dated. Firmian not only presented Mozart with an edition of the complete works of the poet Pietro Metastasio, but his patronage secured for Wolfgang the commission for Mitridate, re di Ponto K87. He also provided Mozart and his father with letters of recommendation on their first two Italian trips. From the painter Andrea Salvatore Aglio, he commissioned a Virgin of Bovilli and a Birth of Maria de Medici, Queen of France, copy of the large canvas by Rubens. He died in Milan and his tomb was placed in the church of San Bartolomeo. During the Napoleonic occupation of Lombardy, his monument was removed as part of an effort to expunge any signs of prior Austrian governance. After 1815, it was returned to its place. At his death, he had accumulated a large collection of paintings and a substantial library of some 40,000 volumes. The genus Firmiana was published by Giovanni Marsili in 1786. (Photo credit: Geni)

fis'sa: one source says split or cloven, and another says "The specific epithet fissa comes from the Latin verb fissare meaning to fix securely." It's possible that this has the same root as the word fissure, which comes from the Latin fissura "a cleft," from the root of findere, "to split, cleave, separate, divide."
fissifo'lius: with deeply split leaf blades, from the Latin fissum, "cleft," and folium, "leaf."
fistulo'sa/fistulo'sum: hollow or tubular, usually referring to the stalks.
flabellar'is: fan-like, fan-shaped, flabellate, from the Latin flabellum for "a small fan," and the -aris suffix meaning "belonging or pertaining to" which is used after word stems ending in 'l' such as fascicularis, pilularis or axillaris.
flaccidifo'lia/flaccidifo'lius: from flaccidus, "limp, weak, feeble, flaccid" and folia, "leaves," thus having soft or flaccid leaves.
flagellar'is: whiplike, from the Latin flagrum, "whip," and -aris, "resembling."
flagellif'era: from the Latin flagrum, "whip" and ferre or fero, "to bear," meaning bearing long, thin, whip-like appendage.
fla'va/flavus: pure yellow, from Latin flavus, "yellow."
Flaver'ia: from Latin flavus, yellow. The genus Flaveria was published by Antoine Laurent de Jussieu in 1789 and is called yellowtops.
flaves'cens: becoming yellow, yellowish, from Latin flavesco, "becoming yellow."
flavico'mus: yellow-haired.
flav'ula: the common name of Corydalis flavula is yellow harlequin or yellow fumewort. The only other thing I can find is the similar word flavulo which Wiktionary derives from Esperanto flava, "yellow" and ulo, "a person," and means a person of yellowish skin color, an Oriental person." Whether this has any application I don't know but Latin flavus means "yellow," so the name must have something to do with that color.
fla'vum: yellow.
Fleischman'nia: named for Gottfried Fleischmann (1777-1850), a German physician and university teacher. He was born in Erlangen and studied medicine at the University of Erlangen receiving his medical doctorate in 1800. In 1804 he received the position of prosector (a person who dissects corpses for examination or demonstration) at the anatomical theater, and then in 1810 qualified as a private lecturer at the University of Erlangen. In 1824 he was appointed a full professor of anatomy and physiology and director of the anatomical institute. He became a member of the German Academy of Natural Sciences Leopoldina in 1820. He published various writings on normal anatomy and developmental history and, in 1820, on pathological anatomy, for which he had also qualified, and a collection of 96 dissections, and his compendium, Instructions for the Forensic and Police Examination of Human and Animal Bodies, dealt with the anatomical side of forensic medicine. He also published a paper on strangulation in Adolph Henke's journal for state pharmacology. In the 2nd volume of the German Archives for Physiology edited by Johann Friedrich Meckel, he is also named as co-editor. He remained unmarried all of his life. On the occasion of his fiftieth doctoral jubilee on June 21, 1850, he received the Order of St. Michael from the King. It seems that the most oft-repeated item of information about him online is that one of his students was Carl Heinrich ‘Bipontinus’ Schultz who named this genus in his honor in 1850. He died in Erlangen.
flexicaul'is: with curved or bending stems.
flex'ile: pliant, limber.
flex'ipes: pliant-stalked, wth a bent stalk, from Latin flexus, "bent, turned, curved," and pes, pedis, pediculus, "a foot, the base of anything."
flexuo'sa/flexuo'sum: tortuous, zigzag, much bent, winding, sinuous.

Floerk'ea: named for the German lichenologist Heinrich Gustav Flörke (Floerke) (1764-1835), botanist and professor of

botany at Rostock and author of De Cladoniis Difficillimo Lichenum Genere Commentatio Nova (1828), Deutsche Lichenen gesammelt und mit Ammerkungen (1815), and Beschreibung der deutschen staubflechten (1807). From 1775 to 1778 he studied theology, philology and mathematics at the University of Bützow and then until 1793 he was the private tutor for Gustav Friedrich von Oertzen at Göttingen, Kittendorf and Kotelow. After being a pastor for several years he studied medicine and natural sciences at the University of Jena. For the next seventeen years he was a private scholar and author. In

1816 he succeeded Ludolph Christian Treviranus (1779–1864) as professor of natural history at the University of Rostock, where he remained for the rest of his life, also holding the position of director of the botanical garden. He specialized in the field of lichenology, being known for his investigations of the genus Cladonia. For a number of years Flörke was an editor of "Oekonomische Encyklopädie", an encyclopedia initiated by Johann Georg Krünitz (1728–1796). He was also a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and the Russian-Imperial Society of Naturalists, and the librarian of the Society of Friends of Nature Research in Berlin. His name is associated with the wildflower genus Floerkea, published by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque in 1808, and also the lichen species Cladonia floerkeana. The genus Floerkea is called false mermaid or false mermaid-weed.

floribun'da/floribun'dum: free-flowering, producing an abundance of flowers.
flor'ida: this epithet can have two meanings, of or from Florida, or from the Latin floridus, florid, ornate, free-flowering, flowery, in bloom. In the case of Cornus florida, the etymology is the latter because of its large flowers. In the case of Oxalis florida, it's probably the former.
florida'na/florida'num: of or from Florida.
flori'dus: florid, ornate, flowery, free-flowering, producing an abundance of flowers.
flu'itans: floating, flowing, waving, from Latin fluito, "floating, to float."
fluviati'le/fluviati'lis: pertaining or peculiar to rivers, found in or near rivers, or produced by a river.
Foenic'ulum: fodder, a diminutive of the Latin word foenum, "hay or fennel," because of the smell. The genus Foeniculum is commonly called fennel and was published by Philip Miller in 1754.
foet'ida/foet'idus: bad-smelling.

fog'gii: named for John Milton Fogg, Jr. (1898-1982). He was born in Philadelphia and received a Bachelor of Science

degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1925 and a PhD in botany from Harvard in 1929. He was an instructor in botany at the University of Pennsylvania from 1925 to 1932, an assistant Professor from 1932 to 1941, and an associate Professor from 1941 to 1944 when he was promoted to full Professor. He was also Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences from1941 to 1944 and Vice Provost from 1944 to 1953. He was Director of the Morris Arboretum from 1954 to 1965 and then Director of the Arboretum of the Barnes Foundation from 1965 to 1979. In his early years he worked part time at the Academy of

Natural Sciences and later was a Research Associate for many years. He travelled to the Selkirks in British Columbia and then to Newfoundland. The early focus of his botanical interests was in the flora of southwestern New Jersey. For three summers (1938-1940) he taught at the University of Virginia Biological Station at Mountain Lake. He was one of the first instructors at the Barnes Arboretum School of Botany and Horticulture and continued to teach there until his death. He was an expert in botanical taxonomy and insisted on his students’ accurate pronunciation and spelling of botanical names. Repeated trips were made to Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, South America, the Caribbean Islands and Mexico. He twice went to India, Burma and Thailand to study the genus Rauwolfia and conducted field work across the United States, but his main interest was the flora of the Atlantic Coastal Plain. He was a member of numerous boards and committees and held posts in the American Philosophical Society and the Botanical Societies of Pennsylvania and America, as well as the Academy of Natural Sciences as well as the Philadelphia Botanical Club. He was an authority on magnolias and founded the National Magnolia Society. He was the author of Weeds of Lawn and Gardens and the Checklist of Cultivated Magnolias, and the co-author of the Flora of Pennsylvania. His activities were so numerous and diverse that it is difficult to imagine being carried on by a single man. (Information from an obituary in Bartonia, No. 49, 1983 and photo credit to the same)

foliosi'flora: from Latin folio, "leaf or sheet of paper," and flora, "flower," of uncertain application.
folio'sus: full of leaves, leafy.
follicula'ta: having or bearing follicles.
fonta'na/fonta'num: pertaining to springs or fountains, growing in fast-running water.
fontanesia'na: the epithets fontanum or fontanus mean pertaining to springs or flowing water, but that doesn't seem to apply here. The -ana or -iana ending usually refers to of or relating to a person, place, habitat, or genus, and there is a genus Fontanesia named for Rene Louiche Desfontaines (1750-1833), so there is probably a connection there.
-forme/-formis: from the Latin forma, "shape, figure, appearance, nature," this is a suffix commonly applied to nouns, e.g. fusiforme, "spindle-shaped," cithariforme, "lyre-shaped," filiformis, "thread-like," spiciformis, "spike-shaped," lentiformis, "lens-shaped," claviformis, "club-shaped."
formo'sum: finely formed, handsome, beautiful.

Forsyth'ia: named for Scottish botanist William Forsyth (1737-1804). He was born at Oldmeldrum in Aberdeenshire, and

moved to London in 1763 to work for the Earl of Northumberland at Syon Park. He then trained as a gardener at the Chelsea Physic Garden as a pupil of Philip Miller, the chief gardener. He took over the chief gardening position in 1771 and became a mentor to John Fraser. In 1774, Forsyth created what is thought to be the first ever rock garden in Britain, using 40 tons of assorted stone collected from the roadside outside of the Tower of London, some flint and chalk from nearby downland (areas of open chalk hills), and some pieces of lava collected from Iceland by Sir Joseph Banks. The garden however

failed to produce much serious growth. In 1784, he was appointed Superintendent of the royal gardens at Kensington and St. James's Palace, and brought about considerable development of the garden, with much replanting and the exchange of plants and seeds internationally. In this position he did much to cultivate fruit and vegetables, restoring many old fruit trees to health with his 'plaister' (plaster), which consisted of a mixture of cow dung, urine, powdered lime, wood ashes and sand used to seal the wounds on trees after branches or cankerous growths were removed. Forsyth promoted this mixture as a complete remedy, promoting new growth, and was awarded the great sum of £1500 by the Government for his formula in an attempt to improve the quality of the oak trees in the royal forests, which were required for building the ships needed by England in its war with Napoleon. In 1791 he published his ‘Observations on the Diseases, Defects, and Injuries of Fruit and Forest Trees,’ and in 1802 his ‘Treatise on the Culture and Management of Fruit Trees,’ which reached a seventh edition in 1824. Although he made claims for it, the efficacy of the plaister was disputed by Thomas Andrew Knight and others, its composition differing but slightly from similar preparations commonly in use in nurseries and plantations. He was a Fellow of the Linnean and Antiquaries Societies, and a founding member of the Royal Horticultural Society. His great-grandson was the gardener and landscape architect Joseph Forsyth Johnson (1840–1906). He remained as head royal gardener until his death in 1804 at his official residence, Kensington. The genus Forsythia was published by Martin Vahl in 1804 and is called golden-bells or simply forsythia.

fortun'ei: named for Robert Fortune (1812-1880), 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. He was born in Berwickshire, Scotland, and after some early schooling he apprenticed in a nearby garden, and then was employed at Moredun House, just to the south of Edinburgh. He eventually secured a position at the Botanic Garden in Edinburgh in 1840 (or 1842, sources differ) where he trained under the formidable William McNabb, whom he impressed with his diligence and his seriousness of

mind. In 1842 he gained the position of Superintendent of the Hothouse Department at the Horticultural Society's garden at Chiswick, London, and a few months later, following the 1842 Treaty of Nanking, applied for and was granted the position of the Society's Collector in China for a three-year plant collecting mission. During this time he introduced many new, exotic, beautiful flowers and plants to Europe, Australia and the USA. He became proficient in speaking Mandarin and often disguised himself as Chinese by shaving his head and adopting a ponytail and native dress in order to travel beyond the limits of the established treaty ports. Tea plants and seedlings were considered the property of the Chinese empire but he managed to acquire large quantities of them and shipped them home in Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward's recently invented portable Wardian cases. After surviving shipwreck, robbery, river pirates, angry mobs and fevers, he returned to London in 1846. He published his journals in the book Three Years' Wanderings in the Northern Provinces of China, and worked for two years at the Chelsea Physic Garden. A second trip to China in 1848 was for the East India Company, the goal of which was to collect the finest tea plants for shipment to India, but many of these plants perished and were not in fact preferred by the British. The technology and knowledge he brought from China was, however, instrumental in the later flourishing of the Indian tea industry. He made another trip in 1853, this time visiting Formosa (now Taiwan) and Japan, and in 1857 was once again on the trail of tea in China, this time at the behest of the United States Patent Office. His final trip to the Far East was in 1860 just before his retirement which he spent farming in Scotland. Three other books he wrote were A Journey to the Tea Countries of China (1852), A Residence Among the Chinese (1857) and Yedo and Peking (1863). He was married to Jane Penny Fortune and had five children. (Info from JSTOR, PlantExplorers.com and Wikipedia)

Fragar'ia: from the Latin fraga, "strawberry," which derives from fragum, "fragrant," from the fragrance of the fruit. The genus Fragaria was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called strawberry.
frag'ilis: brittle, fragile, easily broken, from frangere, "to break." Stearn adds sometimes wilting quickly.
fragrantis'sima: very fragrant.
Fran'gula: the CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names says: "Perhaps derived from the Latin frangere, 'to break'." Other related roots are frango, "to break," or frangulus, "fragile." A personal communication from John Kartesz supplied the information that the name refers to its extremely brittle wood. The species alder-buckthorn, Rhamnus frangula, bears a fairly old name, and the bark of that tree contained a glucoside with purgative or laxative qualities that was named frangulin by a chemist named Casselmann. The European species, alder buckthorn (Frangula alnus) was of major military importance in the 15th to 19th centuries, as its wood provided the best quality charcoal for gunpowder manufacture.The genus Frangula was published by Philip Miller in 1754 and is called alder buckthorn.
frank'ii: named for Joseph C. Frank (1805-1835), German physician originally from Rastadt who moved to the USA in 1832 where he collected plant specimens for the Unio itineraria, a German scientific society which was based at Esslingen am Neckar in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The organisation paid botanists to travel and collect plants, and sold the collections in large sets. Rising costs associated with the Wilhelm Schimper expeditions led to the collapse of Unio Itineraria in 1842. Significant portions of the Unio Itineraria collections were directed to Herbarium Tubingense at the University of Tübingen in Baden-Württemberg. His father appears to have been the physician Joseph Frank (1771-1842), Chief Physician at the General Hospital of Vienna, and his grandfather, Johann Peter Frank (1745-1821) was also a physician.

fra'seri: named for John Fraser (1750-1811), a well-known Scottish-born nurseryman and collector of North American

plants who moved to London in 1770. and his son John Jr. John Sr. worked initially as a draper and was introduced to botany through his visits to the Chelsea Physic Garden. He began his botanical collecting career after sailing to Newfoundland in 1780, and then again to the New World in 1783. He established the American Nursery in King’s Road sometime in the 1780’s and it was continued by his son after his death. He explored a significant portion of the new country from the Appalachians to the Alleghanies and the American South, shipping many new species to England and beyond. He and his brother James

operated two nurseries in the vicinity of Charleston, S.C. at least from 1791 to 1800 where they could grow the plants that were part of their business which imported American plants into England. In 1796 he travelled to Russia and sold a large collection of American plants to Czarina Catherine II, botanized around St. Petersburg, and after Catherine's death continued his botanical entrepreneurship with Maria Federovna, wife of Czar Paul I, who was a botany enthusiast herself. In 1800 he and his son John, Jr. were in America again, visiting Thomas Jefferson at Monticello, and travelling through Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia. He also collected plants in the West Indies and nearly came to a bad end in a shipwreck off the coast of Cuba in 1801, a mishap from which he and his crew were fortunate to survive. Altogether he made seven voyages to America and it was during the last of these in which he fell from a horse near Charleston, S.C., breaking several ribs, an injury that he never recovered from and which undoubtedly shortened his life. Business difficulties and his frequent absences from the nursery caused financial problems and he was considered bankrupt at his death. His herbarium was sold to the Linnean Society. J.C. Loudon in the Botanical Magazine of 1838 said that he was “One of the most enterprising, indefatigable, and persevering men that ever embarked in the cause of botany and natural science.” John Fraser was also honored by the generic name Frasera. This information is mostly from Wikipedia and from from Marcus Simpson, Jr., "Biographical Notes on John Fraser," Archives of Natural History (1997) 24 (1): 1-18.

fra'seri: despite such sources as Wikipedia, iNaturalist and SEINet claiming that Hypericum fraseri was named for John Fraser (see above), it was actually named for John Fraser, Jr. (1780?-1861?), eldest son of Scottish nurseryman John Fraser, as set out in the original publication Annales des sciences naturelles (Paris, 1836) of Elodea fraseri, which became Triadenum fraseri and then Hypericum fraseri. It specifically refers to Fraser fil., a term which stands for the Latin word filius, which means "son." He continued in his father's footsteps as a plant hunter after Fraser's death and became a respected nurseryman in his own right. John Jr. also owned the Hermitage Nursery at Ramsgate (1817–1835) and when he retired he sold his nursery to William Curtis in 1835. John Jr. met with the celebrated American botanist Asa Gray in 1839, early on in Gray's career, and ultimately sold the Fraser herbarium to the Linnean Society in 1849. He directed the family nursery at Chelsea with his younger brother James Thomas until 1811 and Thomas continued to operate it on his own until 1827. John Jr. accompanied his father on trips across the Atlantic to collect plants in America, and he and his father spent a couple of days at Monticello, the home of then Vice-President Thomas Jefferson, who encoraged them to visit Natural Bridge, which they did. The species Hypericum (Triadenum) fraseri was named in his honor, and is the only epithet for which he was so honored.
fraseriana (Carex): ?
fraterniflor'a: a combination of the Latin words frater for "fraternal (brotherly or friend)," and flora, thus "with brotherly flowers," referring to the fact that the flowers are usually in pairs.
Frax'inus: a classical name for the ash genus. Wikipedia says that the name originated in Latin from a Proto-Indo-European word for birch, and that word is also used to mean "spear" in their respective languages, as the wood is good for shafts. The genus Fraxinus was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753. and is commonly called ash.

fries'ii: named for Elias Magnus Fries (1794-1879), a Swedish mycologist and botanist sometimes called the "Linnaeus of

Mycology." He was born in a parsonage at Femsjö in Smaland, the son of a pastor who was interested in natural history. He attended the Gymnasium in Växjö and acquired an extensive knowledge of flowering plants from his father. The area is extremely rich in fungi, which may have contributed to his becoming, even in his teens, an advanced mycologist. In 1811 Fries entered the University of Lund where he obtained a doctorate in 1814. In the same year he was appointed an associate professorship in botany. During his stay at Lund, Fries began to collect and describe known species of fumgi for his major work

Systema Mycologicum (1821–1832), in which he introduced a new system for classifying fungi. With the exception of a few changes with respect to microscopic discoveries, the system is still valid for many groups of fungi today. He was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and in 1824, became a full professor. In 1834 he became Borgström professor in applied economics at Uppsala University. The position was changed to professor of botany and applied economics in 1851. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1849. That year he was also appointed director of the Uppsala University Botanical Garden. In 1853, he became rector of the University. He was also the author of Elenchus fungorum (1828), the two-volume Monographia hymenomycetum Sueciae (1857 and 1863), Observationes mycologicae (2 vols., 1815–1818), Hymenomycetes Europaei (1874), Flora Scanica (Uppsala, 1835), and others. Fries is considered to be, after Christian Hendrik Persoon, a founding father of the modern taxonomy of mushrooms. Fries was the first person to distinguish between lichens with external coverings on the fruiting body and those without. In his early years he had believed that evolutionary processes had taken place within the organic world and that through the ages the organisms had passed from more primitive to more perfect stages. But for a long while he could not accept any theory of descent. Thus, according to him, all species had existed from the beginning, rude and primitive but definitely different from each other. Through the ages they had separately and gradually reached their present forms. Later, Fries had to concede that not all species had an evolutionary history separate from all other species. He began to believe that all forms within a genus had only one common ancestor and that the different species now existing within it were temporis filiae, daughters of time. He considered that the driving force behind this evolution was mainly a tendency within the organisms to strive toward the perfect state of the respective types or ideas, a reflection of his basically romantic vision. When, in old age, Fries had read Darwin’s Origin of Species, he could agree with the general theory of evolution, but he hesitated before the idea of the descent of nearly all organisms from one or a few original forms. And he absolutely could not accept the mechanism of “struggle for existence” and natural selection as the main force acting in evolution. Fries died in Uppsala on 8 February 1878, and when he died, The Times in London stated that "His very numerous works, especially on fungi and lichens, give him a position as regards those groups of plants only comparable to that of Linnaeus."

Froelich'ia: named for Joseph Aloys von Frölich (1766-1841), a German doctor, botanist and entomologist. He described many species within the genus Hieracium. The genus Froelichia in the Amaranthaceae has been called cottonseed and snake-cotton and was published in 1794 by Conrad Moench.
frondo'sa/frondo'sum: leafy, from Latin frondosus, "leafy, full of leaves," from frons, "a leafy branch."
frumenta'cea: pertaining to grain, grain-bearing
frutes'cens: somewhat or becoming shrubby or bushy, from Latin frutex, "a shrub."
frutico'sa: from the Latin frutex, "a shrub," therefore, shrubby, bushy.
Fuire'na: named for Georg Fuiren (Jorgen Furenius) (1581-1628), Danish physician and botanist. The genus Fuirena was published by Christen Friis Rottbøll in 1773 and is called umbrella-sedge.
ful'gida: shining. glistening.
fullon'um: pertaining to fullers. Stearn says "Specific epithet of the fuller's teasel (Dipsacus fullonum) used in the manufacture of woolen cloth to raise the nap."
ful'va: dull orange, brownish-yellow or tawny-orange, fulvous. Wikipedia says can also be likened to a variation of buff, beige or butterscotch, and it lists a great number of birds, reptiles, mammals, fish, invertebrates, fungi, prokaryotes and plants that have fulva, fulvus, fulvum, fulvescens, fulvifrons, fulviventris, fulvipectus, fulviceps, fulvicrissa, fulviventer, fulvous and fulvia as specific epithets or as part of a common name, all indicating some aspect of coloration.
Fumar'ia: from the Latin fumus, "smoke," possibly because of the color or odor of the fresh roots, although another source says: "He [Linnaeus] derived the name from the Latin fumus terrae, "smoke of the earth," alluding to the smoke-like smell of some species or to smoke rising from the ground." The genus Fumaria was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called fumitory.
fungo'sa: spongy, fungus-like, from Latin fungulus, "a mushroom, fungus."
furca'tus: forked, furcate.
fusca'tum: brownish.
fus'cus: dark-colored, of brown tinged with gray, from Latin fuscus "dark, swarthy, dark-skinned." The word fuscus has also been used with reference to the voice and in that context conveys the meaning of husky or hoarse.
fusifor'me: spindle-shaped, thickest in the middle and drawn out at each end, from Latin fusus, "a spindle."


Identifications L-R: Yellow lady's slipper (Cypripedium parviflorum); Bladder campion (Silene cucullata); Fire pink (Silene virginica); Cancer root (Conopholis americana); Needle-tip blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium mucronatum), Eastern ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius), Green and gold (Chrysogonum virginianum).