L-R: Linanthus dianthiflorus (Ground pink), Mimulus brevipes (Yellow monkeyflower), Silene laciniata (Mexican pink), Phacelia minor (Canterbury bells), Caulanthus inflatus (Desert candle)

California Plant Names:
Latin and Greek Meanings and Derivations
An Annotated Dictionary of Botanical and Biographical Etymology
Compiled by Michael L. Charters

  • e-: has a variety of meanings including "out," "beyond," and especially "without," before roots beginning with b, d, g, h, l, m, n, p, r, as in ebracteata, "without bracts," edentula, "without teeth, emaculatus, "without spots.
  • eames'ii: named for Edwin Hubert Eames (1865-1948), a physician and botanist, co-founder of the Connecticut
      Botanical Society, and member of the New England Botanical Club. A website of the University of Connecticut says: “Although a medical doctor by profession, Eames was certainly a botanist by vocation. In a 1901 article on New England herbaria published in the journal Rhodora, Eames is credited with already having accumulated in eleven years of collecting an herbarium of about 8,500 specimens of phaeno- gams and vascular cryptogams, including about 4,200 species. A general collector, he concentrated most notably on Connecticut collections, especially around the area of
    Bridgeport where he lived. Eames also made important early expeditions to remote areas of northern New England, Newfoundland, the New Jersey Pine Barrens, and other parts of eastern North America. He often travelled, collected, and conferred with other regional botanists including Charles Cartlidge Godfrey, John F. Collins, and Merritt Lyndon Fernald. His keen eye and sense of taxonomy led Eames to describe several new species, varieties, and forms, many of them represented by type specimens at the Gray Herbarium. His comprehensive knowledge of the local flora also enabled him to collect and note many new introductions to Connecticut and New England, thus providing important early dates for the arrival of many exotic plant species in the region. In 1948, the personal collection of Edwin Hubert Eames was given as a gift to the fledgling herbarium at the University of Connecticut. At well over 100,000 specimens, the Eames collection became the cornerstone of what would become the University’s George Safford Torrey Herbarium. Torrey himself called Eames “the leading amateur collector in the state.” (Photo credit: University of Connecticut)
  • earl'ei/Earleocas'sia: named for mycologist Franklin Sumner Earle (1856-1929) who specialized in the diseases and
      cultivation of sugar cane. He was the first mycologist to work at the New York Botanical Garden, and was the author of The Genera of North American Gill Fungi. He was born to a father, Parker Earle, who was an accomplished horticulturist in Dwight, Illinois, and spent much of his early youth on the family farm. He attended and studied botany at the University of Illinois off and on but never earned a degree. After college in 1886 the Earle family moved to Mississippi and Franklin became associated with and worked for the Mississippi Agricultural Experimental Station. Franklin
    Earle went on to a brilliant career in botany at Auburn University (1896), and the New York Botanical Garden (1901) where he worked as an assistant curator in charge of mycological collections.  He spent the last twenty-five years of his very active life in Cuba and the Caribbean region where he was employed by agricultural companies who were developing citrus, banana, and sugar plantations, working on tropical plant diseases, and became an authority on plant fungi.  Earle wrote extensively for scientific journals, authored botanical papers, and penned several books notably, Southern Agriculture (1908) and Sugar Cane and Its Culture (1928). In early 1916 Mr. Earle, operating from his plantation near Herradura, Cuba, sent the first refrigerated car by ferry across the Florida Strait.  It contained tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and grapefruit packed in over four hundred boxes.  After reaching the United States, the Earle produce and citrus was shipped directly to Chicago for distribution to western markets. He married Susan Bedford Skehan and had three children. His wife died soon after the birth of their third child. Earle died at Herradura, Cuba.
  • Eastwood'ia/eastwood'iae/eastwoodia'na/eastwoodia'nus/Eastwoodiel'la: named for Alice Eastwood (1859-1953), a
      self-taught botanist and botanical curator for the California Academy of Sciences, indisputably one of the most significant figures in California botany who in a damaged and burning building after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake saved 1,500 priceless type specimens representing 53 years of collecting. During this time she neglected the safety of her own home which burned to the ground. She was born in Toronto, Canada, her mother died when she was six, and her father separated himself from the family. After a period of time when she and her sister were placed in a Toronto
    convent, her father reappeared and she moved with him to Denver, Colorado, and in 1879 graduated valedictorian from East Denver High School, following which she taught there for ten years. Her interest in flowers had been initiated first by her country doctor uncle who was an experimental horticulturist, and she later became a respected collector in Colorado where more than a dozen native plants bear her name. Having foregone a college education she relied on published botany manuals and became so adept at identifying plant species that she was asked to guide the famous English naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace up the summit of Grays Peak in Denver. In the early years of her career Eastwood made numerous collecting expeditions in Colorado and the Four Corners region by train, buckboard stage, horseback, and on foot. She became so well known locally that the railroad builder David Moffat issued her a free rail pass, and Alice reciprocated his generous support by naming a plant she had discovered, Penstemon moffatii, in his honor. She also explored the coastal ranges of the Big Sur region, which at the end of the 19th century were essentially a frontier.  She joined Katherine Brandegee in 1892 as joint curator of botany for the California Academy of Sciences, succeeding her in 1894, and remained in that post for fifty-five years until she retired at the age of 90. After the earthquake, Eastwood studied in herbaria in Europe and other US regions, including the Gray Herbarium, the New York Botanical Garden, the National Museum of Natural History of Paris, the British Museum, and the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. She undertook numerous collecting trips in the western United States, including to Alaska, Arizona, Utah and Idaho. In the 1930s and 1940s she spent a great deal of time collecting with her assistant John Thomas Howell, himself a recognized botanist who succeeded her as curator.  She was honored by Townsend Brandegee who named a new genus after her, Eastwoodia, after she came upon a new sunflower on one of her trips. She published over 310 scientific articles and authored 395 land plant species names. There are dozens of former and currently recognized species named for her, as well as the genera Eastwoodia and Aliciella. She served as editor of the biological journal Zoe and as an assistant editor for Erythea before the 1906 earthquake, and with Howell founded a journal, Leaflets of Western Botany (1932–1966). Eastwood was director of the San Francisco Botanical Club for several years throughout the 1890s. In 1929, she helped to form the American Fuchsia Society. She was also an ardent conservationist and fought to preserve and protect Muir Woods National Monument and Mt. Tamalpais State Park as well as other redwood groves. She died in San Francisco.
  • Eatonel'la/eaton'ii: named for American botanist Daniel Cady Eaton (1834-1895), grandson of Amos Eaton. Daniel
      Cady Eaton pursued graduate studies under Asa Gray and at Yale, his alma mater, became one of America's first professors of botany and curator of the Yale Herbarium for 31 years. His library and personal plant collection serve as the nucleus of the Peabody Museum's Herbarium. Eaton's botanical interests led him to Utah in the 1860s, and he contributed to the botany of the United States-Mexican Boundary Survey, Clarence King's Geological Exploration of the 40th Parallel , George Wheeler's Geographical Surveys West of the One Hundredth Meridian, and the Geological
    Survey of California. His special area of interest was ferns, and he produced the 2-volume Ferns of North America. The genus Eatonella was published by Asa Gray in 1884.
  • Ea'tonia: named for Amos Eaton (1776-1842), a botanist, geologist, educator, and grandfather of Daniel Cady Eaton.
      He was born at Chatham, New York. The Eaton family had arrived originally from Dover, England in 1635. Amos Eaton was drawn at an early age to the natural world and at sixteen constructed his own compass and chain to survey land. He graduated in 1799 from Williams College with high marks in natural philosophy. In that same year he married his first wife who died three years later. He married his second wife in 1803 and she bore him five sons. He studied law with the Hon. Elisha Williams, of Spencertown, and the Hon. Josiah Ogden, of New York, and received admit-
    tance to the bar at the Supreme Court of New York. Thanks to associations he made with Dr. David Hosack and Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell, he became committed to the study of botany. He practiced as a lawyer and while acting as a land agent and surveyor in Catskill, New York in 1810 was arrested on dubious charges of forgery and involvement in a controversial legal matter, was jailed and although he and many others maintained his innocence, spent nearly five years in prison. 1810 was also the year that his second wife died, and he remarried again in 1816 after having been released. She bore him three sons and two daughters and died in 1826, after which he married for the fourth time in 1827 and had another son, ten altogether and two daughters. In 1815, after his release from prison, he moved to New Haven at Yale College to take up the study of botany, chemistry and mineralogy under the tuition of Benjamin Silliman and Eli Ives. He then returned to Williams College to offer a course of lectures and volunteer classes of the students on botany, mineralogy zoology, and geology and published a botanical dictionary. In 1817, he published his Manual of Botany for the Northern States, the first comprehensive flora of the area; it ultimately went through eight editions. From Williams College the lectures were extended, in the shape of courses, with practical instructions to classes, to the larger towns of New England and New York. In 1818 DeWitt Clinton invited him to make a series of lectures to the New York State Legislature on the state’s geology and the proposed Erie Canal. Eaton delivered talks at the Lenox Academy and the Medical College at Castleton, Vermont, where he was appointed professor of natural history in 1820. He gave lectures and practical instructions in Troy, laying the foundation as a result of his work of the Lyceum of Natural History to which he had been elected in 1817 at the recommendation of John Torrey. In 1820 and 1821, he was hired by Stephen Van Rensselaer, III to produce A geological Survey of the County of Albany and he initiated geological and agricultural surveys of Albany and Rensselaer counties. In 1824 he was appointed by Van Rensselaer to teach chemistry, experimental philosophy, geology, and land surveying at the school he had co-founded. One of Eaton’s goals was to develop a new kind of institution devoted to the application of science to life and to a more modern scientific prospectus and new methods of instruction and examination to replace the old teaching-by-rote method. He was especially interested in education for women and did much to advance that cause. Amos Eaton published on agriculture, botany, engineering, geology, surveying, and zoology. He was senior professor at the Rensselaer School, later the Rensselaer Institute, from 1824 until his death in 1842. Among his books were Art without Science (1800), Elementary Treatise on Botany (1810), Botanical Dictionary (1817) (2nd ed. 1819, 4th ed. 1836), Manual of Botany (1817) and Chemical Notebook (1821), Chemical Instructor (1821), Cuvier’s Grand Division (1822), Geological Nomenclature of North America (1822), Zoological Syllabus and Notebook (1822), Geological and Agricultural Survey of the District adjoining the Erie Canal (1824), Philosophical Instructor (1824), Botanical Exercises (1825), Botanical Grammar and Dictionary (1828), Geological Text-Books Prepared for Popular Lectures on North American Geology (1830), Directions for Surveying and Engineering (1838), and Geological Text-Book for the Troy Class (1841). He died in Troy, New York in 1842, three years after his colleague Stephen Van Rensselaer. The genus Eatonia was published in 1819 by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque.
  • Ebnerel'la: named for Otto Ebner, a Swiss importer and seller of cactus seeds and plants from Zurich. He was also honored with the genus name Ebneria. The genus Ebnerella was published by Franz Buxbaum in 1951.
  • eborispi'na: from the Latin ebur or eboris, "ivory," and spina or spinula, "thorn, spine." Hester described this taxon as having marginal spines that are usually ivory in color and a terminal spine that is "brown in youth, ivory in age."
  • ebractea'ta: without bracts.
  • Echever'ia: named for Atanasio Echeverria y Godoy (c.1773-?), an 18th-century Mexican botanical artist and naturalist. He accompanied Martin de Sessé y Lacasta in his expedition through Mexico beginning in 1787, with the goal of compiling a great inventory of fauna and flora of the country. Because of political instability in New Spain caused by the Napoleonic Wars, the project was not completed. He was trained in the Royal Art Academy in San Carlos, Mexico, and in 1791 he was asked to join the California (Nutka) part of the expedition along with José Mariano Mociño Suárez de Figueroa, the trip lasting for two years. Echeverría made images of some 200 plant species and some animals specimens. On their return Echeverría went to southern Mexico with Moçiño and in 1794 went to the Caribbean with Sessé and another botanist Jaime Senseve. On their arrival in Havana, however, he and Senseve were taken ill with dysentery, bringing botanical work to a near standstill for the first year. They left for Puerto Rico in 1796 but here too their research was impaired when war broke out against the British, and they had to escape back to Havana the following year. The botanical expedition to New Spain collected so many specimens and so much material and had some 2,000 partly finished paintings and 400 drafts that remained to be worked on, that time constraints forced Sessé to limit the extent of painting that could be done, and Echeverria left the expedition to participate in the Guantanamo Commission of Conte de Mopox y Jaruco which was intended to map the bay and make some scientific observations.  At the request of Mopox, Echeverría travelled with his new companion, José Guío, the expedition’s original artist, from Santiago de Cuba to Guantanamo and back to Havana, all together collecting some 3,700 specimens from 382 species, describing 27 new species and 5 new genera. Echeverría returned to Madrid briefly following this expedition but in 1804, after 17 years of continuous scientific exploration, he returned to Mexico and was named second director of art for the Real Academy of San Carlos. 86 sheets of fish and bird drawings of his were deposited in the Deposito Hidrografico of the nautical centre in Barcelona. A great number of his drawings are preserved at the Hunt Institute. The genus Echeveria was published by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle in 1828.
  • echina'ta/echina'tus: covered with prickles like a hedgehog, from Latin echinatus, meaning "thorny", and echinos, "hedgehog."
  • echinel'la: from echinos, "hedgehog or spine," and -ella, a suffix denoting small size.
  • Echinocac'tus: from echinos, "hedgehog or spine," and cactus. The genus Echinocactus was published in 1827 by Johann Heinrich Friedrich Link and Christoph Friedrich Otto.
  • echinocar'pa: literally "hedgehog-fruited," thus bearing prickly fruits.
  • Echinocer'eus: from the Greek echinos, "hedgehog or spine," and cereus, "waxy." The genus Echinocereus was published by Georg Engelmann in 1848.
  • Echinochlo'a: from the Greek echinos for "hedgehog" or "sea-urchin," and chloe or chloa, "grass," referring to the spikelets which are bristly. The genus Echinochloa was published in 1812 by Ambroise Marie François Joseph Palisot de Beauvois.
  • Echinodor'us: from the Greek echinos, "a hedgehog," and doros, "a bag or leather bottle," referring to the spiny achenes. The genus Echinodorus was published by Louis Claude Marie Richard in 1815.
  • echino'ides: having the appearance of a hedgehog or spiny, of uncertain application.
  • Echinomas'tus: from the Greek echinos, "a hedgehog," and masto or mastos, "a breast," referring to the spiny tubercles. The genus Echinomastus was published by Nathaniel Lord Britton and Joseph Nelson Rose in 1922.
  • Ech'inops: from the Greek echinos, "a hedgehog or sea-urchin," and ops, a suffix intended to indicate resemblance or appearance. The genus Echinops was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
  • echinosper'mum: with spiny seeds.
  • echinospor'a: with spiny spores or seeds.
  • echinula'ta: with very small prickles or spines.
  • echio'ides: like the genus Echium, common name Viper's bugloss.
  • Ech'ium: from the Greek echis, "a viper," the nutlets appearing to represent a viper's head. The genus Echium was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called viper's bugloss or blueweed.
  • eckel'iae: named for Patricia Maureen Eckel (1950- ), an award-winning botanical artist, plant collector and research
      scientist in the bryology group at the Missouri Botanical Garden. She got her BA and MA degrees at State University of New York Center at Buffalo in 1981 and 1984. Her undergraduate degree was in both art history and Greek and Latin classics and her Latin studies led her to prepare a manual of botanical Latin as part of her master's degree work also at the university. Eckel married botanist Dr. Richard Zander and together they headed the Clinton Herbarium at the Buffalo Museum of Science until 2002, when as part of the exodus of science talent from the museum, the couple left for the
    Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis where they continue today. Eckel's credentials are extensive. She contributed to the Smithsonian Institution, is a fellow of the Explorer's Club and was a founding member and treasurer of the Niagara Frontier Botanical Society. Her artwork has adorned dozens of articles, books and exhibits. She has logged thousands of miles of fieldwork in the Rockies, the southwest, the middle Atlantic states, Canada, Mexico and Ecuador. Eckel retains her connections with western New York, however. She continues to monitor the botany of the region and her monograph, MADCapHorse, is a continually revised checklist to the wildflowers of the Niagara frontier region. Eckel has also been editing the papers of George William Clinton, son of Governor DeWitt Clinton. She recently received an award from the Linnean Society of London for her artwork. The award release text read in part: "The Linnaean Society of London announced that the Jill Smythies Award for Botanical Illustration will go to Patricia M. Eckel, of the Bryology Group, Missouri Botanical Garden. The award is given to a botanical artist for excellence in published illustrations in aid of plant identification, with the emphasis on botanical accuracy and the accurate portrayal of diagnostic characteristics. Eckel specializes in bryological artwork, and she recently completed illustrations for volume 27 of the Flora of North America published by Oxford University Press. She is also a bryologist with many publications including The Mosses of Wyoming, the botanical Latin editor for three professional journals, and maintains a website describing the vascular flora and plant history of the Niagara Falls area. The award, which comes with a purse and silver medal, will be given to her in a ceremony in London." Her beautiful illustration of a rare Rocky Mountain moss was included as the frontispiece for volume 27 of the Flora of North America North of Mexico. (Photo credit: Missouri Botanical Garden)
  • ecklon'is: named for Dr. Christian Friedrich Ecklon (1795-1868), described alternatively as a German botanist or a Danish botanical collector and apothecary. I think the discrepancy about his nationality arises from the fact that he was born in Apenrade which was in a Danish region perhaps under the control of or actually part of Schleswig-Holstein. He moved to South Africa in 1823 as first an apothecary's apprentice and then pharmacist and collected plants from 1823 to 1833, returning to Europe in 1828 with vast amounts of collected material which were distributed to German and Danish botanists. During part of this time he worked with Karl Ludwig Philipp Zeyher with whom he published a catalogue of South African plants (1835-1837). From 1833 to 1838 he was in Hamburg working on revising his collection, later returning to South Africa where he eventually died. The genus Ecklonea was named in his honor.
  • Eclip'ta: from the Greek ekleipo meaning "deficient," and referring to the absence of a pappus. The genus Eclipta was published in 1771 by Carl Linnaeus.
  • eddyen'se: named for Mt. Eddy, California, where this species, Polemonium eddyense, was identified.
  • eden'tula: without teeth.
  • edgaria'na: named for Thomas Edgar (1781-1859?). He was born in Jamaica into a large family of Edgars who made their living by slavery and using slaves on sugar cane plantations. Thomas Edgar was probably the son of an Archibald Edgar (?-1794/1795) and is listed in the London 1841 and 1851 census as a "gentleman," having presumably retired from Jamaica to England after emancipation and the production of sugar by other means reduced the profitability of slavery.
  • edmunds'ii: after Louis Lake Edmunds (1882-1963), an engineer and native plant nurseryman. Born in Fredonia, New York, he grew up in nearby Pomfret. His father was a retail druggist descended from early New England settlers. He was educated at the Fredonia State Normal School, then Amherst College and Cornell, receiving a degree in mechanical engineering from Cornell in 1905. From 1905 to 1908 he worked as a mechanical and mining engineer in New York City, Arizona, Utah and Mexico, and then was foreman and mechanical engineer with American Beet Sugar Co. in Oxnard, California, from 1908 to 1911, consultant to Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association, 1911-1912, assistant superintendent for American Beet Sugar at Chino, 1912-1916, and chief engineer at C&H Sugar through 1925. An article called "Historic American Landscapes Survey" in the website American Memory provides the following: "C&H let him plant natives, including many Ceanothus shrubs, on an area in the company town. Edmunds enjoyed that so much that he decided to establish a native plant nursery when he retired. To prepare for that goal, he took a special course in horticulture on the propagation of native shrubs at UC Berkeley in 1938. There he met James Roof, and the two went on collecting trips together. Edmunds tried to establish a nursery in Novato about 1939-1940, and lived in Alamo in 1940, before settling on a knoll in Danville [east of Oakland] in 1941. He opened his nursery, named Native Plant Nursery, about 1945. In 1945, Sunset Magazine published a photograph of his front Eriogonum (buckwheat) garden as an example of a native plant garden. In 1946, Sunset asked Edmunds, Lester Rowntree, Theodore Payne, and Elmer Purdy to select the best native plants for garden use. By 1960, Edmunds had a stock of about 284 species of native shrubs and trees, as well as some native herbaceous plants. In 1961, Sunset listed his nursery as one of seven sources for native plants in northern California. Edmunds' neighbor described him as reclusive, but the editor of the California Horticultural Society wrote that Edmunds generously shared his knowledge with anyone interested in native plant horticulture. Edmunds' volunteer positions included member of the Plant Material Committee of the California Horticultural Society, 1941-43, member of the Board of Councilors to the Saratoga Horticultural Foundation in Saratoga (SHRF, later known as Saratoga Horticultural Research Foundation), 1952-ca. 1960, and second vice-president of the California Botanical Society, 1953. The California Horticultural Society presented him with their Annual Award in 1960 for his exceptional contribution to California horticulture."
  • ed'ulis: edible, from the Latin edulis, "edible" referring in the case of the iceplant to the fruit which is eaten in South Africa. There are three taxa in California with this specific epithet, Carpobrotus edulis, Dudleya edulis and Pinus edulis.
  • edwards'ii: named for John Edwards (c.1784?-1848). Nothing definitive available about this individual. Research hampered by the commonness of the name and the uncertainty of his birthdate. Stellaria edwardsii is a synonym for the species currently recognized as Stellaria longipes, and there is no other taxon in California with this specific epithet.
  • Edwin'ia: named for Edwin P. James (1797-1861), an American naturalist and botanical explorer in the Rocky
      Mountains. He was born in Weybridge, Vermont, and was schooled at Addison County Grammar School before entering Middlebury College in 1812 and receiving his AB degree in 1916. He studied medicine, then learned botany from Professor John Torrey, and in 1820 became the naturalist-surgeon of the federal government's Yellowstone Expedition led by Major Stephen Harriman Long into still largely unknown territory acquired in the Louisiana Purchase, exploring the Rockies all the way south into New Mexico. William Baldwin, the original botanist/surgeon of
    the Long expedition, had died the first year, opening the way for James to take that position. He and two colleagues were the first (non-native) Americans to ascend Pike's Peak, and he was the first plant collector to explore the high alpine regions of the Rocky Mountains. During the expedition James collected about 700 plant species in the mountains and over the prairies, of which 140 were new to science. Malaria delayed his return to Philadelphia until the autumn of 1821. He was assigned the primary responsibility for writing the account of the expedition, which was published in 1822. Wikipedia adds the following: “Subsequently James was appointed US Army surgeon to serve at various frontier outposts including the Great Lakes region; he served from 1823 to 1833. While with the Army he interacted with native Americans, most notably the Ojibwe with whose language he became familiar. A EuroAmerican, John Tanner, captured by the Ojibwe when a child and raised among them, worked closely with James in the production of the New Testament in the Ojibwe language, and in the telling of Tanner's life story.  In 1827, while still working for the Army but during a return visit to the East, James married Clara Rogers. They had one child, a son named Edwin Jr., born in 1828. By about 1840 (the exact date is uncertain) they had permanently settled on land near Burlington, Iowa, which they developed into a productive farm. There James maintained in his house a station on the underground railroad. Clara died in 1854, leaving James in great sorrow. James himself died in 1861, the result of an accident on his farm." Contrary to what some people think, the James Reserve in the San Jacinto Mountains which is part of the University of California Natural Reserve System, was not named for Edwin James, but rather for Harry Clebourne James (1896-1978), who moved to California from Ottawa, Canada, was responsible for establishing a number of organizations and scouting clubs and for the San Gorgonio Wilderness. The species Schizotechium (formerly Stellaria) jamesiana was also named for Edwin. The genus Edwinia was published by Amos Arthur Heller in 1897.
  • ed'win-livingston'ii: named for Edwin Horrock Livingston, Sr. (1897-1980). He was born in Salt Lake City and died in San Jose, California. He was married to Esther Grace Shibley and had 3 children. A veteran of many years service in the printing industry, Edwin H. Livingston was owner and general manager of the Rosicrucian Press, Limited, in San Jose, California, the printing company that printed Charles Piper Smith’s Species Lupinorum. Lupinus edwin-livingstonii was published by Charles Piper Smith in 1952.
  • effu'sa/effu'sus: Stearn's Dictionary says "loosely spreading, straggling, spread out." CasaBio says effusus comes from the Latin effusus, "vast, wide, spread-out, disorderly or sprawling." WordSense says it is the perfect passive participle of effundo, "to pour out, discharge."
  • eged'ii: named for Poul Hansen Egede (1708-1789), a Danish-Norwegian theologian, missionary and scholar who
      worked with the Lutheran mission among the Kalaallit people of Greenland that was established by his father Hans in 1721. Poul was born in Kabelvåg, Norway, where his father was a minister. At the time there were believed to be Norse people surviving from what was called the lost Greenland colony. He was able to raise money and established the Bergen Greenland Company which equipped three ships that left Bergen in 1721. The Egede family and forty other colonists landed on the island of Hope. No Norse survivors were found and the company went bankrupt but Hans
    learned the local Inuit language and started a Christian mission there. Poul assisted his father and in 1728 he went to Copenhagen to study theology. Although he had planned to become a Danish naval officer, after the death of his mother he took over the mission for six years from 1734 until he settled permanently in Denmark in 1740. In 1742, Egede was appointed minister of the Vartov Lutheran Church in Copenhagen. In 1747, he became a professor of theology at the Greenland Mission Seminary established in Denmark by his father and then, in 1758, its provost. Egede was also an accomplished botanist. Through his botanical collections, he also made significant contributions to the mapping of Greenland's flora. In 1761 he was appointed professor of natural science at the University of Copenhagen. In 1779, he was elevated to bishop of Greenland and, in 1785, was made a fellow of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters. Egede and a Kalaaleq woman named Arnarsaq translated the New Testament into Kalaallisut, the language of the West Greenland Inuit. He went on to publish a Kalaallisut–Danish–Latin dictionary (1750), a revised Kalaallisut catechism (1756), and a Kalaallisut grammar (1760), as well as a number of other books concerning the language. In 1789 he died in Copenhagen having published in that year a journal of his life in Greenland.
  • egen'a: poor, needy, indigent, from Latin egenus, "in want of, destitute of," of unknown application.
  • Eger'ia: "After Egeria, a spirit of a stream, a nymph or Camoena celebrated in Roman mythology, the lover and adviser of Numa, the 2nd king of Rome." (from Umberto Quattrocchi's Dictionary of Plant Names). The following is quoted from Wikipedia: "Egeria gave wisdom and prophecy in return for simple libations of water or milk at her sacred grove, near where the Baths of Caracalla were erected in the 3rd century. The name Egeria may derive from 'of the black poplar.' Egeria was associated by Romans with Diana, and women in childbirth called for her aid, so she appears to have presided over childbirth as well, like the Greek goddess Ilithyia. Egeria was later categorized by the Romans as one of the Camenae, minor deities who were equated with the Greek Muses as Rome fell under the cultural hegemony of Greece; so Dionysius of Halicarnassus listed Egeria among the Muses. Egeria may predate Roman myth: she could have been of Etruscan origin, because she was a nymph consort to the Sabine Numa Pompilius, second king of Rome. Roman legend reports that Numa met her in her sacred grove, where she taught him to be a wise and just king (Livy i. 19). When Numa Pompilius died, Egeria changed into a well [or fountain] (Ovid, Metamorphoses xv. 479). Besides the grove close by Rome, at Porta Capena, another one sacred to Egeria was located in the sacred forest of Aricia in Latium, the grove of Diana Nemorensis ('Diana of Nemi'). The ancient nympheum of Egeria survives in the Parco della Caffarella between the Appian Way and the even more ancient Via Latina, and was a favored picnic spot for 19th century Romans. In the 2nd century, when Herodes Atticus recast an inherited villa nearby as a great landscaped estate, the natural grotto was formalized as an arched interior with an apsidal end where a statue of Egeria once stood in a niche; the surfaces were enriched with revetments of green and white marble facings and green porphyry flooring and friezes of mosaic. The primeval spring, one of dozens of springs that flow into the river Almone, was made to feed large pools one of which was known as Lacus Salutaris, the Lake of Health." The genus Egeria was published by Jules Émile Planchon in 1849.
  • eggers'ii: named for Heinrich Franz Alexander von Eggers (1844-1903), a Danish professional soldier and botanist.
      He was born the son of the director of police of Schleswig, a province that then belonged to Denmark, and after studies at the gymnasium in Odense he entered the Danish army as subaltern in 1864 and fought in the Danish-German war. At the end of 1864 he joined the Imperial Mexican Volunteer Corps Österreichisches Freiwilligenkorps in Mexiko and fell into captivity of the Mexican Republicans at the end of the month-long siege of Oaxaca. He was freed in 1867, returned to Denmark, rejoined the army as Lieutenant and had himself posted to the Danish Antilles, where
    he served until his retirement, as Captain, in 1885. In 1873 he married Mathilde Camilla Stakemann. His retirement from the army marked the beginning of his career as a botanist. He studied and published the flora of St. Croix, St. John, St. Thomas, Water Island and Vieques. He made numerous trips and collected extensively on virtually all the islands of the Greater and Lesser Antilles: Dominica in 1880, Puerto Rico in 1881 and 1883, Tortola, St. Kitts, the Dominican Republic and Turks in 1887, Haiti, Jamaica and the Bahamas in 1888-89 and Tobago, Trinidad, Grenada, St. Vincent and Barbados in 1889-90. He moved to Ecuador in 1891 where he stayed until 1897 making 1,700 collections, particularly from the coastal plain. He was honored also by the genus name Eggersia which was published in 1883 by Joseph Dalton Hooker. He was the author of Ferns of the West Indies published in 1880. He died in Leipzig.
  • eglanter'ia: from the Latin eglanterius, "like the briar-rose." Gledhill says from a French name eglantois or eglantier for Rosa canina."
  • ehrenberg'ii: named for Carl August Ehrenberg (1801-1849), a German merchant, botanist and plant collector. He was born in Delitzsh in the province of Sachsen. He travelled to the West Indies in 1827 and visited islands including Haiti and St. Thomas before settling in Mexico in 1831, where he remained for ten years, employed by a mining company. In his spare time he studied natural history, collecting plants, animals and mineral samples which he sold in Europe. He paid special attention to the Cactaceae. He studied the conditions of life and the morphology of cactus plants in their native habitat. He sent many shipments of plants and other specimens to Diederich von Schlechtendal, the custodian of the royal herbarium of Berlin. In the summer of 1840 he returned to Berlin, and in 1843 described Pelecyphora aselliformis in the botanical newspaper. His brother was Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg, an important naturalist (see following entry). He died in Berlin just before his 48th birthday. (Dodonaea ehrenbergii)
  • ehrenberg'ii: named for Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg (1795-1876), a German naturalist, zoologist, comparative
      anatomist, geologist, microscopist, and founder of micropaleontology. He was one of the most famous and productive scientists of his time. He was born in Delitzsch near Leipzig the son of a judge. His first study was of theology at the University of Leipzig, then he turned to medicine and the natural sciences in Berlin, graduating with a doctoral degree in 1818. He became a friend of the explorer Alexander von Humboldt. He collected thousands of specimens on an ill-fated scientific expedition with Wilhelm Friedrich Hemprich in 1820-1825 to the Middle East. They reached
    Alexandria in Egypt, where an outbreak of typhus killed several members of the expedition. Although sick with the illness, Ehrenberg with Hemprich struck out on their own to the Libyan Desert, the Nile valley, the northern coasts of the Red Sea, Syria, and Arabia, eventually recovering. The long journey to Mecca however taxed Hemprich’s health beyond his limit and he died there. JSTOR says: “114 crates were needed to pack up their zoological, botanical and mineralogical specimens, their archaeological and ethnographic artifacts (including six manuscripts of ancient Arab physicians), and their many maps and sketches. Only a fraction of the collection reached Berlin in a usable state. Some of the crates were damaged in quarantine, their contents destroyed or so disarranged as to prove indescribable when viewed later; labels and sketches were lost; living plants were killed by frost on the voyage; and some of the collection went missing in unauthorized sales. Among the specimens that survived were 1,035 plants from Egypt and 700 plants from Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia.” Ehrenberg published on his return under both of their names several papers on insects and corals and two volumes Symbolae physicae in which many particulars of the mammals, birds, insects, etc., were made public, however the majority of the discoveries from the collection were made by others, especially his colleagues in the Berlin Academy of Sciences. In 1827 he was appointed professor of medicine at Berlin University, and two years later accompanied Humboldt through eastern Russia and the Ural Mountains to the Chinese frontier, although once again he did not publish any notes on his plant collections from this excursion. Instead he turned to the study of microorganisms, discovering hundreds of new genera and thousands of new species in samples of water, soil, sediment, and rock. He served four periods as dean and was elected vice-chancellor in 1855. He was a member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences, a foreign member of the Royal Society of London from 1837, and was elected to the French Academy of Sciences in 1841. Over the years he produced nearly 400 scientific publications, mostly concerned with diatoms, but also concerning other protists, particularly radiolarians. His great works, the Mikrogeologie and Die Infusorienthierchen als volkommene Organisme and Mikrogeologie, were foundational texts for a new branch of science, micropaleontology. Ehrenberg's youngest daughter Clara Ehrenberg was his assistant for over 12 years. She aided his scientific research, organised and indexed his collections and correspondence, and prepared a taxonomic reference book. Clara was also a published scientific illustrator. His younger brother was the botanist and plant collector Carl August Ehrenberg. After his death in 1876, his collections of microscopic organisms were deposited in the Berlin's Natural History Museum. He is buried in Berlin. (Barbula ehrenbergii)
  • Ehrendorferi'a: named for Austrian botanist Friedrich Ehrendorfer (1927-2023), a professor in the department of
      higher plant systematics and evolution at the University of Vienna, widely recognized for his work on the evolution of insular floras, chromosome evolution, and the adaptive significance of major taxonomic characters. He attended elementary and high school in Vienna and then studied botany and paleontology at the University of Vienna, graduating with a doctorate at the age of 22. He received a fulbright scholarship and conducted research in California on synthetic systematics, cytogenetics, and evolutionary theory. He became a professor at the University of Vienna in 1965.
    He is an honorary member of the German Botanical Society, an honorary member of the Society for Biological Systematics, a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. Professor Ehrendorfer influenced generations of students and colleagues through his enthusiasm and broad knowledge of plants, as well as his service as director of the Institute of Botany and of the botanical garden, University of Vienna, and as editor of Plant Systematics and Evolution. He was a lecturer and visiting professor in many countries across the world in Europe, Central and South America, and Southeast Asia including South Africa, Australia, China, New Zealand, Russia, Japan and the US. He carried out research activities in the field of karyological, molecular and comparative studies of the evolution and systematics of higher plants. He mainly dealt with the genera Galium, Achillea, Knautia, Artemisia, Quercus, and  Festuca. He is the author of Woody Plants: Evolution and Distribution Since the Tertiary and co-author of numerous other works and publications. The genus Ehrendorferia was published in his honor in 1997 by Tatsundo Fukuhara and Magnus Lidén. (Photo credit: Deutsche Botanische Gesellschaft)
  • Ehretia'ceae: named for Georg Dionysius Ehret (1708-1770), a German botanist, entomologist and botanical
      illustrator. He was born in Heidelberg and his father was a gardener and accomplished draftsman. He began working as a gardener’s apprentice to his uncle and ended up being one of the most influential European botanical artists of all time. He worked with his brother as a journeyman gardener but at some point between 1728 and 1733 he began to transition from gardener to illustrator. In 1733 he laid out a garden for the wealthy merchant Samuel Burckhardt. During the 1730s he met and was introduced to the work of a number of influential artists and botanists such
    as Nicholas Robert, Claude Aubriet, Madeleine Francoise Basseporte and Bernard de Jussieu, who encouraged him to go to England, which he did in 1736. While there he illustrated many spectacular plants then in cultivation at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew and elsewhere. He spent twelve months in England and met Sir Han Sloane, president of the Royal Society, and Philip Miller, curator of the Chelsea Physic Garden. After a year he went to Holland where he met and collaborated with Carl Linnaeus and George Clifford, governor of the Dutch East India Company and a keen botanist with a large herbarium. Working at Clifford’s estate, they produced Hortus Cliffortianus (1738), a masterpiece of early botanical literature. After his stay in Holland, he returned to England where he spent most of the rest of his career. He lived initially with Philip Miller, and then in 1738 married Susanna Kennet who was the sister of Philip Miller’s wife. In 1748 he was engaged working on a book about flower engravings entitled Plantae et Papiliones Rariores. He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1757 and died in Chelsea at the age of 62. He lived at a time of scientific discovery and enlightenment in Europe, a 'golden age of botanical art,' and he was one of its finest practitioners. His original art work may be found at the Natural History Museum in London, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, The Royal Society, London, the Lindley Library at the Royal Horticultural Society, the Victoria and Albert Museum, at the University Library of Erlangen, and the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation in Pittsburgh, PA. His work appeared in a variety of publications on rare and exotic plants, most notably the Plantae Selectae (1750-73) by the physician and botanist Christoph Jakob Trew. He also produced the Hortus Nitidissimus which was published after his death. The genus Ehretia published by Patrick Browne in 1756 was also named in his honor.
  • Ehrhar'ta: named for Jakob Friedrich Ehrhart (1742-1795), a German botanist and student of Linnaeus. A website of
      Moscow State University herbarium offers the following information: "Important collections of this the outstanding German botanist are kept at the herbarium of Moscow University. Jakob Friedrich Ehrhart was a pupil and friend of Linnaeus, and a friend of Carl Linnaeus filius (1741-1783), who was the same age as Ehrhart. Born in Switzerland, by 1765 Ehrhart was studying pharmacy in Nurnberg. After some years in Erlangen, Germany, where he began collecting plants for his herbarium, Ehrhart moved to Uppsala University. During three years there (1773-1775), Ehrhart
    studied botany and collected plants under the guidance of Linnaeus. After 1775 he returned to Germany and worked in Hannover. Ehrhart was one of the first botanists to publish plant exsiccatae (i.e. prepared collections, in several or many sets, of precisely identified and named dried plants with printed labels, to be distributed between various botanists and/or institutions). Starting in 1780, he published seven series of exsiccatae comprising about 1,620 plant species. Five of the seven of Ehrhart's series (ser. 1, 2, 4, 5, 7) are kept now in the herbarium of Moscow University (with a few specimens missing). The exsiccatae contain type material for a number of Ehrhart's names. Many specimens were collected in the vicinity of Uppsala and in the Uppsala Botanic Garden and perhaps were compared with specimens now in the Linnaean collections or perhaps even examined by Linnaeus himself. The herbarium of Moscow University possesses also Ehrhart's General Collection ("Hortus siccus") which contains material of about 3,300 plant species and came from four different sources. Hoffmann (1824) published a catalogue of Ehrhart's General Collection in which he introduced a numbering system following Murray's edition of "Systema Vegetabilium" (Linnaeus 1774). It is important to note that numbers were attributed to species, not to particular herbarium sheets. The numbering is discontinuous because a number of species included in "Systema Vegetabilium" are absent from Ehrhart's collection. The Ehrhart herbarium contains several specimens received (directly or indirectly) from his famous teacher, C. Linnaeus. High quality digital images of these specimens are included in the CD-ROM which will be published soon. Ehrhart was commemorated in the genera Ehrharta [published by Carl Peter Thunberg in 1779] and Ehrhartia [published by George Heinrich Weber in 1780], and in 10 species." Ehrhart was also the director of the botanical garden in Hanover and he was the first author to use the rank of subspecies in botanical nomenclature. He was the author of Chloris hanoverana (1776), Supplementum systematis vegetabilium, generum et specierum plantarum (1781) and Beiträge zur Naturkunde (1787-1792). (Photo credit: Research Gate)
  • Eichhorn'ia: named for Johann Albrecht Friedrich Eichhorn (1779-1856), a Prussian minister of education and public
      welfare from 1840 to 1848 appointed by Frederick William IV, court advisor and politician. He attended school in Wertheim and studied law in Göttingen from 1796 to 1799. After that he was steward of the von Auer family in Kleve for a short time, and from 1800 was ascultator (the first stage of three levels in the legal system after university) in the local high court. He was also a regimental quartermaster in the local Graf Wedel battalion, then was transferred to Hildesheim in 1802 where he was active in the Supreme Court. In 1806 Eichhorn passed the major state examina-
    tion and became a court judge in Berlin, but three years later was involved with Wilhelm von Dornberg in the resis- tance to the Napoleonic occupation. He joined Ferdinand von Schill's Freikorps, but left after an accident. For the next several years he was involved in ongoing political and military activities against the French. From 1810 he was a member of the Superior Court of Justice in Berlin and from 1811 he was also syndic of the newly founded university. In 1813 he was a member of the committee for the organization of the Landwehr and took part in the staff of Blücher at the beginning of the wars of liberation. In the same year he became a member of the central administration department for the occupied territories under Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom Stein. He was appointed as a diplomat to Paris in 1815 and then was appointed privy legation counselor at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In this capacity he was responsible for German affairs from 1817 and was appointed lecturer. Eichhorn played an important role in the establishment of the Zollverein or German Customs Union, which was an association of states that in some ways predated the modern European Union and was intended to create an economic single market and to standardize fiscal and economic conditions. States that originally and eventually joined the Union included the Grand Duchy of Hesse, Kurhessen, Bavaria, Württemberg, Saxony, the Thuringian states, Baden, Nassau, Frankfurt, Luxembourg, Brunswick, Lippe, Hannover and Oldenburg. From 1817 to 1848 he was a member of the Prussian Council of State. In 1831 he was promoted to director of the second department of the foreign office and in 1840 Friedrich Wilhelm IV surprisingly appointed him minister of education ("minister of spiritual, educational and medical affairs"). In 1850 he took part in the Erfurt Union Parliament as a member of the House of States and was its senior president. The botanist Karl Sigismund Kunth in 1843 described in his honor the plant genus of water hyacinths under the name Eichhornia. The University of Göttingen granted him in 1837 an honorary doctorate of law. He was the author of Die central-verwaltung der verbündeten unter dem freiherrn von Stein published in 1814. Friedrich Eichhorn died in Berlin in 1856 at the age of almost 77.
  • eichleria'na: named for August Wilhelm Eichler (1839-1887), a German botanist who developed a new system of
      classification of plants to reflect the concept of evolution. He was born in Neukirchen, Hesse and studied mathematics and natural sciences at the University of Marburg, graduating with a PhD in 1861. He then went to Munich, where he became a private assistant to the naturalist Karl Friedrich Philipp von Martius, with whom he edited Flora Brasiliensis. When Martius died in 1868, Eichler worked on the Flora unassisted, issuing 46 of 100 parts. In 1865 he became a lecturer at the University of Munich and, six years later, professor of botany at the Technische Hochschule
    (Technical University) at Graz. He also became the director of the botanical garden there. (from Britannica.com) The following year he was appointed at the University of Kiel and was there until 1878 at which time he became director of the herbarium at the University of Berlin. Eichler’s system of classification was one of the first widely used natural systems of plant classification. Wikipedia says: “The Eichler System divided the plant kingdom into non-floral plants (Cryptogamae) and floral plants (Phanerogamae). It was the first to accept the concept of evolution and therefore also the first to be considered phylogenetic. Moreover, Eichler was the first taxonomist to separate the Phanerogamae into angiosperms and gymnosperms and the former into Monocotyledonae and Dicotyledonae. The Eichler system was the foundation for Adolf Engler's system and was widely accepted in Europe and other parts of the world.” He died in Berlin.
  • eisen'ii: named for Gustav August Eisen (1847-1940), a Swedish zoologist and archeologist who emigrated to south-
      ern California in 1873 and became a member of the California Academy of Sciences and eventually curator of archaeology, ethnology, and lower animals, then curator of biology, and finally curator of marine invertebrates. He was born in Stockholm and went to school in Visby to improve his health. He graduated from the University of Uppsala in 1873 and came to California the same year to participate in a California biotic survey sponsored by the Swedish Academy of Sciences. He was so impressed by the opportunities available in California that he decided to stay and became a member
    of the California Academy of Sciences in 1874. He was a genuine renaissance polymath and has been described at various times as a horticulturalist, biologist, zoologist, artist and illustrator, archaeologist, viticulturalist, arborist, microbiologist, cartographer, explorer, and pioneer conservationist. He visited the Channel Islands in 1873, 1874 and 1897 and reported finding both a rare native California earthworm (Microscolex elegans) as well as a spider 'new to science' on Santa Rosa Island, however most of his specimens were lost in the great earthquake in 1906. He made several scientific trips to Lower California, mainly as member of expeditions sent out by the California Academy of Sciences. These expeditions are noted elsewhere. In addition he spent the period from June to August, 1894, in the middle parts of the peninsula, landing at Loreto and traveling through Comondu, San Vicente, La Purisima, Guajademi, San Ignacio, and San Angel, and thence across the Vizcaino Desert to Cerro Prieto, La Huerta, and San Andres on the coast south of San Bartolome Bay and to the placer mines of the adjacent Sierra Pintada. He would become one of the pioneer vintners of California, purchasing over 600 acres of land in Fresno, producing his first vintage in 1875. Although best known for his study of oligochete worms, Eisen also conducted entomological studies of the malaria-carrying anopheles mosquito, introduced avocados and Smyrna figs to California, was a correspondent of Charles Darwin, campaigned to save the giant sequoias of the Sierras, and wrote a multivolume book about the Holy Grail, an extensive book on the subject of glass, and a three-volume work on the portraits of George Washington. (Information from Wikipedia, Islapedia, and the Illinois Natural History Survey) (Photo credit: Islapedia)
  • elaeaginifo'lium: with leaves like those of Elaeagnus, the Russian olive.
  • Elaeag'nus: from the Greek elaia, "olive," and agnos, "pure, the chaste-tree," referring to the resemblance of the fruit and foliage to a true olive. The genus Elaeagnus was published in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus and has been called silverberry, oleaster and russian olive.
  • ela'ta/ela'tum/ela'tus: tall, from the Latin word elatus, meaning "high, elevated, or haughty."
  • Elat'ine/elat'ine: an ancient Greek name for some low creeping plant. Umberto Quattrocchi says of the origins of this name: "From elatine (elate, 'the pine, the fir, ship,' and elatinos, 'of the pine or fir, of pine or fir-wood'), ancient Greek name used by Dioscorides and Plinius perhaps for Linaria spuria, the cankerwort." Jaeger gives for the Greek elatine the name of a kind of toad-flax. An article by Hamid Razifard on "The Systematics of Elatine L." from the University of Connecticut Graduate School says "The name Elatine derives from the Greek elatinos (i.e. of the fir, of the pine), which was the ancient name for Kickxia spuria (L.) Dumort (Plantaginaceae) (Quattrocchi, 1999). Linnaeus (1753) later applied this name to the waterworts in the first volume of his Species Plantarum." The Jepson Herbarium page of Elatine says "Greek: fir tree, from a European species that suggests such a plant in miniature." And Flora of North America just says: "Greek name for a plant with fir-like leaves." I don't see anything remotely fir-like about the leaves of Elatine, either for the genus or for the taxon Kickxia elatine. The genus Elatine was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
  • elat'ius: taller, loftier, more exalted.
  • el'egans: elegant, from the Latin elegans, "tasteful, choice, fine, or select."
  • elegantis'sima: very elegant.
  • elegant'ulus: elegant.
  • Eleo'charis: from the Greek heleos or helos, "a marsh, low ground, meadow," and charis, "grace, beauty," hence "marsh grace or marsh beauty," alluding to a flooded field habitat. The genus Eleocharis was published by Robert Brown in 1810.
  • Eleu'sine: from Umberto Quattrocchi's World Dictionary of Plant Names: "From Eleusis, a very ancient city and deme (a township or division, a commune) of Attica, famous for the mysteries of Ceres, about 14 miles northwest of Athens; to the west of the town lay the Rharian, where Demeter, the Greek goddess of earth's fruits, was said to have sown the first seeds of corn. Demeter (Ceres for the Romans) was the daughter of the Titans Cronus and Rhea, and sister of Zeus, by whom she became the mother of Persephone." Ceres was supposedly worshipped at Eleusis. The genus Eleusine was published by Joseph Gaertner in 1788.
  • elias'ii: named for Elias Emanuel Nelson (1876-1949), a Swedish-American botanist and pteridologist. He was born in Hjorted, Sweden, and died in Yakima, Washington. He made botanical collections in Montana and Wyoming, and especially in the Rocky Mountains. He is listed on the JSTOR website as a co-collector of Aven Nelson, but I don't think he was related.
  • eliassonia'na: named for Swedish botanist Uno Helmer Eliasson (1939- ), a professor and director of the botanical museum at the University of Gotenborg who worked on the Amaranthaceae on the Galapagos and Hawaiian Islands, and also worked on tree canopy diversity and myxomycetes (slime molds) in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
  • -el'la/-el'lum/-el'lus: a Latin adjectival suffix indicating diminutive stature (e.g. rubellus, "reddish," from ruber, "red"; tenellus, "tender, delicate," from tener, "tender, soft"; tomentellus, "slightly tomentose," from tomentum, "a cushioning or stuffing of wool or hair").
  • ellacomb'ei: named for Henry Nicholson Ellacombe (1822-1916), a Church of England clergyman, gardener, and
      author on botany. Wikipedia says: “Ellacombe, the son of Henry Thomas Ellacombe was born at Bitton, Gloucestershire in 1822. He attended Bath Grammar School and Oriel College, Oxford, graduating in 1844. In 1847 he was ordained and spent a year as a curate at Sudbury, Derbyshire, before returning to Bitton as his father's curate. In 1850 he succeeded his father as vicar of Bitton. Two years later he married Emily Aprila Wemyss with whom he had ten children. A keen botanist and gardener, Ellacombe grew a wide range of plants at Bitton and exchanged plants and seeds
    with Kew and other botanical gardens across Europe. Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker dedicated volume 107 of the Botanical Magazine to Ellacombe. In 1897 he was one of the first 60 recipients of the Victoria Medal of Honor.”The Victoria Medal of Honor was established in perpetual remembrance of Her Majesty’s glorious reign, and to enable the Council to confer honor on British horticulturists. The Society's rules state that only sixty-three horticulturists can hold the VMH at any given time, in commemoration of the sixty-three years of Queen Victoria's reign. Therefore the honor is not awarded every year, but may be made to multiple recipients in other years. Ellacombe's name has often been associated, although not as the author, with an old botanical riddle called “The Five Brethren of the Rose,” one of the versions of which goes like this: “On a summer's day, in sultry weather, Five brethren were born together. Two had beards and two had none, And the other had but half a one.” It’s authorship is unknown, but as roses were favorite flowers in monastery gardens, it may have dated to a medieval abbey somewhere in Europe. According to an article by William Stearn in 1965, “The five brothers are, in short, the five sepals of Rosa canina and the other dog roses. Two of the five are completely outside the others and have appendages or beards along both edges; two with plain unappendaged edges are completely overlapped along the edges by other sepals; the fifth has one edge appendaged and outside, its other edge plain and inside, in other words it has only half a beard.” Stearn heard the riddle from the British horticulturist Edward Augustus Bowles, who Stearn believed heard it from Henry Ellacombe, who heard it in turn from his father, who heard it from someone else, and thus was it passed down from person to person over the centuries. Ellacombe’s son Gilbert sent seeds from Rhodesia to Kew. Ellacombe died as he was born at Bitton. The taxon which David Hollombe has on his list of California plant names with this epithet is Lilium pardalinum var. ellacombei, and it is mentioned in the 1880 "A Monograph of the Genus Lilium" by Henry John Elwes (mentioned below). He says "It has been in cultivation many years in the well-known garden of the Rev. H. Ellacombe, at Bitton, under the name of L. Michauxi--but has nothing to do with L. carolinianum, of which L. Michauxi is a synonum. It was, I believe, introduced many years ago by Hartweg to the Royal Horticultural Society's garden." There was also a Yucca ellacombei which may now be Yucca gloriosa, but it's not in California.
  • elliottia'na/elliott'ii: named for banker, legislator, and botanist Stephen Elliott (1771-1830). The following is quoted
      from a website of the Harvard University Herbaria: "Stephen Elliott was born on Nov. 11, 1771, in Beaufort, South Carolina, the third son of William Elliott, a merchant. His father died when Stephen was a boy, and his older brother is said to have taken charge of his education. He was sent to New Haven, Connecticut, in December, 1787, to be tutored by Judge Simeon Baldwin and entered Yale in February, 1788. Elliot received his BA from Yale in 1791, with valedictorian honors. His English oration was on 'The Supposed Degeneracy of Animated Nature in America' (Ewan xxvii). Elliott
    then returned to South Carolina and became a planter. He was elected to the South Carolina legislature in 1793 or 1796 (sources disagree) and served until about 1800. In 1796 he married Esther Habersham, with whom he had a large family. From 1800-1808 he seems to have devoted himself to his plantation and to the study of natural history. In 1808 he was re-elected to the legislature, where he was active in promoting the establishment of a state bank. When the bank was established in 1812, he ceased legislative work and was appointed president of the Bank of the State and moved to Charleston. He remained president of the bank until his death. In Charleston, Elliott was involved in a number of scientific and cultural concerns. He was active in the founding of the Literary and Philosophical Society of South Carolina and served as its president from 1814-1830, he was president of the Charleston Library Society, and he co-founded the Southern Review with Hugh Swinton Legaré in 1828. In 1820 he was elected president of South Carolina College (now the University of South Carolina). Most accounts say he declined the post, but one version says he declined after serving for a while. He was an early and active campaigner for the establishment of the Medical College of South Carolina, where he taught natural history and botany from 1824 until his death. Elliott carried on an active correspondence with Henry Muhlenberg and other people interested in botany and natural history. He published A Sketch of the Botany of South Carolina and Georgia from 1816 to 1824 and thereby established himself as a major figure in the history of American botany. He received honorary doctor of law degrees from Yale University (1819), Harvard University (1822) and Columbia University (1825). Elliott has been memorialized in a number of ways. The Elliott College building on the University of South Carolina campus was named for him, and in 1853 the Elliott Society of Charleston was founded. In 1933 a monument was erected over Elliott's unmarked grave in St. Paul's churchyard, Charleston. Elliott is remembered also in a genus of plants of the Heath family. Elliott died of apoplexy (most likely a stroke) in Charleston on March 28, 1830."
  • ellip'tica/ellip'ticum/ellip'ticus: elliptical, about twice as long as wide, oblong with rounded ends, from Greek elleipsis, "a falling short, defect," or "a leaving out, leaving behind," related to elleiptikos, "defective."
  • Ellis'ia: named for John Ellis (1710-1776), a linen merchant and naturalist. He was born in Ireland in 1710. The following is quoted from Wikipedia: “Ellis was the first to have a published written description of the Venus flytrap and its botanical name. [He] specialised in the study of corals. He was elected a member of the Royal Society in 1754 and in the following year published An Essay Towards a Natural History of the Corallines, and Other Marine Productions of the Like Kind, Commonly Found on the Coasts of Great Britain and Ireland. Corallines are a type of marine algae. He was awarded the Copley Medal in 1767 [an award given every year by the Royal Society, for outstanding achievements in research in any branch of science]. His A Natural History of Many Uncommon and Curious Zoophytes, written with Daniel Solander, was published posthumously in 1776. Ellis was appointed royal agent for British West Florida in 1764, and for British Dominica in 1770. He exported many seeds and native plants from North America to England. He corresponded with many botanists, including Carl Linnaeus. A royal botanist, William Young, imported living plants of the Venus flytrap to England. They were then shown to Ellis. In 1769, he wrote a description of the plant discovery from North Carolina to send to the father of taxonomy, Carl Linnaeus. Ellis also gave it the scientific name of Dionaea muscipula. Later, his essay Directions for bringing over seeds and plants, from the East Indies (1770) included the first illustration of a Venus Flytrap plant.” The Dictionary of National Biography adds that: “In the fifty-first volume of the 'Philosophical Transactions' he described the new genera Halesia and Gardenia, and in the sixtieth volume the genus Gordonia, on which a letter to Linnæus was published, with one to Aiton on a new species of Illicium in 1771. These were followed in 1774 and 1775 by a remarkable historical work on coffee, followed by descriptions of the mangosteens and the breadfruit, all alike marked by that thoroughness from which it has happened that none of his genera have been superseded.” Linnaeus proclaimed him "the main support of natural history in England." Ellis died in London and was survived by a daughter, Martha. The genus Ellisia was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1763 and it is called nyctelea or waterweed.
  • el'meri: named for Adolph Daniel Edward Elmer (1870-1942), an American botanist who collected along the coast of the Santa Barbara region in 1902 and also in Lockwood Valley. He travelled and collected in Malaysia, China, the Philippines, Borneo and New Guinea. Elmer was born in Wisconsin, educated at Washington State College and Stanford University, from which he earned an AM degree. He was editor of Leaflets of Philippine Botany, in which he published more than 1,500 new species. He and his wife refused to leave American-controlled Manila after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and were interned at the Santo Tomas Internment Camp where Elmer died in 1942. His wife survived and returned to the US after the war. His private type collection, held in the Philippine National Herbarium, was destroyed during the Japanese invasion. He was the author of Plants of Washington and Idaho. (Agropyron elmeri, Amsinckia elmeri, Eschscholzia elmeri, Festuca elmeri, Godetia purpurea elmeri, Momardella elmeri, Potentilla gracilis elmeri, Sairocarpus elmeri, Sphaeralcea fasciculata elmeri, Stipa elmeri)
  • el'meri: named for Elmer Reginald Drew (1865-1930), a physics professor at Stanford from 1905 until his death. He graduated from the University of California in 1888 and taught there until 1902 when he left to get his doctorate from Cornell, where he received his PhD. He undertook further study in Germany and then joined the department of physics at Stanford in 1905. He was the author of Luminous Efficiency of Vacuum Tube Radiation and General Physics for Colleges. David Hollombe provided the following: "He had been a student of E.L. Greene and did a lot of collecting. About 1900 or so he gave the UC Herbarium 'an entire herbarium of 2,200 specimens (representing 1,800 species), especially rich in California plants,' and this accounts for why he has his name on a number of our taxa. (Astragalus gambelianus elmeri, Erigeron elmeri, Lupinus elmeri, Sisyrinchium elmeri, Trifolium longipes elmeri)
  • Elo'dea: from the Greek helos, "marsh," or helodes, "marshy," relating to the habitat. The genus Elodea was published by André Michaux in 1803.
  • elonga'ta/elonga'tum/elonga'tus: elongated, lengthened, from the Latin elongatus.
  • elwes'ii: named for Henry John Elwes (1846-1922), a British botanist, entomologist, author, lepidopterist, collector
      and traveller who was known for collecting specimens of lilies in the Himalaya and Korea. He was one of the first group of 60 people to receive the Victoria Medal of the Royal Horticultural Society in 1897 along with Henry Nicholson Ellacombe mentioned above. He was born at Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, and at 13 went to Eton College. After the age of 17 he spent at least part of every year abroad, and was sent to tutors in Paris, Brussels and Dresden before spending five years in the Scots Guards beginning in 1865. He was more drawn to ornithology than to soldiering from which
    he resigned in 1869 to become a travelling naturalist. He was interested in ornithology, botany, entomology, horticulture and big game. Other interests of his were estate management and raising prize-winning show livestock. The following is from Wikipedia: “In 1870, after achieving a diploma in biology with a thesis in natural history, Elwes was made a member of a mission organized by the Geographical Section of the British Association which would take the party through to the Sikkim Himalaya, crossing the border into then-forbidden Tibet. The journey was inspired by reading Joseph Dalton Hooker's Himalayan Journals; it was the first of Elwes' many visits to Asia, and resulted in the major paper "On the geographical distribution of Asiatic birds" read to the Zoological Society in 1873. This was his last major ornithological contribution, as his interest moved on to insects and, increasingly, to plants. It was this visit to the Himalayas that sparked his interest in Lepidoptera; his Sikkim expedition alone yielded nearly 530 records of butterflies. Elwes' visit to Turkey in 1874 was somewhat fortuitous as it replaced a trip to Cyprus at short notice. It is evident that on this journey Elwes' interest was focused on plants, and he collected numerous species of bulbius plants. In early April, whilst in the mountains near Smyrna, he came across ‘the fine large snowdrop which now bears my name’ (Galanthus elwesii). Before leaving Turkey he arranged for bulbs to be collected later; the first of the many millions exported ever since. In 1880 he visited India, accompanied by Frederick DuCane Godman, and the two visited Allan Octavian Hume before proceeding to Sikkim. He also made collection trips to the United Provinces, the Punjab, the Central Provinces, Bengal, South Canara and Travancore. Along with James Edwards, Elwes wrote a monograph on the Oriental Hesperiidae. He also made a trip to the Altai region in 1898. His posthumously published Memoirs (1930) includes a chapter describing his visit to Nepal in 1914, at a time when Europeans were seldom admitted. He also mentions an unnamed companion, now known to be the English naturalist Aubyn Trevor-Battye, who took some of the photographs used to illustrate this chapter. Elwes was famous for his breeding of Nerine and Eremurus. Horticulturalist and garden writer Edward Augustus Bowles noted that he was specially interested in Arisaema, Crinum, Crocus, Fritillaria and Iris, as well as Kniphofia, Paeonia and Yucca. Bowles' memoir in Elwes' posthumous biography offers most information about the Colesbourne garden, but even this is scanty. Elwes' horticultural interests largely concentrated on bulbs, and he was said to have the finest collection in private hands. In 1880, he published the magnificent folio Monograph of the Genus Lilium, instigated by Elwes and written with assistance from John Gilbert Baker at Kew Gardens, but he wrote disappointingly little about his gardening experiences. To ensure that the text was as accurate as possible, and that the range of lilies was as complete as possible, he consulted the greatest botanical experts in the field for help in writing the text. This level of excellence was perpetuated in the illustrations, and Elwes was able to execute his plan to illustrate the monograph with hand-coloured plates by the best available botanical artist, with each member of the genus shown full size. Between March 1877 and May 1880 subscribers received seven parts (at a total cost of seven guineas), illustrated with 48 plates by Walter Hood Fitch (1817–1892). In his garden he was able to grow many of the members of the genus Lilium, becoming a recognised expert in the field. However, Elwes played down his level of knowledge. Shortly before his death in 1922, Elwes asked Arthur Grove, a friend and fellow lily expert, to undertake the task of producing a supplement. Dame Alice Godman, widow of Frederick DuCane Godman (whose first wife was Elwes' sister), agreed to underwrite the cost of the work (co-written by Grove and the botanist Arthur Disbrowe Cotton) and the first seven parts of the supplement were published between July, 1933, and February, 1940, with 30 hand-coloured lithographed plates, all but two by Lillian Snelling (1879–1972). Two final supplements were published in 1960 and 1962 by William Bertram Turrill. From 1900 to 1913 Elwes undertook his greatest work, The Trees of Great Britain & Ireland, in conjunction with the botanist Augustine Henry. Between them, in seven large volumes, they described every species of tree then grown outdoors in the British Isles, and recorded the finest specimens to be seen. Henry's contribution to the book was unique insofar as he devised a system of identification based on leaves and twigs and on the position of buds to aid identification even in the absence of fruit and flowers. Most of these were visited and recorded personally, a process which caused Elwes to wear out two cars. In addition, Elwes undertook numerous journeys abroad to study the trees in the wild, even visiting Chile to see monkey puzzle trees (Araucaria araucana). The work remains a source of information on trees and arboriculture.” When his father died in 1891 he inherited his Colesbourne estate. He was also a fellow of the Linnaean Society (1874) and the Royal Society (1897), and a member of a wild boar shooting syndicate in Ardennes for nine years, one of his hobbies being the shooting of wild game. In addition to his other works, he was the author of On the Butterflies of Amurlan, North China, and Japan (1881) and On the Lepidoptera of the Altai Mountains (1889). He died in England at the age of 76.
  • elymo'ides: like genus Elymus.
  • El'ymus: from the Greek name elymos for "millet," in turn from elyo, "to cover." The Native Plant Trust Go Botany website of New England Plants says that the name Elymus is "derived from a Greek word meaning 'rolled up,' which refers to the palea and lemma that are tightly rolled around the seed. Also, the rust-colored leaf sheathes sometimes tightly enclose the growing spike, especially in stressed habitats." The genus Elymus was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
  • Elytrig'ia: from the Greek elytron for "sheath or cover." The website Un Mondo Ecosostenibile ("An Eco-sustainable World") says "The term Elytrigia derives from the Greek elytron, "sheath, scabbard." Another source, CasaBio, says the name is derived from a combination of the genera Elymus and Triticum, but I don't think that's correct. Gledhill merely says one word for Elytrigia, "husk." The genus Elytrigia was published in 1810 by Nicaise Augustin Desvaux.
  • emacula'tus: derived from the prefix e-, "without," and the Latin macula, 'spots or spotted,' thus 'without spots.'
  • emargina'ta: derived from the prefix e-, "without," and Latin margo or marginis, "edge, hem or border," and emarginatus, "without a hem or border." Stearn's Dictionary of Plant Names gives the meaning as "with a shallow notch at the end as though a piece had been removed." In the case of Prunus emarginata, it is the petals that sometimes (though not always, and the Jepson species description does not mention this characteristic) have a ragged appearance at the apex as though notched, and certainly the petals of Sidotheca emarginata are deeply notched or fringed. These are the only species in the California flora that use this name.
  • emers'leyi: named for John Dare Emersley (c.1826-1899), a Scottish-born American miner, author and botanical collector who collected throughout the southwestern US in the late 19th century.
  • emerson'ii: named for George Harvey Emerson (1845-1914), a soldier and capitalist. He was born in Chester, New
      Hampshire, and educated at public schools until enlisting in the 43rd regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry in which he served for eleven months. He then enrolled at Harvard in 1864 and spent one year in the scientific department. He then crossed the continent to the Pacific coast and began his business career in Coos Bay, Oregon, in the service of a lumberman, Asa Mead Simpson. He was put in charge of a sawmill near Gardiner City. Some years later he became involved in the book and stationary business in San Jose, California until 1881 when he became partner with Mr.
    Simpson in the lumber industry, having a major influence on its development in western Washington. He built the first important sawmill between the Columbia River and Puget Sound, shipping wood to California by sea. He was either president, vice-president or a director of numerous business ventures, served as mayor of Hoquiam, and declined the offer of nomination for governor of Washington. He married Lizzie Damon and had four children, and died in Seattle, Washington. Stachys emersonii was collected by Frank H. Lamb along river banks in Hoquiam, Washington, and dedicated at his request to Mr. G.H. Emerson. (Photo credit: Ancestry.com)
  • emer'sum: from the Latin emersus, "coming forth, emerging" and referring to this taxon's habit of growing in water.
  • Em'ex: from the Latin ex, "out of," and Rumex, having been transferred from that genus. FNA says "Latin, ex, and Rumex, alluding to segregation from that genus." The genus Emex was published by Nöel Martin Joseph de Necker in 1819.
  • Emmenan'the: from the Greek emmeno, "to abide," and anthos, "flower," and thus "the flower that abides," alluding to the fact that the blossom does not fall as it fades. The genus Emmenanthe was published by George Bentham in 1835.
  • emor'yi: named for Maj. William Hemsley Emory (1811-1887), an Army officer and director of the Mexican
      Boundary Survey. He was born in Maryland of wealthy and socially prominent parents, the inheritor of an aristocratic tradition of soldiers, his grandfather having fought during the Revolution and his father during the War of 1812. As a boy, he was close friends with such future notables as President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis, Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston and senator, speaker of the house and presidential candidate Henry Clay. In 1823, with the help of John C. Calhoun, a close friend and business colleague of his father, he received assurances of an appointment to West
    Point, entering the school in 1827 and graduating in 1831. He served at a number of different posts during the next five years culminating with his involvement in the removal of the Creek Indian nation from Georgia to the Indian Territory. In 1836 the secretary of war invited him to become an assistant United States civil engineer and he resigned his Army commission. When the Corps of Topographical Engineers was established in 1838 directly under the secretary of war, Emory was one of those who were recruited by Col. John J. Abert, chief of the Topographic Bureau of the Army, and he returned to service and was recommissioned as a 1st Lieutenant. That was a notable year also because he married Matilda Wilkins Bache of Philadelphia, the great-granddaughter of Benjamin Franklin. He worked on a variety of projects, then in 1843 was made an assistant in the Topographic Bureau in Washington. He conducted boundary surveys along the Texas-Mexican border in 1844, producing a new map of Texas. From 1844 to 1846 he was part of the Northeastern Boundary Survey assigned the difficult task of surveying the border between the US and Canada, a job which won him acclaim and respect, and enhanced his reputation as a skillfull and meticulous surveyor. He served during the Mexican war (1846-1848) as chief topographical engineer first on the staff of General Stephen Kearny, and then as second-in-command of a regiment of Maryland volunteers. From 1848 to 1853 he conducted a boundary survey along the United States-Mexican border, and then surveyed the Gadsden Purchase from 1854 to 1857. He was an excellent cartogropher and the accuracy of many of his maps rendered previous ones obsolete. He was a Brigade, ivision and Corps commander during the Civil War, rising to the eventual rank of Major-General, and performed competently yet without great distinction. He held mostly administrative and department command positions after the war, and retired in 1876. His marriage produced 10 children and he died in 1887. [Information mostly from The Handbook of Texas Online by the Texas State Historical Association and from the University of Arizona Press]
  • empetrifor'mis: having the form of genus Empetrum.
  • Empe'trum: from the Greek empetros or empetron, "growing on rocks." The genus Empetrum was published in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus.
  • Ence'lia: named for Christoph Entzelt (1517-1583), a German physician, historian and naturalist, an early Lutheran clergyman who Latinized his name to Christophorus Encelius (whence comes the name Encelia) and published a book called De Re Metallica in 1551 about mineralogy and metallurgy. He was born in Saalfeld in Thuringia and studied at the University of Wittenberg where he attended Martin Luther's lectures. In 1539 he became rector in Tangermünde, then parish priest in Rathenow and in 1558 pastor in Osterburg. He also wrote about the medicinal uses of animal parts and plants and published a book about the history of the Altmark region which was the first of its kind. His name has sometimes been given as Christopher Encel and when he attended the University of Wittenberg he was enrolled as Christophorus Enzelder Salfeldensis. The genus Encelia was published in 1763 by Michel Adanson.
  • encelio'ides: like Encelia.
  • Enceliop'sis: from genus Encelia and -opsis, "likeness to." The genus Enceliopsis was published by Aven Nelson in 1909.
  • endi'via: endive, from French endive (on-deev) and possibly from Byzantine Greek entybon or entubion. It has a rather confusing botanical and etymological meaning, A website called La Fuji Mama has this interesting information: "Endive has a unique story—it’s a youngster in the vegetable world, which is ironic considering that the root it’s grown from, called chicory, is one of the earliest plants cited in recorded literature. Endive, on the other hand, was a relatively recent discovery, thanks to a lucky accident.  In 1830, a farmer named Jan Lammers in Brussels, Belgium, stored some chicory roots in his cellar because he was planning to dry and roast them for coffee (it was commonly used as an additive or coffee substitute). But then he left his farm for several months to serve in the Belgian War of Independence, and when he returned he discovered that his chicory roots had sprouted small, white leaves that were tender, crunchy, and delicious. A Belgian botanist named Brézier then went on to refine cultivation to the point where it could be grown commercially. Markets in Brussels began carrying endive in 1846, and then in 1872 it was introduced in Paris and it became so popular that it was nicknamed “white gold.” The taxon in the California flora is Cichorium endivia.
  • Ene'mion: "Enemion is thought to refer to the Greek term anemos, which means wind..." according to the website Cosewic (Comittee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada) Assessment and Update Status Report on the False Rue-Anemone. I find it curious that the common name, false rue-anemone, relates to the actual rue-anemone, which is Thalictrum thalictroides (previously Anemonella thalictroides which certainly derives its name from anemos) and one of whose common names is windflower. Enemion is a closely related member of the same family, Ranunculaceae, and is almost an anagram of 'anemone.' However, Rafinesque who published the name in 1820 explained it as having to do with the species Anenome quinquefolia (wood anenome, also in the Ranunculaceae) because of the size and similarity of the flowers. FNA gives its common name as false rue-anemone. And Wikipedia says that the ancient Greek word ēnémion is another word for anemone.
  • Engellar'ia: the single member of the new genus Engellaria is Engellaria obtusa, which is a new name for what used to be called Stellaria obtusa. Wanting to honor George Engelmann and not being able to use Engelmannia which has been used before, the author created the name Engellaria which results from a merge of “Engelmann” (Engel-) and “Stellaria” (-laria). The genus Engellaria was published by Duilio Iamonico in 2021.
  • engelmann'ii: named for George Engelmann (1809-1884), a German-born St. Louis physician and botanist, and
      prolific author on cacti, North American conifers and oaks. He was educated at the gymnasium in Frankfurt and then at the University of Heidelberg, the University of Berlin and the University of Wurzburg where he received his MD degree. His dissertation was on plant morphology, mainly on the structure of monstrosities and aberrant forms of plants. Like many other famous botanical explorers and collectors, he had begun his career in medicine, but soon was spending more time with his plants. In 1832 he went to Paris where he made contact with Louis Agassiz. He then
    accepted a proposition from his uncles to act as their agent in the purchase of land in the United States and travelled to Baltimore in late 1832. Botany was always high in his thoughts and he visited Thomas Nuttall in Philadelphia, then went to St. Louis and eventually settled with his relatives on a farm near Belleville, Illinois. He became a conduit between plant collectors in the west and professors John Torrey and Asa Gray in the east. He travelled around Illinois, Missouri and Arkansas doing mineralogical and geological work in addition to botanical collections. He sent out fellow Germans like Augustus Fendler to explore little known western regions, supplying them with collecting materials and money. John C. Frémont visited him to learn about plant collecting before embarking on his western explorations. He botanized with Charles Parry in Colorado and with Asa Gray in Virginia. His association with the Englishman Henry Shaw, who resided in St. Louis and dreamed of building a Kew Gardens in the New World, resulted in Shaw's Garden, now world famous as the Missouri Botanical Garden. In 1835 he moved to St. Louis and established a medical practice and the next year founded a German newspaper called Das Westland the reputation of which spread from America to Europe. In 1840 he went back to Germany and got married, and upon his return he met the eminent botanist Asa Gray and formed a friendship that lasted throughout his life. At that time there were a large number of French- and German-speaking residents of St. Louis and his familiarity with those languages was a great advantage in his medical practice. Wikipedia says: “In 1859, he published Cactaceae of the Boundary which studied cacti on the border of the United States and Mexico. He also made special studies of the pines, rushes, spurges, and other little-known and difficult groups, contributing numerous articles on them to the St. Louis Academy of Sciences, to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and to government reports. Material in his specialities collected by the federal government was sent to him for examination. He was one of the earliest to study the North American vines, and nearly all that is known scientifically of the American species and forms is due to his investigations. His first monograph on the Grape-Vines of Missouri was published in 1860, and his latest on this subject shortly before his death. His two major works on cacti remain important today. He was a founder and longtime president of the St. Louis Academy of Sciences, and encouraged the wealthy St. Louis businessman Henry Shaw to develop his gardens to be of scientific as well as public use. On a visit to England in 1857, he had consulted with William Jackson Hooker on the establishment of Shaw's gardens. He was also one of the original founders of the National Academy of Science. In the 1870s he played a significant role in rescuing the French wine industry which was suffering due to a small pest and he was responsible for shipping millions of shoots and seeds of pest-resistant American vines to France. His valuable botanical collection was given to the Missouri Botanical Garden. He was honored with the names of several plants. The genus Echinocereus was published in 1848 by Georg Engelmann.
  • english'ii: named for Carl Schurz English, Jr. (1904-1976), an American landscape artist, horticulturist and botanist.
      He was born at Camas in southwest Washington state and was interested in plants from an early age and built a 16x50- foot greenhouse when he was just 16. He received a degree in botany from the State College of Washington where he met his future wife Edith Hardin, a zoology major who was also interested in botany.  They were married in 1929 and moved to Portland where they opened a small seed and plant business. In 1931 they moved to the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle. At that time the freshwater Lake Washington was connected with the saltwater inland sea of Puget Sound
    by the Lake Washington Ship Canal which ran through the city of Seattle. The difference in elevation between the two bodies of water was such that a series of locks was necessary which were first called the Government Locks and later renamed the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks to honor the engineer  This was a project which had been originally considered and discussed since 1854 but which was constructed over the period 1911 to 1934 under the direction of Army district engineer Major Hiram M. Chittenden. English began working for the project as an assistant gardener. They established a one-acre nursery with a small greenhouse at their home where they raised plants from seeds and seedlings they collected on trips around the region. The area along the locks was designed and developed by Carl F. Gould, a prominent Seattle architect, in the style of an English park which had been popularized in the US by the great Frederick Law Olmstead. Trees, shrubs and other perennials were donated by the city parks department and planted during the early years. The head gardener was Gustaf J. Eckerstrom who was there from 1925 to 1941. English was hired as his assistant in 1931, and began to make subtle changes almost immediately. When he became head gardener, he began to sculpt the gardens along the locks into the garden that exists today. At the same time English and his wife had amassed a huge collection of native seeds and seedlings and had begun exchanging seeds with international botanical gardens. By 1969 80% of the plants growing there had been selected by English, who had acquired rare and exotic species, in additon to local ones that did well on the site which had been heavily glaciated with till and clay. He created a 300-foot-long rock garden in front of a house originally built for the lockkeeper and landscaped it with more than 700 varieties of alpine plants. Both he and his wife frequently lectured to garden clubs and other community groups and offered weekend classes, spending many summers on seed-collecting excursions. They hosted the International Botanical Congress in 1969 and won many awards for their work. He retired in 1974 and less than two years later, while collecting firewood, he suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 71. The Carl S. English Jr. Botanical Garden is now part of the Lake Washington Ship Canal Historic District, which was established in December 1978. It is the only botanical garden that's maintained by the Army and thus by the Department of Defense. Together with the locks, it is among the most-visited sites in Seattle. And just as an afterthought, there must have been a reason why his father (and he) were named for the great German-American stateman and political scientist Carl Schurz, but I don't know it. There is a reference in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington to Carl Schurz English, Sr. having found a certain plant that might have been an Orobanche. (Photo credit: The Encyclopedia of Washington State History)
  • enigma'ticus: according to the authors' paper: "The epithet refers to the 50+ year enigma surrounding the identity of this taxon," and is called enigmatic bush mallow. The taxon in California is Malacothamnus enigmaticus, a name chosen by Keir Morse and Tom Chester in their 2019 publication in Madroño, and Keir is making a name for himself with bush mallow names such as this one and astrotentaculatus and discombobulatus.
  • Enneapo'gon: from the Greek ennea, "nine," and pogon, "a beard," referring to the nine plumose awns. The genus Enneapogon was published by Nicaise Augustin Desvaux in 1812.
  • -ens: a suffix meaning "becoming, slightly." Examples would be rubescens, "becoming red or reddish"; flavescens, "becoming yellow or yellowish"; canescens, "becoming gray or white"; viridescens, "becomiing green or greenish."
  • -ense/-en'sis: a Latin adjectival suffix used to indicate belonging to, country of origin, place of growth or habitat (e.g. chilensis, "from Chile"; pratensis, "growing in meadows," from pratum, "meadow"; mohavensis, "from the Mojave"; arvensis, "growing in fields," from arvum, "field"; canadensis, "from Canada", etc.)
  • ensifo'lia/ensifo'lius: with sword-shaped leaves, from Latin ensis, "a sword."
  • epapillo'sa: without papillae, from e-, "without," and papilla, "nipple, pimple." Papillae are small, rounded protuberances on a part of a plant or other body.
  • Ephed'ra: from Greek name ephedra derived from epi-, "upon," and hedra, "seat," used by Pliny for the common mare's tail (Hipparus or Hippuris) which it somewhat resembles, and reapplied by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
  • ephem'erum: short-lived, from Greek ephemeros, "of short duration."
  • epi-: upon, on, over.
  • Epigae'a: from the Greek epigaios, "upon the earth," from epi-, "upon," and -gaios, from gaia, "earth," referring to the plant's creeping or sprawling habit. The genus Epigaea was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 and is called trailing arbutus.
  • epiga'lium: from epi, "upon, over, beside," and the genus Galium, indicating that the taxon Aphyllon epigalium is parasitic on Galium species.
  • epihy'drus: from epi, "upon, on," and hydr, "water," referring to the floating leaves.
  • ep'ilis: lacking hair, from e-, "without," and pilus, "a hair."
  • epilobio'ides: like genus Epilobium.
  • Epilo'bium: from two Greek words epi, "upon," and lobos, "a pod or capsule," as the flower and capsule appear together, the corolla being borne on the end of the ovary. The genus Epilobium was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
  • epilutes'cens: lutescens comes from the latin word lutens, which refers to yellowish or yellow, and epi usually stands for "upon, on, over," although Jaeger gives a less common meaning of "to, towards, against," of unknown application.
  • Epipac'tis: either from the Greek epipaktis or epipegnuo, the name adopted for this genus which was originally called hellebore, and which refers to a milk-curdling property claimed for some species. Theophrastus used this name for a plant that was used for curdling milk. The genus Epipactis was published by Johann Gottfried Zinn in 1757.
  • episcopa'lis: this taxon is endemic to San Luis Obispo County, obispo is Spanish for bishop, and San Luis Obispo translates as Saint Louis, Bishop. Episcopalis means "of or relating to bishops, resembling a bishop's mitre." The Spanish mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa was founded in 1772 by Father Junípero Serra in the present-day city of San Luis Obispo, California, and was named for Saint Louis of Anjou, the bishop of Toulouse. From late Latin episcopalis, from Latin episcopus "an overseer, a bishop."
  • epling'ii: named for botanist and taxonomist Carl Clawson Epling (1894-1968), best known for being the major
      authority on the Lamiaceae of the Americas from the 1920s to the 1960s. He was born in Waverly, Illinois, married Ruth Persons Epling, and had two children, Elizabeth and anthropologist Philip Judson Epling. He served in the military from 1917 to 1919, and then  received a BA at the College of Agriculture at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1921, and an MA (1923) and PhD (1924) at Washington University. His dissertation was on the genus Monardella. During the period 1921 to 1924 he was first a botany instructor at Oregon State College and then a summer field
    assistant and agent with the Office of Blister Rust Control of the US Department of Agriculture. From 1924 to 1927 he became a staff member and botany instructor at UCLA. Epling advanced through the ranks to professor until his retirement in 1961 as professor emeritus. Also from 1944 until he retired, he was a systematist in the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources Agricultural Experiment Station. Epling published more than one hundred scientific works ranging from monographs to contributions to local floras, and described numerous genera and species new to science, including the well known psychoactive Salvia divinorum. He founded the herbarium at UCLA. He was also a researcher in population genetics. At the time of his death he was studying the flora of Ecuadorian rain forests which he actually began upon his retirement. He was a founder of the Society for the Study of Evolution and a charter member of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists. He died in Santa Monica.
  • Equise'tum: Latin for "horsetail" from equus, "horse," and seta, "bristle." The genus Equisetum was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
  • eq'uitans: having to do with riding, from equus, "horse."
  • eragros'tis/Eragros'tis: the common explanation of this name including that given by Stearn, Gledhill and SEINet, is that it derives from the Greek eros, "love," and agrostis, "grass," of unknown application but giving the genus its common name of "lovegrass." However, according to Umberto Quattrocchi, others have suggested that it actually derives from the Greek era, "earth." Buttressing this argument, Jaeger's Source-Book of Biological Names and Terms specifically gives Eragrostis as an example for the meaning of era as "earth or field," which makes much more sense since many of the species of this genus, especially the 90 or so from southern Africa, are inhabitants of pastures and fields. It's possible therefore that the name "lovegrass" is a misnomer and should probably be "earthgrass." FNA provides this perspective: "Nathaniel Wolf (1776), the person who first named Eragrostis, made no statement concerning the origin of its name. Harold Trevor Clifford [in his Etymological Dictionary of Grasses, 1996] provides three possible derivations: (1) from eros, 'love', and Agrostis, the Greek name for an indeterminate herb; (2) from the Greek er, "early" and agrostis, "wild," referring to the fact that some species of Eragrostis are early invaders of arable land; or (3) the Greek eri-, a prefix meaning 'very' or 'much', suggesting that the name means many-flowered Agrostis. Many authors have stated that the first portion of the name is derived from eros, but none has explained the connection between Eragrostis and passionate expressions of love, the kind of love to which eros applies." I think Quattrocchi and Jaeger's explanations are more compelling and likely.
  • Erechti'tes: possibly from the Greek erechtho, "to rend or break," referring to the dissected leaves, or to Erechtheus, a fabled king of Athens. FNA says: "A name mentioned by Dioscorides, presumably for a plant now referable to Senecio or a related genus." Among its common names are fireweed and burnweed, supposedly because it loves burned areas and is a "pioneer species" that will quickly spread after a burn. The genus Erechtites was published by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque in 1817.
  • erec'ta/erec'tum: upright. The Online Etymological Dictionary says "upright, not bending," from Latin erectus, "upright, elevated, lofty; eager, alert, aroused; resolute; arrogant," past participle of erigere, "raise or set up."
  • erecticau'lis: with an erect stem.
  • Eremal'che: from the Greek for lonely mallow, from its desert habitats. The root word erem (-i, -o) in this and the following several entries, as well as its related forms eremos, eremia, eremicus, and eremitus has the meaning "a lonely place, a place of solitude, a deserted place, solitary, uninhabited" and by extension "of the desert" since a desert is a lonely place that is largely uninhabited. The genus Eremalche was published by Edward Lee Greene in 1906.
  • eremico'la: from eremi meaning "lonely or solitary", and -cola meaning "loving or an inhabitant of."
  • erem'icum: of the desert, lonely.
  • Eremocar'pus: from two Greek words for "solitary fruit," eremos, "lonely," and karpos, "fruit," describing the solitary carpel of the pistillate flower. The genus Eremocarpus was published by George Bentham in 1844.
  • Eremocar'ya: from eremos, "lonely, solitary, deserted," and karya, "a nut," hence "solitary nut" describing a species that like all Cryptanthas has nutlets but which lives in a lonely place. This is a former genus name which has been resurrected. The genus Eremocarya was published by Edward Lee Greene in 1887.
  • Eremog'one: from eremos, "lonely, solitary, deserted" and gone or gonos, "seed or offspring." The genus Eremogone was published in 1833 by Eduard Fenzl.
  • eremo'phila: desert-loving.
  • eremosta'chya: from eremos, "lonely," and stachys, "an ear of corn or other grain," and thus meaning "bearing a single spike."
  • Eremother'a: from some roots such as eremos, "lonely" or eremia, "desert," and thera, "hunting, chase, pursuit" or ther, "wild beast' or 'summer.' Peter Raven says " 'desert' and 'thera' as analogy to Oenothera; I made up the word because most of them do occur in the desert." The genus Eremothera was originally published in a different genus by Peter Raven and was published in its current genus by Warren Lambert Wagner and Peter C. Hoch in 2007.
  • eri-, erio-: prefix indicating wooliness. Our word wooly is general spelled wooly in Great Britain.
  • erian'tha/erian'thus: wooly-flowered.
  • Erias'trum: from the Greek erion, "wool," and astrum, "star," meaning that the plants are "wooly with star-like flowers." The genus Eriastrum was published by Elmer Ottis Wooton and Paul Carpenter Standley in 1913.
  • Er'ica: a Latin name for heath or heather. The genus Erica was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
  • Ericamer'ia: from the Greek erica (ereika), "heath," and meris or meros for "division or part," referring to the heath-like leaves. The genus Ericameria was published in 1840 by Thomas Nuttall.
  • ericifo'lium: with leaves like genus Erica.
  • erico'ides: resembling Erica or heath.
  • Erig'eron: from the Greek eri, "early," and geron, "old man," thus meaning "old man in the spring," referring to the fluffy, white seed heads and the early flowering and fruiting of many species. The genus Erigeron was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
  • erina'cea: resembling a hedgehog. One of the genera of hedgehogs is Erinaceus, and they are in the family Erinaceidae.
  • Eriobot'rya: from the Greek erion, "wool," and botrys, "cluster, a bunch of grapes," alluding to the clustered and wooly panicles. The genus Eriobotrya was published by John Lindley in 1821.
  • eriocar'pa: wooly-fruited.
  • eriocen'tra: from the Greek words for "wooly" and "center, a point, spur."
  • erioceph'ala/erioceph'alum: wooly-headed.
  • Eriochlo'a: from the Greek erion, "wool," and chloe or chloa, "grass," thus "wooly grass." The genus Eriochloa was published by Karl Sigismund Kunth in 1815.
  • Eriodic'tyon: derived from the Greek erion, "wool," and diktuon, "net," and referring to the appearance of the underside of the leaves. The genus Eriodictyon was published by George Bentham in 1844.
  • Erio'gonum: it has been said that this generic epithet stems from the Greek erion, "wool," and gonu, "joint or knee," in reference to the hairy or wooly joints of some of the species of the genus. Michaux's description of the plant in his publication of 1803 was based on a single species because that was all he had. David Hollombe has interpreted his explanation of the name as meaning "both wooly and geniculate, rather than plant with wooly joints." Wikipedia says the same: "The author of the genus, Michaux, explained the name as describing the first named species of the genus (E. tomentosum) as a wooly plant with sharply bent stems ("planta lanata, geniculata").
  • Erioneur'on: from the Greek erion, "wool," and neuron, "nerve," thus meaning "wooly-nerved," from the lemma and palea hairs. The genus Erioneuron was published in 1903 by George Valentine Nash.
  • Eriophor'um: wool-bearing. The genus Eriophorum was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
  • eriophyl'la/Eriophyl'lum: from the Greek erion, "wool," and phyllon, "leaf," referring to the matted white hairs that cover the plant when young. The genus Eriophyllum was published by Mariano Lagasca y Segura in 1816.
  • eriopo'da/eriopo'dus: wooly-footed.
  • eriosper'mum: wooly-fruited.
  • eriosta'chyus: from the Greek erion, 'wool," and stachys, "an ear of corn," of unknown application.
  • Ernstam'ra: named for Adolfo Ernst (1832-1899), German-born naturalist born in Primkenau in Silesia (present day
      Poland). He was educated in his native town before entering the University of Berlin to study natural history, modern languages and education. At this German institution, he met two children of the Venezuelan General Judas Tadeo Piñango, with whom he struck up a warm friendship. They encouraged him to travel to Venezuela which he did, arriving in Venezuela in 1861. There he became the principal promoter of the study of natural sciences in the late 19th century; founding both the National Museum and the National Library, and teaching at the Central University of
    Venezuela. He also founded the Society of Physical and Natural Sciences of Caracas. In 1867 he became the director of the National Library and participated in international exhibitions in Vienna (1873), Bremen (1874), Santiago de Chile and Philadelphia (1876). As a university professor, he had a marked influence on generations of scientists from the second half of the nineteenth century in Venezuela, and spread Lamarck's and Charles Darwin's natural selection theories, which were fundamental in zoology and botany. In 1889, the Central University of Venezuela awarded him a PhD in recognition of his academic work. Ernst developed comprehensive research in botany, zoology and ethnography. He also did work in geography, geology, language, anthropology, physics, paleontology and archeology. Botany was one of Ernst's primary interests and he studied plant taxonomy and morphology, economic botany, horticulture and phytopathology, and was in correspondence with important European figures in the field, including Sir Joseph Hooker, then director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew (England). His experimental work often focused on microscopic observations, including studies to assess the impact of industrial pollution on trees, the potential use of bark to cure leprosy, the effects of tobacco on smokers and microscopic studies on fibres, cells and seeds. Ernst travelled all over Venezuela, collecting a variety of specimens from Caracas and its surroundings, Lake Maracaibo, the Andes, Venezuelan Guyana, the copper mines of Aroa and the diamond mines of Betijoque. His works were published in a variety of journals, including German, French and North American publications. Amongst his most important works are the two volume Exposición Nacional de Venezuela en 1883 and a Complete Works of his was compiled in 6 volumes by Blas Bruni Calli in 1986. In 1864 he married Enriqueta Tresselt and they had five children. The genus Ernstamra was published by Carl Ernst Otto Kuntze in 1891. I was curious about the suffix -amra and as usual the always reliable David Hollombe came up with the explanation that Otto Kuntze used endings like -afra (for Africa), -amra (for America, North and South), -asia (for Asia), -inda (for India) or the prefix Sino- (for China) to refer to the places/areas of activity of the honored persons or the homeland of the plant. (Information from JSTOR and Wikipedia)
  • Ero'dium: from the Greek erodios, "a heron," due to the long beak on the fruit that gives rise to some of its common names such as storksbill, heron's bill and cranesbill, a meaning reinforced by the family name Geraniaceae or geranium, the derivation of which is geranos, "crane."  The genus Erodium was published by Charles Louis L'Héritier de Brutelle in 1789.
  • ero'sa: jagged or bitten off at the edges, as if irregularly gnawed, referring to the ruffled, saw-edged leaf margins, from Latin erosus, erodere, "having the margin irregularly denticulated as if bitten by an animal."
  • erostra'ta: without a beak, from e-, "without," and rostrum, "bill, beak, snout."
  • ert'terae: named for Barbara (Jean) Ertter (1953- ), the highly-respected botanist and plant collector of the University
      of California at Berkeley. She was born in Boise, Idaho, and received a BS in biology from the College of Idaho, an MS in botany at the University of Maryland where her major advisor was Jim Reveal, and a PhD in biology from the City College of New York. She is currently a research associate at the California Academy of Sciences, administrative curator (formerly collections manager) for the University of California Berkeley Herbarium and Jepson Herbarium, and curator of western North American flora for the Jepson Herbarium at Berkeley. She has worked at the
    College of Idaho Herbarium, the BLM Northwest Watershed Research Center as graduate teaching assistant, department of botany, University of Maryland as graduate herbarium fellow, New York Botanical Garden as lecturer, department of biology, University of Texas at Austin as herbarium curator, University of Texas at Austin where she curated an 800,000 specimen collection, and she has provided plant lists and plant surveys for Lucky Peak Reservoir in Boise, Sawtooth National Recreation Area, Idaho, and the Bennett Hills and southeastern Idaho. She has taught many classes and led many Friends of the Jepson Herbarium weekend workshops, she is a past president of the California Botanical Society, she is a member of many professional associations, she has published a vast array of papers too numerous to list, she has been involved in editing and reviewing many papers for Flora of North America, Brittonia, Great Basin Naturalist, Madroño, Novon, Phytologia, Sida, and Systematic Botany, and her botanical interests are many and varied. There are hardly any areas of California botany and floristics which Barbara Ertter has not been involved in and it would not be an overstatement to suggest that she has been among the very most influential and significant botanical workers in the history of the west. (Photo credit: UC Berkeley)
  • erubes'cens: becoming red, blushing (with shame), referring to the color of the flowers. Wiktionary says "From Latin erubescens, present participle erubescere, “to grow red;” e, “out,” and rubescere. The prefix e- is usually meant as "without," as in ebracteata, "without bracts;" edentula, "without teeth;" emaculatus, "without spots." The -escent or -escens part of the word is what means becoming, as with albescent, “becoming white;” flavescent, “becoming yellow;” nigrescent, “becoming black;” virescent, “becoming green.” So it would appear that the word meaning "becoming red" would be rubescent or rubescens, which in fact it is. But language is funny and doesn't always make sense to those of us who are not experts.
  • Er'uca: there are a lot of different derivations given in various sources for this classical Latin name used by Columella, Pliny, Horace and Martial. The Jepson Manual says "perhaps burn, from spicy taste," but I know of no word similar to this that could be a source of the derivation. Eruca is a Latin word for "caterpillar" also for "colewort," a type of cabbage. The Online Etymology Dictionary suggests that Eruca might be a literary reference meaning "'hairy caterpillar" since the plant can have downy stems. One of the common names of this plant is "rocket" and one source says that the English rocket and its cognates in European languages (German Rauke, Italian rucola or ruchetta, French roquette and Turkish roka) can be traced back to Latin eruca. The book Wild Crop Relatives: Genomic and Breeding Resources states: "In many European languages, the common name for Eruca contains a root that might derive from the archaic roc, which in early Latin meant "harsh, rough, scratchy," possibly in relation to the pungent taste of its leaves and from which the classical Latin name eruca derived." Other sources like FNA relate the name Eruca to the Latin urere, Uruca or uro, "burn," alluding to the burning taste of seeds, and suggest it might have been formed from Uruca. Stearn says "Latin name for Eruca sativa or rocket-salad, grown for its oil-rich seeds and sometimes used as a salad plant." Jaeger says eruca is Latin for caterpillar or a kind of crucifer. Anyway, this derivation is very much up in the air and there may never be a definitive answer. The genus Eruca was published by Philip Miller in 1768.
  • Erucas'trum: resembling genus Eruca. The genus Erucastrum was published by Carl Bořivoj Presl in 1826.
  • Erxleben'ia: named for Heinrich Wilhelm Erxleben (1784-1819) and Eduard Norbert Erxleben (1796-1860). The
    repetition of names in the Erxleben family makes researching it difficult, and there is a lot of confusing and wrong information about these people on the Ancestry.com website, but here’s what I have been able to determine mostly with David Hollombe’s help. Heinrich Wilhelm Erxleben (1784-1819), was the author of a list of plants of the Lanskroun area called Flora Landskronensis which passed into the possession of his nephew Eduard. It is known that Heinrich Wilhelm travelled with Philipp Maximilian Opiz (the original describer of the genus) and the two were closely associated. Heinrich Wilhelm also botanized with his nephew Eduard. Like his big brother, Christian Polycarp Erxleben (1765-1831), he first devoted himself to a pharmaceutical career. In the summer of 1804 he was undertaking professional training in Berlin and was a member of the Pharmaceutical Society there. In 1806 and 1807 he was engaged in his pharmaceutical studies at the University of Vienna in order to achieve a master's degree. During this time he also made major study trips with the well-known botanist Opiz, who provided him with important botanical material for his herbaria. He never married and died at an early age. Eduard Norbert Erxleben was also born in Lanskroun which was a town and municipality in the Czech Republic on the border between the former provinces of Bohemia and Moravia. Like his father, Eduard Norbert ran a family pharmacy and marrried the daughter of a Viennese doctor. He made studies at Prague Polytechnic and botanized around the Lanskroun area, and around the vicinity of Vienna and Berlin. On his father's death he inherited a textile company but did not keep it due to obsolete production and competition from cheaper cotton fabrics. From 1836 he was head of the Lanskroun Archery Society and in 1848 also head of the local National Guard. He kept a herbarium in a cellar that may have been started by Heinrich Wilhelm. He was elected mayor of Lanskroun from 1845 to 1850. There was a rich limestone spring of drinking water that was well known in the Lanskroun area that was called Eduard's Spring in his honor. From 1845 to 1858 the pharmacy fell on hard times and eventually went bankrupt, and he died two years later. IPNI says that the genus Erxlebenia was published by Per Axel Rydberg in 1914 based on an invalidly published name by Philipp Maximilian Opiz in 1852.
  • Eryn'gium: ancient Greek name used either by Theophrastus or Dioscorides, from Latin eryngion, from a diminutive of Greek erungos, "sea holly." The genus Eryngium was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
  • erysimo'ides: like genus Erysimum.
  • Erys'imum: from the Greek eryomai, "to help or save," because some of the species supposedly had a medicinal value, although other sources say it comes from the Greek eryo, "to drag." Another source says it comes from erno, "to draw up," although this seems very unlikely, and Desert USA says that it derives from the name erysimon meaning "biennial and perennial herbs." Finally, Jaeger says from Greek erysimon, "hedge mustard," in turn from eryo, "to draw, to cure," and specifically lists Erysimum for this derivation. Erysimum is an alternate name for blistercress, and was a plant known to Pliny the Elder. The genus Erysimum was originally described by Linnaeus in 1753 but then was validly published by Carl Ernst Otto Kuntze in 1891.
  • erythrae'a: from the Greek erythros, "red, reddish" for the corolla lobes.
  • Erythran'the: from Greek erythros, "red," and anthos, "flower," the only species in this genus when it was first published in 1840 by Édouard Spach being Erythranthe (Mimulus) cardinalis.
  • Erythron'ium: from an ancient Greek plant name erythronion, from erythros, "red," and deriving presumably from the reddish color of the leaves and flowers of some species. FNA says "alluding to the pink to purple flowers of Erythronium dens-canis." The genus Erythronium was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
  • erythrorhi'zos: with red roots.
  • esau'ae: named for Katherine Esau (1898-1997), a pioneering Russian-born botanist who studied plant anatomy and
      the effects of viruses. She was born in Yekaterinoslav, Russia (now Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine) to a family of Mennonites of German descent. She attended a Mennonite parish school prior to entering secondary school, then began studying agriculture in 1916 at the Golitsin Women's Agricultural College in Moscow, but returned home at the end of her second semester due to the Bolshevik Revolution. She fled with her family to Germany where she continued her studies. After her graduation from the Berlin Agricultural College in 1922, she and her parents emigrated to the
    United States, where they made their home in a predominantly Mennonite community in Reedley, California. She worked first as a cook and housekeeper for a family, then began working on studying and raising sugar beets, eventually developing a sugar beet with resistance to the curly top virus. After meeting Wilfred William Robbins from the university farm of the Northern Branch of the College of Agriculture (now University of California, Davis), she was accepted as a graduate assistant in the botany division. She was formally awarded a doctorate in 1931 which was granted by UC Berkeley. She was also elected to the Phi Beta Kappa honor society in 1932. Esau then joined the faculty in the new post of junior botanist in the Agricultural Experiment Station of the College of Agriculture. She taught at the University of California, Davis, from 1932 to 1963. In 1963 she moved to the University of California, Santa Barbara to better continue collaborative work with Vernon I. Cheadle. She was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1949. In 1951, she was president of the Botanical Society of America. In 1956, the Botanical Society of America awarded her a certificate of merit in its Golden Jubilee celebrations. In 1957, she was the sixth woman elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences. In 1962, she was awarded an honorary degree by Mills College, Oakland, and in 1964, she was elected to the American Philosophical Society. In 1989 President George Bush awarded Esau the National Medal of Science. Her textbook Plant Anatomy (1953) became the foremost text in the United States on plant structure and was widely adopted abroad. Although she officially retired in 1965, becoming professor emerita, she continued her research work until 1994. In 1989, when she was awarded the National Medal of Science, she became the first trained botanist to be so honored. She was also the author of Anatomy of Seed Plants (1960), Plants, Viruses, and Insects (1961), Vascular Differentiation in Plants (1965), and Viruses in Plant Hosts (1968). She established the Katherine Esau Fellowship Program in 1993 at the University of California, Davis. This supports post-doctoral, junior faculty and some summer graduate fellowships. She died in Santa Barbara.
  • Escallon'ia: named for Antonio Escallón y Flórez (1739-1819), a physician, explorer, student and botanical associate and friend of Spanish botanist Jóse Celastino Mutís in Columbia who named the genus Escallonia in his honor in 1821. He was born in Spain and died in Santa Fe de Bogotá, Columbia. He was also an adviser to the Viceroy Pedro de la Cerda Massia. He was from Spain and travelled and collected plants in South America. He settled in New Granada (present-day Columbia).
  • -es'cens: like -ascens, a Latin adjectival suffix used to impart the sense of a process of becoming or developing (e.g. rubescens, "reddish or becoming red," from ruber, "red"; senescens, "aging or becoming aged," from senex, "old"; canescens, "becoming gray"; frutescens, "becoming shrubby", etc.). Often corresponding to the English "-ish."
  • Eschenbach'ia: named for Johann Friedrich Eschenbach (1757-?), a German physician and botanist in Leipzig. The genus Eschenbachia was published by Conrad Moench in 1794.
  • Eschscholz'ia/eschscholtzia'na/eschscholtzia'num/eschscholtz'ii: named for Dr. Johann Friedrich Gustav von
      Eschscholtz (1793-1831), a Latvian or Estonian surgeon, entomologist and botanist who came with the Russian expeditions to the Pacific coast in 1816 and 1824.  On their first visit to the San Francisco region in the Russian scientific ship Rurik, his name was put on the previously undescribed California poppy by his friend and companion Adelbert von Chamisso (see chamissonis), who found it in the hills surrounding the bay, and subsequently on dozens of other newly discovered flowers.  Later he returned the favor by naming a lupine after his friend, Lupinus
    chamissonis. Sometimes his name is listed as Eschscholtz and sometimes as Escholtz. According to Curtis Clark at Cal Poly Pomona and others, his name was originally spelled Escholtz in German, but when it was transliterated into the Cyrillic alphabet by relatives of his who spent time in Russia, it became Eshcholts which had an 'sh' and a 'ch' sound both of which were expressed by the same Russian letter, and thus when converted back to German the 'sh' and 'ch' became 'sch' twice and the name became Eschscholzia. The 't' was dropped because Chamisso Latinized the name as Eschscholzius. In those days spelling was not the more rigid system in use today, and even Chamisso in different places gave the name as Eschscholzia, Eschscholtzia and Eschholzia. Chamisso though he lived in Berlin and spoke German with Eschscholtz was originally French. Eschscholtz studied medicine at the University of Dorpat (also called the University of Tartu) in Estonia where he was born and which was at the time a German-speaking territory, and later became a professor of anatomy there. On the scientific expedition he collected specimens in Brazil, Chile and the Pacific Islands as well as California. Bikini Atoll in the Pacific was originally named Eschscholtz Atoll and was renamed in 1946. Eschscholtz was only 37 when he died of typhus in Dorpat. The genus was published in 1820.
  • Escobar'ia: named for Rómulo Escobar Zerman (1872-1946) and Numa Pompilio Escobar Zerman (1874-1949), sons
      of Jesus Escobar Armendáriz, one of the first Mexicans to carry out agricultural studies in Europe. Both of them studied as agricultural engineers at the National School of Agriculture, San Jacinto, and then in 1906 founded the Private School of Agriculture in Ciudad Juarez (later to become the Brothers Escobar Higher School of Agriculture). Romulo was born in Ciudad Juarez and studied at the Escuela Nacional de Agricultura (National School of Agriculture) and received a degree in agricultural engineering in 1891. Numa was also born in Ciudad Juarez and completed his studies
    as an agronomist at the same institution. In 1963 the Private School of Agriculture was incorporated into the University of Chihauhau as the Brothers Escobar College of Agriculture and operated until 1993. Numa Escobar published the magazines El Hogar (The Home) and El Agricultor Mexicano (The Mexican Farmer) which were printed for more than 50 years. Both brothers in addition to being agonomists were at one time or other government officials, Romulo as underecretary of agriculture and development in the government of Victoriano Huerta. He was also interim governor of the state of Chihauhau for a month in 1930. Many sources give Romulo’s birth year as 1872. The genus Escobaria was published in 1923 by Nathaniel Lord Britton and Joseph Nelson Rose.
  • esculen'tum/esculen'tus: esculent, edible.
  • esmeralden'se: named for Esmeralda County, Nevada. This taxon (Eriogonum esmeraldense) was first collected on Miller Mountain, then located in Esmeralda County, (collected 1888, described 1889), now mostly in Mineral County which split off in 1911.
  • Esmar'chia: named for Heinrich Peter Christian Esmarch (1745-1830), a German-Danish educator and botanist, and rector of the cathedral school in Schleswig. He was the author of Schleswigsche Hora (1789). The genus Esmarchia was published in 1832 by Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach.
  • esoter'icum: from the Greek esoterikos, "arising within, esoteric."
  • Espelet'ia: named for José Manuel Ignacio Timoteo de Ezpeleta Galdeano Dicastillo y del Prado, conde de Ezpeleta de
      Beire (1741?-1823), a Spanish military officer and politician, governor of Cuba from 1785 to 1789, and viceroy of New Granada from 1789 to 1797. The following is quoted from Wikipedia: "A knight of the Order of Charles III and of the Royal and Military Order of San Hermenegildo, he was also a judge of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. He was a governor of the Supreme Royal Council to His Majesty and a councilor of state, as well as field marshal in the royal army. On December 1, 1785 he became Spanish governor of Cuba. He held this position until 1789, when he
    was promoted to viceroy of New Granada. His term of office saw the birth of journalism in New Granada, under the direction of Manuel del Socorro Rodríguez, the first director of Papel Periódico in Bogotá. Two hundred sixty-five issues of this periodical appeared. Ezpeleta founded the first theater in Bogotá. He supported literary circles, in which some of the future heroes of the independence movement participated, such as Antonio Nariño who in 1794 published a translation of the Rights of Man, for which he was tried and convicted. Like his predecessors, Ezpeleta tried to spur the mining industry in Mariquita, but he came to the conclusion that the operating expenses were greater than the output. He promoted Catholic missions as a means of pacifying the indigenous population which had not accepted Spanish rule, especially the Andaqui people. In 1807 he was named Captain General of Catalonia, but by the time he reached Barcelona, the French troops under Guillaume Philibert Duhesme were already closing in on the city. Once the city was taken, Ezpeleta refused to swear an oath of loyalty to José Bonaparte and was arrested and exiled to Montpellier where he remained until 1814. After his return to Spain he was made Viceroy of Navarre, where he had great difficulties in restoring the old institutions. He was faced by an unsuccessful revolt led by Francisco Espoz y Mina and another one in 1816 known as the Conspiración del Triángulo. Then in 1820 the Spanish liberal revolution forced him to step down and he was replaced by Espoz y Mina. He went to live in Valladolid until 1823, when he was asked after the Absolutist Restoration to return to his function of viceroy of Navarre. Ezpeleta returned to Pamplona in July, but aged 83, died a few months later. The genus Espeletia was published by José Celestino Bruno Mutis in 1809.
  • -ester: see -estre/-estris below.
  • estero'a: I have been unable to determine the meaning or derivation of this word, but the two possibilities that come to mind are that it has something to do with estuaries, or possibly with ester, an alkyl salt. Its link to estuaries is buttressed by the common name of Suaeda esteroa as estuary sea-blite. That taxon is the only one in the California flora to use this specific epithet. In fact, surprisingly, according to IPNI, it's the only one in world flora.
  • -estre/-estris: a Latin adjectival suffix that signifies "belonging to," "loving," or "living in" (e.g. alpestris, "of the mountains," from alpestre, "pertaining to the Alps"; rupestris, "rock-loving," from rupis, "a rock"; sylvestris, "of the woods," from sylva, "a wood;" terrestris, "of the earth," from terra, "earth").
  • es'ula: the Dave's Garden Botanary website explains this as a "Latinized form of a Celtic name meaning sharp, referring to the acrid juice" and derives from the word esu, "sharp, biting," alluding to the sap. Gledhill says "an old generic name in Rufinus for a spurge." Rufinus was a thirteenth century Italian monk.
  • -e'tum: a Latin substantival suffix indicating a collective place of growth (e.g. quercetum, "oak woods," from quercus, "oak") Not to be confused with the root -setum, "bristle," as used in Pennisetum and Equisetum.
  • eu-: good, well, true, nice. It's difficult to say exactly what meaning the use of this root has for any particular name. For example, the Jepson Manual gives 'strongly nettle-like' for the genus Eucnide, 'true cap' for Eucalyptus, 'good head' for Eucephalus, 'true tunic' for Euchiton, 'well crowded' for Euthamia, 'tightly shut' for Euclidia, 'well hidden' for Eucrypta, 'well lobed' for Eulobus and 'good name' for Euonymus.
  • Eubot'rys: from Greek eu-, "good or well," and botrys, "bunch," alluding to capsules in tight raceme. The genus Eubotrys was published by Thomas Nuttall in 1847 and has been called deciduous fetterbush.
  • Eucalyp'tus: from the Greek eu, "good or well," and kalyptos, "covered," referring to the calyx which forms a lid over the flowers when in bud. The genus Eucalyptus was published in 1788 by Charles Louis L'Héritier de Brutelle.
  • Euceph'alus: from the Greek eu, "good, normal," and kephale, "head." The genus Eucephalus was published by Thomas Nuttall in 1840, and he said that it was "alluding to the elegant qualities of the calyx."
  • Euchi'ton: from the Greek eu, "good, well," and chiton, "a tunic or covering," and according to FNA, alluding to "close-fitting" clusters of bracts subtending clusters of heads. The genus Euchiton was published by Alexandre Henri Gabriel de Cassini in 1828.
  • Euclid'ium: from eu, "good, well," and kleis or kleidos, "a lock or key," thus "well locked" or "tightly closed," referring to the indehiscent fruit. William Townsend Aiton published the genus Euclidium in 1812.
  • Euclis'ia: possibly from the Greek eu, "well" or "good," and the Greek root klisia, "a place for lying down, a hut," or klision, "a small chamber," of uncertain application. The genus Euclisia was published by Edward Lee Greene in 1904 after a previous description by John Torrey and Asa Gray.
  • Euc'nide: from the Greek eu, "good or pretty," and knide, "stinging nettle," thus being a strongly nettle-like plant. FNA says "alluding to the stinging trichomes and the showy flowers." The genus Eucnide was published by Joseph Gerhard Zuccarini in 1844.
  • Eucryp'ta: well hidden, from the Greek eu, "well or true," and crypta or cryptos, "secret, hidden" alluding to the hidden inner seeds. The genus Eucrypta was published in 1848 by Thomas Nuttall.
  • Eugen'ia: named for Prince Eugen Franz von Savoyen-Carignan (1663-1736), a book collector, patron and promoter
      of botany and science, and teacher of Frederick the Great. He fought against the Turks in central Europe and the Balkans, and against France in the War of the Grand Alliance and in the War of the Spanish Succession, being involved in at least twenty-four battles, seven of major historical significance, and being wounded thirteen times. He was Generalfeldmarschall of the Imperial Army, a statesman of the Holy Roman Empire. and the Archduchy of Austria. He was one of the most successful military commanders in modern European history, rising to the highest offices of
    state at the Imperial court in Vienna. He was born in Paris and having been rejected by Louis XIV for service in the French army, moved to Austria and transferred his allegiance to the Hapsburg monarchy and served three Holy Roman Emperors: Leopold I, Joseph I, and Charles VI. He had a large collection of books on natural history and geography in  his extensive collection, although according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, “not one of the tens of thousands of volumes in his library (most of them preserved in the Nationalbibliothek in Vienna) bears any trace of having been much used…” He died in Vienna. The genus Eugenia was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
  • Eula'lia: named for the renowned French botanical illustrator and watercolorist Marie-Eulalie Ledoux (1796-1878), who was married first to botanist, diplomat, and plant collector Alire Raffeneau Delile, professor at the faculty of medicine of Montpellier. Delile died in 1850 and in 1851 she married physician, agrnomist, botanist and plant collector Jacques Cambessèdes with whom she had been living for at least five years. She illustrated the work of Cambessèdes and that of Karl Sigismund Kunth, who published the name Eulalia in her honor in 1829. She also illustrated the work of other botanists.
  • Eulo'bus: from the Greek for "well-lobed," alluding to long, linear pods of the capsule. The genus Eulobus was published by Thomas Nuttall in 1840.
  • -eum/eus: either (1) a Greek adjectival suffix usually indicating a state of possession or belonging to, e.g. niveum/niveus, "of or in snow," jacinteus, "of the San Jacinto Mts," cylindraceus, "possessed of a cylindrical shape," or (2) a Latin adjectival suffix used to impart the characteristics of material or color or resemblance in quality, e.g. purpureus, "purple," from purpura, "a mollusc which yields a purple dye;" cereus, "waxy," from cera, "wax;" argyraeus, "silvery," from argyros, "silver," etc.).
  • Eunan'us: dwarf, tiny. Eunanus is a synonym for Mimulus. Frederick Coville in an article in the Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Vol. 26, No. 3 (March 15, 1936) about a new species in Death Valley called Mimulus rupicola says: "Plants of the genus Mimulus are commonly called monkeyflower because their two-lipped corollas suggest a monkey's face. The present species, however, belongs to a group in which the corollas are not definitely two-lipped. This group of species has sometimes been separated from Mimulus as a distinct genus, Eunanus. The name Eunanus means a dwarf. I suggest for these dwarf species of Mimulus the common name, midget, and for this new species from Death Valley the common name, rock midget." It has come to be known as Death Valley monkeyflower and is in the genus Diplacus. The genus Eunanus was published by George Bentham in 1846.
  • Euon'ymus: Flora of North America says "from the Greek eu, 'good,' and onoma, 'a name,' apparently applied ironically, the genus having had the bad reputation of poisoning cattle." The genus Euonymus was published in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus.
  • Eupator'ium: from the Greek Mithridates VI, aka Eupator Dionysius (c.132-63 BC), King of Pontus and Armenia
      Minor in northern Anatolia (now Turkey) from about 120–63 BC who is said to have discovered an antidote to a commonly used poison in one of the species. After the assassination of his father and while still a youth, he supposedly spent seven years living in the wilderness, and regularly ingested sub-lethal doses of toxic substances to the point where he believed he had developed an immunity and could not be poisoned. The Kingdom of Pontus before the rule of Mithridates occupied a coastal area southeast of the Black Sea and along the eastern coast and mostly surrounding the Sea
    Of Azov and the Crimea, and during his rule it was extended greatly in area south to the Mediterranean and west to what is now Istanbul and the Aegean Sea. Mithridates was considered as one of the Roman Republic’s most formidable and successful enemies, who engaged three of the prominent generals from the late Roman Republic in the Mithridatic Wars: Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Lucius Licinius Lucullus and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus. Some of these engagements were successful and some not. He has been called the greatest ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus. According to Pliny the Elder, Mithridates was a polyglot who could speak the languages of all twenty-two of the nations he governed. He had several wives including his first who was his sister, and since he claimed ancestry from the Persians he named a number of his sons after the great Persian rulers like Xerxes, Darius and Cyrus. The manner of his death seems quite ironic. Wikipedia says: "After Pompey defeated him in Pontus, Mithridates VI fled to the lands north of the Black Sea in the winter of 66 BC in the hope that he could raise a new army and carry on the war through invading Italy by way of the Danube. His preparations proved to be too harsh on the local nobles and populace, and they rebelled against his rule. He reportedly attempted suicide by poison. This attempt failed because of his immunity to the poison. According to Appian's Roman History, he then requested his Gallic bodyguard and friend, Bituitus, to kill him by the sword. Carl Linnaeus published the genus Eupatorium in 1753 and it is commonly called boneset.
  • Euphor'bia: named for Euphorbus, Greek physician of Juba II, King of Mauretania. Juba was educated in Rome and married the daughter of Antony and Cleopatra. He was apparently interested in botany and had written about an African cactus-like plant he had found or which he knew about from the slopes of Mt. Atlas which was used as a powerful laxative. That plant may have been Euphorbia resinifera, and like all Euphorbias had a latexy exudate. Euphorbus had a brother named Antonius Musa who was the physician to Augustus Caesar in Rome. When Juba heard that Caesar had honored his physician with a statue, he decided to honor his own physician by naming the plant he had written about after him. The name Euphorbus derives from eu, "good," and phorbe, "pasture or fodder," thus giving euphorbos the meaning "well fed." Some sources suggest that Juba was amused by the play upon words and chose his physician's name for the plant because of its succulent nature and because of Euphorbus' corpulent physique. The genus Euphorbia was published by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
  • Euphrosy'ne: one of the three Graces, sometimes called Euthymia, daughter of Zeus and Eurynome, who was also the Goddess of Joy or Mirth, and the incarnation of grace and beauty. The other two Graces were Thalia (Good Cheer) and Aglaea (Beauty or Splendor). An asteroid and a family of marine worms were named for her. The genus Euphrosyne was published by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle in 1836.
  • eureken'se: of or from the vicinity of or relating in some way to the town of Eureka in Humboldt County, northern California. The species in the California flora with this epithet is Erysimum menziesii ssp. eurekense, the type locality of which was near Eureka.
  • eureken'sis: referring to the Eureka Dunes or Eureka Valley of Southern California. Mary DeDecker's shrub July gold, Dedeckera eurekensis, was located in Dedeckera Canyon just above Eureka Dunes, and Oenothera avita ssp. eurekensis is called Eureka Dunes evening primrose.
  • Eurhynch'ium: well or finely beaked, from the Greek eu-, "completely, truly, well," and rhynchos, "a beak," in reference to the operculum. The genus Eurhynchium was published in 1854 by Wilhelm Philipp Schimper.
  • europae'a/europae'um/europae'us: of or from Europe.
  • Euro'tia: from the Greek euros, "mold or moldy," because of the hairy covering. This is a generic name that has been changed by Jepson to Krascheninnikovia. Previously Eurotia lanata (now Krascheninnikovia lanata) was the only taxon in California with this epithet. Jaeger gives different meanings for the Greek euros which are (1) the east or east-southeast wind; (2) "breadth or width." The genus Eurotia was published by Michel Adanson in 1763.
  • Eury'bia: from the Greek eurybies or eurybia, "far and wide, wide spreading." The genus Eurybia was published in 1820 by Alexandre Henri Gabriel de Cassini.
  • eurycar'pa/eurycar'pum: from eury or eurys, "wide or broad," and carpa, "fruit."
  • euryceph'ala/euryceph'alus: from the Greek eury or eurys, "wide or broad," and kephale, "a head."
  • Eusto'ma: from the Greek eu- for "good or beautiful" and stoma for "mouth," the throat of the corolla tube being large. The genus Eustoma was published by Richard Anthony Salisbury in 1806.
  • Eutham'ia: from Greek eu- for "well or good," and thamees for "crowded," thus "well-crowded," from the dense inflorescence. The genus Euthamia was published in 1825 by Alexandre Henri Gabriel de Cassini.
  • Euto'ca: uncertain, but possibly from eatokos, "fruitful," referring to the abundance of seeds. The genus Eutoca was published by Robert Brown in 1823.
  • ev'adens: evading, hiding, from Latin evadens, "fleeing, escaping, evading," evidently named because this taxon had "evaded detection."
  • evanes'cens: ephemeral, disappearing.
  • evanid'um: from the Latin evanidus, "evanescent, feeble, frail, vanishing, disappearing," referring to the rareness of the species.
  • evermann'ii: named for ichthyologist Barton Warren Evermann (1853-1932). He was born in Monroe County, Iowa,
      and graduated from Indiana University with a BS degree in 1886, an AM degree in 1888 and a PhD in 1891. He later received two LLD degrees from that institution and from the University of Utah. A memorial resolution from Stanford University says: “While a student in Butler University he came under the influence of David Starr Jordan, from whose inspiration he came to devote his life work to the field of natural history, more especially zoology. The close association and intimate friendship with Dr. Jordan continued throughout his life, the two collaborating in many important
    publications in ichthyology. For ten years previous to his graduation he was a successful teacher in the public schools of Indiana and California. He served as professor of biology in the Indiana State Normal School at Terre Haute from 1886 to 1891, where he inspired students and teachers alike with his tireless enthusiasm, sincerity, and high ideals. His marked ability in research and administration led to his being called to the work of the Bureau of Fisheries in Washington, where he occupied such positions of honor and responsibility as ichthyologist, 1891-1914, chief of the Division of' Statistics and Methods of Fisheries, 1902-1903, assistant in charge of scientific inquiry, 1903-1910, chief of the Alaska Fisheries Service, 1910-1914, US fur seal commissioner 1892, and chairman of the Fur Seal Board, 1908-1914. During this period he was also lecturer in zoology at Cornell University, 1900-1903, and at Yale University from l903 to l906, and was vice-president of the Board of Education of the District of Columbia from 1906 to 1910. In 1914 he came to California as director of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. The [almost] total loss of the museum, scientific collections, and library through the earthquake and fire of 1906 had seriously crippled that institution. Under Dr. Evermann's leadership it has been built up to a degree quite beyond its previous development. The habitat groups of mammals and birds in the Museum in Golden Gate Park, planned by him, are recognized as the best to be found in any museum, while the scientific collections resulting from many expeditions to the lands in and bordering upon the Pacific Ocean are of the greatest value; and the twenty-five volumes of studies upon them, issued by him and his colleagues during his administration, testify to his zeal for the advancement of knowledge. To his personal influence may be ascribed the endowment of the Steinhart Aquarium through the munificence of Mr. Ignaz Steinhart and to his skilled guidance, technical knowledge and judgment are due its erection and subsequent development. The educational value to the public of the museum and the aquarium was ever uppermost in Dr. Evermann's thoughts and was furthered by him in every possible way. Over one million visitors annually pass through their portals and enjoy and profit by the exhibits while active cooperation with the public schools extends their educational value and usefulness. Dr. Evermann's natural gifts as a teacher and inspirer of the young student made his frequent, personally-conducted groups memorable to the participants. As lecturer in zoology 1893 to 1894 and from 1926 on until death terminated his services, Dr. Evermann entered the life of Stanford University and became a valued and honored member of its faculty, though his non-resident relation prevented many of our number from knowing him. But to those with whom he was brought into contact he became a valued friend. His broad scientific training, his marked ability as a teacher and investigator, his sound judgment, his sincerity and cordiality of manner, his far-reaching sympathy and human interest endeared him to all with whom he was associated. Though gone from our midst, his work remains. We cherish his memory.” He died in Berkeley at the age of 78.
  • ewanian'um/ewan'ii: named for Joseph Andorfer Ewan (1902-1999), a historian of botany, prolific writer and editor,
      who was assistant curator in the Division of Plants at the Smithsonian (1945-46) and later a regent's fellow at the same institution. In 1969 he edited A Short History of Botany in the United States, and that same year wrote an introduction to a reprint of John Torrey and Asa Gray's Flora of North America, originally published 1838-1843. In 1971 he wrote an introduction to a reprint of Thomas Nuttall's The Genera of North American Plants, first published in 1818. And in 1979 he wrote an introduction to a reprint of Frederick Pursh's classic work Flora Americae Septentrionalis,
    published in 1814. He also wrote in 1970 John Banister and His Natural History of Virginia. He became associated with Tulane University in 1947, bringing to that institution "...a personal herbarium of 32,000 specimens, probably three or four times as many specimens as were already present in the university's collection. The Ewan herbarium is largely responsible for the wide geographical coverage of the university's present collection, as well as many of its type specimens. In addition to his own collections, mostly from Southern California, the Rocky Mountains region, and South America, Ewan's herbarium also included specimens gathered by L.M. Booth (southern California), Ira Clokey (Nevada), David Keck (Penstemon), John Gill Lemmon (California and Arizona ferns), F.W. Pierson (California), Ynes Mexia (Latin America) and the Gray Herbarium exsiccatae [defined as "published, uniform, numbered sets of preserved specimens distributed with printed labels"] of the Fernald period. Specimens of Delphinium and Vismia, Ewan's own taxonomic specialties, are also well represented. The Tulane herbarium benefitted from Ewan's interest in botanical history and bibliography; a number of specimens were acquired that had been collected by well-known exploring expeditions of the nineteenth century, these mostly duplicates from European herbaria, particularly the British Museum (Natural History) and the Conservatoire et Jardins Botaniques, Geneva. A nearly complete set of Asa Gray's North American Gramineae and Cyperaceae was also added. All collections were accommodated in modern steel cases, and curated by Nesta Dunn Ewan, who worked as a volunteer for thirty years." (From A Brief History of the Tulane Herbarium on the web). The Ewan Collection, purchased by the [Missouri Botanic] Garden in 1986, includes the research materials, personal papers, and 11,000 volumes assembled by Joseph Ewan... " (From the Library website of the Missouri Botanical Garden). "Joseph A. Ewan, naturalist and botanical historian, was born in Philadelphia on 24 October 1909. He died peacefully on 5 December 1999 in Mandeville, LA, with Nesta, his wife of 67 years, by his side. Professor Ewan graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1934 and was a research assistant to Willis Linn Jepson in graduate school. He taught at the University of Colorado from 1937 to 1944 and became a professor at Tulane University in 1947. He retired in 1977 as Ida Richardson professor of botany emeritus and remained at Tulane until 1986. Early in his career, Professor Ewan made major scientific contributions in the study of Delphinium. He spent a year during World War II in South America with the Cinchona Survey, locating new sources of quinine. He was a Guggenheim fellow in 1954-1955 and later received curatorial appointments with the Smithsonian Institution and the US Department of Agriculture. He was also an early member of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History in London and received its Founders Medal in 1977. As a leading historian of American botany, particulary the 17th-19th centuries, Professor Ewan and Nesta, often his collaborator, published over 400 books, essays, and reviews... Professor Ewan's health - though not his intellect, memory, or sense of humor - deteriorated after a stroke in December of 1996. He asked his family to tell everyone goodbye for him." (From an obituary in the Flora of North America Newsletter, Volume 13, No. 3-4, Jul-Dec. 1999). He collected on Santa Catalina Island in 1932.
  • ex-: prefix meaning out, off, from, beyond.
  • exalta'ta/exalta'tum/exalta'tus: very tall, lofty.
  • exarista'ta: from aristata, meaning "with a long, bristle-like tip, bearded," and the prefix ex-, which is usually defined as "out, from, or beyond," but which in this case seems to mean "without," since this species generally lacks an awn.
  • exauricula'ta: auriculata means "having ear-like structures" and the prefix ex- can mean "out, off, from, beyond," so this might mean something like "having ear-like structures that project out from or beyond some other feature" or perhaps more likely "not having ear-like structures." The SEINet Arizona-New Mexico chapter says about Verbesina encelioides that plants that have auriculate petiole bases have been called var. encelioides and ones that usually lack auricles have been called var. exauriculata, so that is probably what it means.
  • excava'ta/excavatus: hollowed out.
  • excel'sea: tall, from Latin excelsus, "highest, sublime."
  • excub'itus: presumably likening its habit to that of a sentinel, excubitor, past participle of excubo, "to keep watch."
  • exfibulo'sus: the Latin fibula means "a buckle, clasp or splint," and the ex- prefix which can mean "without."
  • exig'ua/exig'uus: little, poor in growth, or weak.
  • ex'ilis: from the Latin exile for "small, thin, slender, feeble."
  • exim'ia/exim'ium/exim'ius: excellent in size or beauty, choice, distinguished, from the Latin eximius, "most beautiful, distinguished, uncommon."
  • expan'sa: expanded.
  • exser'ta: exserted, protruding out of or beyond a surrounding structure, often used in reference to sexual parts that extend beyond the calyx or corolla.
  • exstipula'ta: from stipulata, "having stipules" and the prefix ex-, "out, from, beyond, on the outside" or exo-, "without, outside." Gledhill says exstipulata means "without glands," but the species in the California flora, Euphorbia exstipulata, does have gland-like stipules so for this taxon the meaning must be "with stipules on the outside." But where else would stipules be?
  • Ex'triplex: the author states "The generic name is derived from the Latin prefix ex (meaning beyond, on the outside) plus the generic name Atriplex, which is a Latinized form of the Greek atraphaxus. The two known species of this genus (E. california and E. joaquinana) previously have been included within Atriplex; they are more closely related to exclusively C3 genera of American Atripliceae (Proatriplex, Holmbergia, Stutzia, Grayia) than to any Atriplex." The genus Extriplex was published by Elizabeth Zacharias in 2010.
  • eyerdam'ii: named for Walter Jacob Eyerdam (1892-1974), an American cooper, naturalist and conchologist who mainly collected plants and molluscs. His father was from Germany and he married in Ohio where his first son was born. His second child was born in Oregon.  Walter was born in Seattle like his two younger brothers, and was a member of the first freshman class at Lincoln High School. He then studied mining at the University of Washington and prospected in California for three years. When World War I began, whale oil being a component of explosives and thus in high demand, he went to Baranof Island, Alaska, to make barrels for whaling and herring stations until the whale oil boom ended with the war. He then procured a job with a fisheries and cold storage company, salmon also being packed in barrels. They made the barrels at fishing stations or on board schooners which often anchored off of Siberia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, and he was fascinated by what he saw on his few trips ashore. In 1927 he signed up for a scientific mission to Haiti and his responsibility was to collect rare plants and lizards, the collecting art being taught to him by the Swedish botanist Eric Ekman. He returned home after a year having contracted malaria and dengue fever. At this time the Russians were buying muskrats and ships from the US and Eyerdam discovered that one of the ships was located on Lake Union north of Seattle. He persuaded the captain that he could tend the 40 muskrats due to be shipped, and he also persuaded zoologist William Coultas of the University of Washington Museum to come along. They successfully delivered 38 of the muskrats and collected plants from the mountains nearby which they sold to the botany department of the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm. Quite the eclectic natural historian, Eyerdam spent the next year as a bird skinner on the Solomon Islands as part of the Whitney South Seas Expedition, amassing ethnographic objects among other things. His South American plant collecting was undertaken as part of the second and sixth expeditions for the University of California (1938-1939 and 1957-1958), during which he traversed Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Peru. He published several times in The Bryologist, in the ornithological publication The Murrelet, and as a malacologist in The Nautilus. Being drawn especially to the north, he went to Alaska during 25 summers, and made a number of trips to Russia including Kamchatka and Lake Baikal. He was a founding member of the Pacific Northwest Shell Club. His personal collection of over 58,000 mollusks went to the Field Museum in Chicago. Many new species were named in his honor. He died on Dec. 31, 1974, after a long illness, in Seattle at the age of 81.