pageae/pageana/Pagella: for Mary Maud Page (1867-1925), English botanical artist, plant collector and botanical explorer, emigrated to the Republic of South Africa in 1911, associated with the Bolus Herbarium at the University of Cape Town 1917-1925, wrote a handbook on culinary herbs published by the Royal Horticultural society, died in South Africa. The genus Pagella in the Crassulaceae was published in 1921 by German-born South African botanist Selmar Schönland. Mary Maud Page is also commemorated with the taxa Conophytum pageae, Nemesia pageae, Crassula pageae, Erica pageana, the former taxa Psilocaulon pageae (now P. dinteri), Carpobrotus pageae (now C. mellei), and Erepsia pageae (now E. patula), and possibly also for Amphithalea pageae and Muraltia pageae. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Ted Oliver, pers. comm.)

Pahudia: for Charles Ferdinand Pahud de Montanges (1803-1873), Minister for the Colonies (1849-1855) and Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies 1856-1861. Hugh Clarke adds the following: " He went to India in 1823 as a tax and import/export official, then became Inspector of Finances in 1841 and Director of the government and civil products warehouse in 1849. While Minister of Colonies he put through legislation abolishing slavery among many other regulations. As Governor-General he worked at building the infrastructure, such as building telegraph lines and the first high school. He also went on expeditions to Sumatra, Borneo, Timor and elsewhere. While in Java, he received many gifts, some of historical value like ceremonial swords which he donated to the Museum of the Batavian Society in 1860." The genus Pahudia in the Fabaceae was published in 1855 by Dutch botanist Friedrich Anton Wilhelm Miqeul. (A Flora of Manila by Elmer Drew Merrill; The Leguminosae: A Sourcebook of Characteristics, Uses and Nodulation by Ethel K. Allen and O.N. Allen)

Palhinhaea: for Ruy Telles Palhinha (1871-1957), Portuguese (Azores-born) botanist, Director of the Botanical Garden of Lisbon and the Botanical Institute of the University of Lisbon, studied the flora of the Azores and while working on a catalog of the spermatophytes died as a result of injuries sustained in a car crash. Catalog of the Vascular Plants of the Azores was completed by Antonio Rodrigo Pinto da Silva and published posthumously. He was a member of the Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Coimbra, the Royal Academy of Cordoba, the Broterian Society, the Geographical Society of Lisbon, the Portuguese Society of Natural Sciences, and the Société Botanique of both France and Geneva. The genus Palhinhaea in the Lycopodiaceae was published in 1967 by Portuguese botanists João Manuel Antonio de Amaral Franco and João de Carvalho e Vasconcellos. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Pallavicinia: the Russian liverwort specialist Vadim Bakalin who prepared the treatment of Pallavicinia Gray for Bryophyte Flora of North America says about this epithet "Probably for Lazarus Opizio Pallavicini (1719-1785?), botanist and archbishop of Genoa, although others of this family were also naturalists." He was Cardinal Secretary of State 1769-1785 Hugh Clarke adds that other members of the family included Italian naturalist Ignazio Alessandro Pallavicini (1800-1871) or the Marquis Adalberto Pallavicini delle Frabose, first President of the Societa Agraria in Turin (1785-1786). The genus Pallavicinia in the Pallaviciniaceae was published in 1821 by British botanist and mycologist Samuel Frederick Gray. There was also a genus Pallavicinia in the Brassicaceae that was published in 1883 but that is considered to be an invalid publication. (Bryophyte Flora of North America; The Life and Times of the Popes by Artaud de Montor, 1911)

Palmstruckia: for Johan Wilhelm Palmstruch (1770-1811), Swedish army officer and botanical artist. Hugh Clarke adds: "[He was] editor of the 11 volume Svensk Botanik now in the Academy of Sciences. Palmstruch's 455 drawings of plants in the six first volumes, have been characterized as the best pictures of plants ever produced in Sweden. This magnificent work used as models Oeder's Flora Danica and Sowerby's English Botany. The text was written by the most distinguished botanists of the period: Conrad Quensel, Olof Schwartz, Göran Wahlenberg, C.W. Venus and Gustav Billberg." The genus Palmstruckia in the Scrophulariaceae was published in 1810 by Swedish botanist Anders Jahan Retzius. Although the Plants of Southern Africa Checklist database still includes this genus, there are other sources that indicate that it is an invalid name and is to be replaced by the generic name Thiaspeocarpa. There is also a genus Palmstruckia in the Brassicaceae which was also named for J.W. Palmstruch, but that epithet is also now considered invalid. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; ABE Books)

Pancovia: for Thomas Panckow (1622-1665), physician to King Wilhelm von Brandenburg, author of Herbarium portatile. The genus Pancovia in the Sapindaceae was published in 1799 by German botanist Carl Ludwig von Willdenow. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Pandorea: after Pandora, according to Greek mythology the first mortal woman sent to earth. The genus Pandorea in the Bignoniaceae was published in 1840 by French botanist Édouard Spach. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

paolii: for Professor Guido Paoli (1881-1947) who collected in Italian Somaliland and in Eritrea, mainly seems to have been an entomologist with side interests in botany and anthropology, studied the inhabiters of spines of Acacia trees, and mites and aphids, collected Drimia paolii in Eritrea in 1913. (JSTOR)

Pappea/pappeana/pappeanum/pappei: for Carl (Karl) Wilhelm Ludwig Pappe (1803-1862), German physician and plant collector. He studied medicine and botany at Leipzig before moving to Cape Town in 1831, initially practising as a doctor. He was the first colonial botanist and South Africa's first professor of botany, 1858, and he was an international government adviser on botanical issues. The genus Pappea in the Sapindaceae was published in 1834/1835 by Danish botanical collector and apothecary Christian Friedrich Ecklon and German botanical and insect collector Carl Ludwig Philip Zeyher. Many of the species epithets named for Pappe have been synonymized. Of the current species bearing his name there includes Indigofera pappei, Geissorhiza pappei, Microsorum pappei, Lessertia pappeana, Marchantia pappeana and Pleuridium pappeanum. (Darwin Correspondence Online Database)

parkeri: for (1) Dr. George Williams Parker (1848-1904), British doctor who was physician to H.M. Queen Ranavalona I of Madagascar where he collected Indigofera parkeri. He also collected plants in British Guiana which he sent to Kew. (JSTOR); (2) Richard Neville Parker (1884-1958), British botanist, Chief Conservator of Forests for the Punjab, author of A Forest Flora of the Punjab, settled in Cape Peninsula after his retirement, collected Polygala parkeri in 1947. He is also commemorated with the former taxa Hypodiscus parkeri (now H. rugosus) and Leptocarpus parkeri (now Restio festuciformis). (JSTOR; Gunn & Codd)

Parkinsonia: for John Parkinson (1567-1650), English apothecary to King James I and later Royal Botanist to King Charles I. Wikipedia says that he was the "last of the great English herbalists and one of the first of the great English botanists." He is best known for his two major works Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris (1629) which described the proper cultivation of plants, and Theatrum Botanicum (The Botanical Theatre or Theatre of Plants (1640), which described over 3,800 plants and was the most complete and beautifully-presented English treatise on plants of its day. He was an eminent gardener and was maintained contact with other important English and European botanists, herbalists and plantsmen such as William Coys, John Gerard, John Tradescant the elder (who was a close friend), Vespasian Robin, and the Frenchman Matthias de Lobel. The genus Parkinsonia in the Fabaceae was published in 1743 by Linnaeus. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia)

parksiana: Eggli & Newton and other sources say that the epithet refers to the Port Elizabeth Parks and Recreation Department. Apparently a "Mr. L.R. Long, who at the time was Superintendent of Parks for the city of port Elizabeth and was very interested in Haworthias, used the prefix "Parks" to his numbers of those Haworthias which were being grown in one of the city parks. When this Haworthia was sent to Dr. von Poellnitz (who described it), it bore the notation "Parks 636/32" and for some unexplained reason it was named in honour of non-existent Mrs. Parks." (All You Wanted To Know About Haworthias; Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Parmentaria: for Antoine-Augustin Parmentier (1737–1813), French pharmacist, nutritionist and agronomist. Hugh Clarke adds: "During the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763), Parmentier was imprisoned by the Prussians and survived by eating potatoes. After the war, he studied nutritional chemistry and, in 1772, persuaded the Paris Faculty of Medicine that potatoes were edible (they had been banned by the French Parliament in 1748 on the grounds they caused leprosy). [He was pharmacist at Les Invalides Hispital, and despite the Paris Faculty of Medicine decision, he was prevented from using the Les Invalides garden to grow potatoes by the religious community that owned the land and whose complaints eventually resulted in the loss of his post. His significance in connection with potatoes is such that dishes are named for him such as potage parmentier.] He pioneered the extraction of sugar from sugar beets, studied methods of conserving food, including refrigeration and published many papers on agronomic matters [such as bread-baking, cheese-making, grain storage, the use of cornmeal (maize) and chestnut flour, mushroom culture, mineral waters, wine-making, improved sea biscuits and a host of other topics of interest.] As Inspector-General of the Health service (1805), he was responsible for the first mandatory smallpox vaccination campaign." The genus Parmentaria in the Verrucariaceae was published in 1825 by French botanist Antoine Laurent Apollinaire Fée. (Hugh Clarke; Wikipedia)

pasmithii: for Peter Alexander (P.A.) Smith (1931-1999), Rhodesian-born agricultural officer who was employed with the Commonwealth Development Corporation in Botswana and Rhodesia, then with the government of Botswana where he worked on tsetse fly control, water affairs, and plant ecological investigations in the Okavango region. He collected the isotype of Habenaria pasmithii in 1979 alongside the Okavango River in Botswana. (JSTOR)

passargei: for Professor Otto Karl Siegfried Passarge (1867-1958), German geographer from East Prussia, explorer and traveller in the Cameroon, Namibia, and Venezuela. He also collected in Botswana and Nigeria. The taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is the former Acacia passargei, now synonymized to A. nigrescens). (Flora Zambesiaca)

patersoniae/pattersoniae: for Florence Mary (née Hallack) Paterson (Mrs. T.V. Paterson) (1869-1936), daughter of amateur botanist Russell Hallack and one of the earliest women collectors to be born in the Cape Colony, made a comprehensive collection of the flora of her area. Many of her specimens were given to the Albany Museum in Grahamstown, and she also sent many collections to Harvey in Dublin. Her contributions were acknowledged both by Selmar Schonland, who published this name, and by Harry Bolus. In addition to being honored with the genus name Neopatersonia, she is commemorated with Delosperma patersoniae and the former taxa Relhania patersoniae (now R. decussata) and Macrostylis patersoniae (now Acmadenia obtusata) which she collected and also Babiana patersoniae, Gladiolus patersoniae and the former taxa Ceropegia patersoniae (now C. zeyheri), Pterygodium patersoniae (now Corycium carnosum), Crassula pattersoniae or patersoniae (now C. perforata) and Geissorhiza patersoniae (now Gladiolus stellatus), which her husband T.V. collected. (Gunn & Codd; Ladies in the Laboratory 3 by Mary and Thomas Creese; JSTOR)

Patersonia: for William Paterson (1755-1810), see below. The genus Patersonia in the Iridaceae was published in 1807 by Scottish botanist Robert Brown.

patersonii: for (1) Lieutenant William Paterson (1755-1810), Scottish soldier, explorer, botanist and horticulturist who made four collecting journeys to South Africa 1777-1780. He was sent by Sir Joseph Banks to make observations on the natural history of the land. In 1789 he published Narrative of Four Journeys into the Country of the Hottentots and Caffraria which he dedicated to Banks. He was later Lt. Gov. of New South Wales. He is commemorated with Erica pattersonii and Sarcocaulon patersonii. (PlantzAfrica; Ericas of the Cape Peninsula; Wikipedia); (2) William Hugh ("Meester") Paterson (1873-1963), schoolteacher and later mayor of Hermanus, commemorated with Leucospermum patersonii which he collected and sent to the National Herbarium via Dr. R. Marloth. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; PlantzAfrica)

patriciae: for Patricia Hardy, wife of David Hardy, collector of plants from South Africa, commemorated with the former taxon Ceropegia patriciae, now synonymized to C. mafekingensis. (Women and Cacti)

pattisoniae: according to JSTOR records, Agathosma pattisoniae was collected by an R. Pattison in Calvinia District of South Africa in 1913. She was the sister of Christian Frederick Louis Leipoldt (1880-1947), the South African physician, poet, author, journalist and writer. I have found mention of a Mr. R. Pattison who collected arachnids from Clanwilliam division with C.L. Leipoldt, but I can't find any reference to him having a sister named Pattison unless that is a married name. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Pauletia: for Jean Jacques Paulet (1740-1826), French botanist and physician, mycologist and author. Among his important works were The Secret of medicine or preservative against smallpox (Paris, 1768), Smallpox destroyed, or new facts and observations (1776), and his Complete Treatise on Fungi (1775), considered one of the founding works of the group of fungi. The genus Pauletia in the Fabaceae was published in 1799 by Spanish botanist Antonio José Cavanilles. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Paullinia: for Simon Paulli (1603-1680), professor of anatomy, botany, and surgery, physician to King Christian V of Denmark, and author of the herbal describing plants of medical interest, Flora Danica (1648). This is not to be confused with the great work of botany, Flora Danica, first proposed by G.C. Oeder in 1753 and published over a 123 year period from 1761 to 1883. The genus Paullinia in the Sapindaceae was published in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia)

Paulownia: for Anna Pavlovna (Anna Paulowna) (1795-1865), member of the Russian court and the Romanov dynasty, and queen consort of the Netherlands. She was the sixth daughter of Paul I of Russia (1754-1801) and Empress Maria Feodorovna (1759-1828), and the younger sister of Alexander I. Her title was Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Anna Pavlovna of Russia. She received a private education. Although Napoleon Buonaparte asked her to marry him when she was fourteen (after having failed in his attempt to wed her elder sister Ekaterina), this did not materialise, and when she was twenty-one she married Willem Frederik George Lodewijk (1792-1849) who would become King William II of the Netherlands. They had a stormy marriage and from 1829-1843, she lived separately from him during which time she founded fifty orphanages. When her husband became King in 1840 she became Queen Consort. Shortly thereafter she left the royal palace and retired from court life. Her son became King William III in 1849 and she became Queen Dowager. The genus Paulownia either in the Paulowniaceae or the Scrophulariaceae was published in 1835 by German botanists Philipp Franz von Siebold and Joseph Gerhard Zuccarini. (Hugh Clarke; Wikipedia)

pavelkae: for Petr Pavelka (1971- ), Czech molecular biologist, cacti and succulent cultivator who collected Othonna pavelkae in South Africa in 1993. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Pavonia/pavonia: for José Antonio Pavón y Jiménez (1754-1840), Spanish botanist, traveller and explorer, was with Joseph Dombey and Hipólito Ruiz López in Chile and Peru on the first of three major botanical expeditions sent to the New World during the reign of Carlos III. With Ruiz López he authored Flora Peruviana et Chilensis in ten richly illustrated volumes. The genus Pavonia in the Malvaceae was published in 1786 by Spanish botanist Antonio José Cavanilles. There are several taxa in southern Africa with the specific epithet pavonia including Othonna pavonia, Gladiolus pavonia, Ixia pavonia, and the former Moraea pavonia (now synonymized to M. bellendenii), and Iris pavonia (now I. tulbaghensis), but I can't say for sure who these are named for. Apart from the above José Antonio Pavón y Jiménez (1754-1840), there is also Clemente Ruiz Pavón, a pupil of the Spanish-Colombian naturalist, physician, and mathematician José Celestino Mutis who might be a possibility. The specific epithet in Gazania pavonia however is derived from pavo for peacock, and that might apply to others as well. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

paxiana/paxii: possibly for Ferdinand Albin Pax (1858-1942), German botanist and entomologist, professor of botany and zoology at the Technical University of Wroclaw, Director of the Botanical Garden at Breslau. Taxa in southern Africa that have one of these epithets include Cleome paxii and the former Euphorbia paxiana, now synonymized to E. mauritanica. There are many other taxa with this epithet that do not appear in southern Africa and hundreds of taxa with his name on them as author. (Wikipedia; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

paynei: for George Payne (fl. 1930), succulent plant collector, commemorated with the former taxon Haworthia paynei, now synonymized to Haworthia herbacea. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

peacockiae: for Mrs. W. Peacock (fl. 1917) who found Lampranthus peacockiae in Darling. (Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.; JSTOR; Women and Cacti)

peacockii: possibly for John Thomas Peacock (1831-1889) of Hammersmith, English egg merchant and succulent plant collector. The taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is Haworthia peacockii. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

pearsei: for Reginald Oliver Pearse (1900-1995), South African mountaineer, educator, author and the first to collect Crocosmia pearsei. He was Headmaster of Newcastle High School and then Headmaster of Estcort High School both in KwaZulu-Natal. (Elsa Pooley; JSTOR)

Pearsonia/pearsoniana/pearsonii: for Professor Henry Harold Welch Pearson (1870-1916), British-born South African botanist and the first Director of the former National Botanical Institute of Southern Africa, worked at the Cambridge Herbarium, professor of botany at South African College, Cape Town, prolific plant collector and botanical explorer, founder and Honorary Director of the Kirstenbosch National Botanic Gardens at Cape Town, Fellow of the Linnean and Royal Societies, made several expeditions to South-West Africa to study the monotypic Welwitschia. The genus Pearsonia in the Fabaceae was published in 1912 by South African botanist Richard Arnold Dümmer, and aside from taxa which have been synonymized he is commemorated with species names in the genera Stapelia, Sarcostemma, Argyroderma, Cheiridopsis, Lepidozia, Erica, Caesalpinia, Crotalaria, Aloe, Indigofera, Asparagus, Lobostemon, Romulea, Sansevieria, Senecio, Plumbago, Salsola, Albuca, Lachenalia, Tylecodon, Phylica and Lippia. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; JSTOR; Ted Oliver, pers. comm.)

Pechuel-Loeschea/pechuelii: for Moritz Eduard Pechuël-Lösche (Loesche) (1840-1913), German naturalist, geographer, ethnologist, painter, traveler, Professor of geography in Jena and Erlangen (1895-1912), collected plants in the Cape, Hereroland and Congo (Loango-Expedition 1874-1876) and in German South-West Africa (now Namibia) 1884-1885, publisher of "Brehm's Animal Life” 3rd edition (1890-1893). The genus Pechuel-Loeschea in the Asteraceae was published in 1888 by German botanist and teacher Karl August Otto Hoffman. He is also commemorated with Adenolobus pechuellii, Adenia pechuelii and the former taxon Aerva pechuellii (now synonymized to Calicorema capitata), and probably also Indigofera pechuellii, Leucas pechuellii and Cardiospermum pechuellii. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Biographies of Namibian Personalities)

Peddiea: for John Peddie (?-1840), plant collector and soldier who sent South African plant specimens to Irish botanist William H. Harvey at Dublin. The genus Peddiea in the Thymelaeaceae was published in 1840 by Harvey. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Peersia/peersii: for Victor Stanley Peers (1874-1940), Australian-born botanist and amateur archeologist who came to South Africa during the Anglo-Boer War in 1899, returned to Australia and then emigrated in 1902. He worked as a clerk for South African Railways, found ancient skeletons at a location called Skildergat Cave since named Peers Cave, collected many succulents and other plants, died at Cape Town, South Africa. The genus Peersia in the Aizoaceae was published in 1927 by South African botanist Louisa Bolus. He is also commemorated with many species names including Lachenalia peersii, Deilanthe peersii, Lampranthus peersii, Antimima peersii, Delosperma peersii, Aloinopsis peersii, Stomatium peersii, Glottiphyllum peersii, Carruanthus peersii, and Trichodiadema peersii, and many others which have been synonymized. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

Peglera/peglerae: for Alice Marguerite Pegler (1861-1929), teacher, painter and East Cape collector around the area of Kentani where she lived. She corresponded with the leading botanists of South Africa including MacOwan, Bolus, Pearson, Schönland, Pole Evans, Kolbe and others. She collected over 2,000 specimens, most of which were from an area with a radius of 8 km from the village of Kentani where she had settled, and kept extensive notes on the characteristics of the plants she observed as they changed month to month throughout the year. She had suffered from eye trouble all of her life and was an invalid for seven years before her death. She was also interested in collecting beetles, gall flies, spiders and scorpions, and late in life turned her attention to algae and fungi. The genus Peglera in the Erythroxylaceae was published in 1907 by South African botanist Harry Bolus. She has also been honored with many current species names in Delosperma, Dolichos, Rhynchosia, Chironia, Chionanthus, Aloe, Stapelia, Schizoglossum, Aster, Phymaspermum and Agathosma, and a number of others that have been overtaken by synonymy. Her name is also on several fungus taxa. (Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

pehlemanniae: for Mrs. Inge Pehlemann-Brase (fl. 1978-1983), plant collector and succulent specialist. She created a magnificent garden in Windhoek, Namibia, and is commemorated with Haworthia pehlemanniae. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Penaea: for Pierre Pena (c. 1520/1535-1600/1605), French physician and botanist, assistant to Mathias de L'Obel, physician to Henri III. The genus Penaea in the Penaeaceae was published by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in 1753. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

pentheri/pentheriana/pentherianum/pentherianus/Pentheriella: for Arnold Penther (1865-1931), Austrian zoologist born in Italy who collected in South Africa and Zimbabwe and worked in the Zoology Department at the Vienna Natural History Museum. The genus Pentheriella in the Asteraceae was published in 1910 by German botanists Karl August Otto Hoffmann and Reinhold Conrad Muschler, and he is also commemorated by many current and former taxa including Bergia pentheria, Satyrium pentherianum, Streptocarpus pentherianus, Plectranthus pentheri, Diascia pentheri, Dryopteris pentheri, Albuca pentheri, Searsia pentheri, Crotalaria pentheri, Struthiola pentheri, Hesperantha pentheri and others. (Elsa Pooley; Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

pentlandii: for Joseph Barclay Pentland (1797-1873), Irish geographer, diplomat and paleontologist associated with Georges Cuvier, commemorated with Zantedeschia pentlandii. (JSTOR)

Pentzia: for Carolus Johannes Pentz, 18th century Swedish botanist, student of Carl Peter Thunberg who published the genus Pentzia in the Asteraceae in 1800 and with whom he authored the Dissertatio Botanica De Diosma (1797). (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

pentzii: for James Alexander Pentz (1896-1967), South African ecologist and conservationist, assistant to Pole Evans in the Department of Agriculture, commemorated with the former taxon Digitaria pentzii, now synonymized to D. eriantha, which he collected in the Transvaal in 1927. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses; JSTOR)

Pereskia: for Nicholas Claude Fabry de Peiresc (1580-1637), French astronomer, numismatist, antiquary, patron of botany and art, naturalist and archeologist, amateur artist, friend of Peter Paul Rubens, historian and Egyptologist. An intellectual and savant, he was in continual contact with many of the leading figures of his day, and was a noted politician in his home region which was Province. He was also a geographer and was interested in measuring the longitude of various places in Europe. He wrote an "Abridged history of Province" which was published posthumously. As an astronomer he discovered the Orion Nebula, studied the moons of Jupiter and began a map of the surface of the Moon. In short, there seem to be few subjects in which he was not interested. The genus Pereskia in the Cactaceae was published in 1754 by Scottish botanist Philip Miller. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Perlebia: for Karl (Carl) Julius Perleb (1794-1845), German botanist and physician, professor of natural history in 1821 and director of the Freiburg Botanic Garden in 1826. In 1838 he became the Director of the Freiburg University. The genus Perlebia in the Fabaceae was published in 1828 by German botanist Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius. (Wikipedia)

perrieri/perrieriana: for Joseph Marie Henri Alfred Perrier de la Bâthie (1873-1958), French botanist who lived in and specialized on the plants of Madagascar. He collected Salicornia perrieri and Rhynchospora perrieri, and was the author of La végétation malgache (1921) and Biogéographie de plantes de Madagascar (1936). He is also commemorated with the former taxa Disa perrieri (now synonymized to Disa caffra) and Marsilea perrieriana (now M. minuta), and the genus Neobathiea which does not appear in southern Africa. (JSTOR; Wikipedia)

perrottetii: for George (Georges Guerrard) Samuel Perrottet (1793-1870), Swiss-born French botanist and horticulturist who collected Dyschoriste perrottetii, gardener at the Jardin des Plantes, naturalist on an expedition to Java and the Philippines, explorer in Senegambia (present-day Senegal and Gambia), co-author of Florae Senegambiae Tentamen, and longtime botanist at the botanical garden at Pondicherry. He is also commemorated with the former taxa Adenostemma perrottetii (now synonymized to A. viscosum) and Dracaena perrottetii (now D. mannii), and probably also for Digitaria perrottetii. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses; JSTOR)

perryae: for Pauline Lesley Perry (1927- ), British-born South African botanist, horticulturist and plant collector in southern Africa. She came to South Africa in 1972 as a biology teacher and then was stationed at the Karoo Botanical Garden in Worcester. She is the author of Bulbinella in South Africa and co-author of A revision of the genus Eriospermum and Systematics of Hessea, Strumaria and Carpolyza, and she is commemorated with Lachenalia perryae, Bokkeveldia perryae and Strumaria perryae. (Wikipedia; JSTOR; Gunn & Codd)

persoonii: possibly for Christiaan Hendrik Persoon (1761-1836), South African-born mycologist and taxonomist who contributed significantly to the taxonomy of mushrooms as laid out by Linnaeus. He is generally considered the father of systematic mycology. Although he had some medical education, there is no indication that he ever practiced medicine. His mother apparently died or disappeared shortly after he was born and at the age of 13 he was sent to Europe to study, never to return to the Cape. In 1802 he moved to Paris where he spent the remainder of his life. Wikipedia says "He was apparently unemployed, unmarried, poverty-stricken and a recluse, although he corresponded with botanists throughout Europe. Because of his financial difficulties, Persoon agreed to donate his herbarium to the House of Orange, in return for an adequate pension for life." His two volumes of Synopsis Plantarum described 20,000 species of plants, but his major work was the Synopsis Methodica Fungorum on the subject of fungi. The taxa in southern Africa with this epithet are Haematomma persoonii and the former Calophanes persoonii (now Chaetacanthus setiger). He is also commemorated with the Australian genus Persoonia. The Rijksherbarium in Leyden named its mycological journal Persoonia in his honor in 1959. (Wikipedia; Hunt Institute Archives)

perssonii: for Dr. Natan Peter Herman Persson (1893-1978), Swedish bryologist at the Natural History Museum, Stockholm, Sweden, commemorated with Riccia perssonii. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

pervillei: there was a French gardener, explorer and plant collector who collected in Madagascar and the Seychelles around 1837-1841 named Auguste Pervillé and he is probably the one who is commemorated with Lasiodiscus pervillei, but I can't state that with certainty. The taxon was published by French botanist Henri Ernst Baillon in 1868. There are several dozen records of taxa with this epithet most of which were published in the mid- to late-1800's, at least some of which were definitely collected by an A. Pervillé. (JSTOR; Harvard University Herbaria; Flora of Mauritius and the Seychelles by John Gilbert Baker)

peschii: for Mr. C. Pesch of Namibia, commemorated with Australluma peschii. (Illustrated Handbook of Succulent Plants: Asclepiadaceae)

petersiana/petersianus/petersii: for Wilhelm Carl Hartwig (Hartwid or Hartwich) Peters (1815-1883), German naturalist and explorer, curator of the Berlin Zoological Museum, who botanized extensively in Mozambique and made an enormous collection of natural history specimens. He is commemorated with many species names including Ficus petersii, Eulophia petersii, Vernonia petersii, Commelina petersii, Hyphaene petersiana, Albizia petersiana, Bauhinia petersiana, Senna petersiana, Ancylobotrys petersiana and Strophanthus petersianus, as well as others that have been synonymized. (Wikipedia; Sappi What's in a Name: The Meaning of the Botanical Names of Trees by Hugh Glen; Flora of Zimbabwe; Trees and Shrubs of Mpumalanga and Kruger National Park by Ernst Schmidt et. al.; JSTOR)

petitiana: for Antoine Petit (?-1843), French naturalist and botanist who traveled at the behest of the French government with Léon Richard Quartin-Dillon and Théophile Lefebvre to Ethiopia in 1838. Quartin-Dillon died of illness in 1840 and a crocodile in the Tacazze River drowned Petit in 1843. He is commemorated with Habenaria petitiana and the former taxa Carex petitiana (now synonymized to C. mossii), Urginea petitiana (now Albuca abyssinica) and Ekebergia petitiana (now E. capensis). (Biodiversity Research in the Horn of Africa Region: Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium on the Flora of Ethiopia and Eritrea, 1999; Flora of Tropical Africa Vol. 1 by Daniel Oliver)

petiveri: for James Petiver (1658-1718), London apothecary, botanist, entomologist and a Fellow of the Royal Society who received many plant specimens, seeds and much other material from correspondents in the American colonies. He was a close friend of John Ray and did significant work on British insects and butterflies. Erica petiveri was published by Linnaeus in 1771. This taxon has now been synonymized to several species including variants of E. coccinea, E. intermedia and E. melastoma. His date of birth is uncertain. The Harvard University Herbaria database says 1658, Wikipedia says c. 1665, an online biography of him says 1663, and the Dictionary of National Biography says 'between 1660 and 1670.' (Ted Oliver, pers. comm.)

petraea: there are many taxa with this specific epithet, and it probably does not commemorate any person. The more likely derivations are from the Latin petraeus, meaning 'rock-loving' or 'growing among rocks.' Another possible derivation is to the Middle Eastern locality of Petra.

petrusiana: Erica petrusiana, named for the locality of Steenbras Dam.  A steenbras is the Afrikaans name for a local marine fish, Petrus rupestris or red rock bream. (Ted Oliver, pers. comm.)

Peyrousea: for Jean François de Galaup, Comte de la Pérouse (1741-1788), French navigator, explorer and naturalist. He fought against the British off North America in the Seven Years War and was promoted to the rank of commodore. In 1785 he lead an expedition to the Pacific which included ten scientists, an astronomer, a botanist, a physicist and three naturalists. He went to Easter Island, Hawaii, Alaska, California, the Philippines, Korea, the Kurile Islands, Russia, Japan, the South Seas, Australia, but then he and all his men disappeared and were never seen again. Thirty-seven years later it was determined that both his ships had been wrecked on reefs and sunk. There were survivors some of whom were apparently killed by local inhabitants and some of whom built a sailing craft from the wreckage and left, never to be heard from again. The genus Peyrousea in the Asteraceae was published in 1838 by Swiss botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

pfeilii: for Joachim Friedrich Graf von Pfeil (1857-1924), German geographer, colonial politician, and plant collector in Namibia and South Africa. He emigrated to Natal around 1874 and lived in South Africa for about ten years, then later was in the Transvaal, South-West Africa (Namibia) and the Cape Province. He is commemorated with Hermannia pfeilii, Mesembryanthemum pfeilii, Euphorbia pfeilii, the former taxon Zygophyllum pfeilii (now Z. cordifolium), and probably Psilocaulon pfeilii. (JSTOR; Gunn & Codd)

Phaenohoffmannia: for Heinrich Karl Hermann Hoffmann (1819-1891), German botanist, mycologist, plant geographer, professor of botany, Director of the Botanic Garden at Giessen. The genus Phaenohoffmannia in the Fabaceae (which has been synonymized to Pearsonia) was published in 1891 by German botanist Carl Ernst Otto Kuntze. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Pharnaceum: for Pharnaces II (63-47 BC), son of Mithridates VI, king of Pontus. The genus Pharnaceum in the Molluginaceae was published in 1753 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Phelypaea: for Louis Phélypeaux de Pontchartrain (1643-1727), French politician. The genus Phelypaea in the Scrophulariaceae was published in 1758 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Philippia: for Rudolph Amandus (Rodolfo Amando) Philippi (1808-1904), German botanist, traveller, botanical explorer and plant collector, professor of natural sciences at the Polytechnic School in Kassel 1834-1850, and professor of botany and zoology at Santiago where he directed the National Museum and created the Santiago Botanic Gardens. He studied medicine and graduated in 1830 from the Royal Prussian University but never practiced. With his son Federico, he emigrated to Chile in 1851 to join his brother Bernhard Eunom who had already spent years there and had a ranch at Valdivia. Bernhard was murdered at Magallanes the following year and Rudolph decided to return to Germany, but instead became professor of natural history at the University of Chile and Director of the Director of the Museo Nacional de Chile in1853. From 1860 on he worked closely with his son who eventually took over his father's teaching posts and also succeeded him as head of the botanic garden. He conducted the first scientific exploration of the Atacama Desert region, and published some 453 articles in the fields of paleontology, entomology, ornithology, marine mammalogy, anthropology and mineralogy and described 3,720 new species from Chile. The genus Philippia in the Ericaceae was published in 1834 by German pharmacist and botanist Johann Friedrich Klotzsch. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; JSTOR)

phillipsiae: David Hollombe has contacted me with a correction of his attribution of the species Adromischus (Cotyledon) phillipsiae to Mrs. E. Lort-Phillips, aka Louisa Jane Forbes Gunnis (1857-1946), wife of English explorer Ethelbert Edward Lort-Phillips, a plant collector who accompanied her husband on journeys in Somaliland around 1883-1895 and whose specimens were used by Frank Linsly James in his The Unknown Horn of Africa, and presented to the Kew Gardens herbarium. He points out that she had 21 species named for her, but not the Adromischus. The Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names says that this taxon is named for Lady Dorothea Sarah Florence Alexandra Phillips (née Ortlepp) (1863-1940), patron of the arts and sciences in South Africa who commissioned Hermann Wilhelm Rudolf Marloth to write his Flora of South Africa.

phillipsianum: for Ethelbert Edward Lort-Phillips (1857-1944), British architect, naturalist, big-game hunter and plant collector who also studied the birds of Africa. He is commemorated with Asplenium phillipsianum and possibly also for Chenopodium phillipsianum. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; Flora of Zimbabwe)

phillipsii: for Edwin Percy Phillips (1884-1967), South African botanist, taxonomist and plant collector, noted for his monumental work The Genera of South African Flowering Plants first published in 1926, curator of the South African Museum, curator of National Herbarium, Pretoria, Fellow of the Linnean Society, Secretary of the Mountain Club of South Africa. He is also the author of An Introduction to the Study of the South African Grasses, A Preliminary List of the Known Poisonous Plants found in South Africa, Contributions to the Flora of South Africa and The Advancement of Science. He is commemorated with Agathosma phillipsii, Cyphia phillipsii, Erica phillipsii, Metalasia phillipsii, Cliffortia phillipsii, Salsola phillipsii and several other taxa that have been lost to synonymy. (Wikipedia; Gunn & Codd)

pickhardii: for Mr. R. Pickhard (fl. 1932), commemorated with Drosanthemum pickhardii. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

pienaarii: for (1) Uys de Villiers Pienaar (1930- ), South African histologist and biochemist, Director of Nature Conservation in Pretoria, succulent plant enthusiast and collector in South Africa, commemorated with Malephora pienaarii. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names); (2) P.J. Pienaar (fl. 1909-1916), on staff at the Division of Plant Pathology, made significant collections of fungi, commemorated with the former taxon Aloe pienaarii, now synonymized to Aloe cryptopoda. (Gunn & Codd)

piersii: for Charles Presgrave Piers (1886-1962), South African government surveyor and field collector, commemorated with Huernia piersii. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

pilgeri/pilgeriana/pilgerianum: probably for Robert Knuds Friedrich Pilger (1876-1953), German agrostologist, traveller, botanical explorer, plant collector, Director at Berlin-Dahlem Botanical Gardens, specialized in the study of conifers, commemorated with the genera Pilgerodendron and Pilgerochloa which do not appear in southern Africa. Taxa in southern Africa with one of these epithets include Aristida pilgeri, Eragrostis pilgeriana, Indigofera pilgeriana, Jamesbrittenia pilgeriana and Panicum pilgerianum. None of these taxa are recorded by JSTOR as having been collected by the above R.K.F. Pilger, so I can't verify that this derivation is correct. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia)

Pillansia/pillansii: for Mr. Neville Stuart Pillans (1884-1964), a well-known botanist and assistant curator at the Bolus Herbarium who collected plants near Clanwilliam and grew Gasteria pillansii in his garden in Rosebank, Cape Town, and assisted Prof. Henry Harold Welch Pearson in selecting the Kirstenbosch site for the future National Botanical Garden. See also Nevillea/nevillei. South African botanist Louisa Bolus published the genus Pillansia in the Iridaceae in 1914. He is commemorated with many taxa including Conophytum, Restio, Muraltia, Salsola, Pteronia, Senecio, Struthiola, Erica, Disa, Hoodia, Stapeliopsis, Trichocaulon, Aloe, Quaqua, Huernia, Cheiridopsis, Eucomis and many others. (PlantzAfrica; Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

pinchotii: for Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946), first chief of the U.S. Forest Service and a well-known conservationist, commemorated with Juniperus pinchotii. (Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center Native Plant Database; USA National Phenology Database)

Pisonia: for Willem Piso (Willem Pies) (1611-1678), Dutch physician, pharmacologist, botanist, pioneer of tropical medicine, and author. He studied medicine at the University of Leyden (1633) and practiced in Amsterdam, was sent in 1637 by the Dutch West India Company to be the physician to Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen who had become the governor of the Dutch colony in the northeast corner of Brazil. Piso along with George Marcgrave served as surgeons to the Dutch troops. He was particulary interested in dietary deficiencies and speculated that the colonists' lack of fresh fruit and vegetables caused many of their problems. During his stay in Brazil and in conjunction with Marcgrave, Piso wrote Historia Naturalis Brasiliae (published in 1648), a compendium of tropical medicine and pharmacology and one of the earliest works on the natural history of Brazil. He returned to the Netherlands in 1644, where he established a successful practice and later became Dean of the Amsterdam Medical College. Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus published the genus Pisonia in the Nyctaginaceae in 1753. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Pistorinia: for Santiago Pistorini (? - 1776), Spanish physician of Italian descent. In 1766 he was appointed a royal physician to the Spanish king Charles III (1716-1788) and in 1770 became assistant royal physician and assitant Chief Medical Officer to Dr Asceso. He went on sick leave in 1774, requested retirement in 1775 and died in 1776. The genus Pistorinia in the Crassulaceae was published in 1828 by Swiss botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle. (Hugh Clarke)

Pitcairnia: for William Pitcairn (1712–1791), British (Scots-born) physician and amateur botanist. Hugh Clarke adds "He studied at the Universities of Leiden under Boerhaave in the Netherlands, and at Rheims, where he was awarded his M.D. and obtained a further degree in medicine from Oxford University in 1749. He was a physician at St. Batholemew's Hospital, London and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, becoming its President from 1775-1784. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1770 'distinguished by his application to Botany and success in rearing scarce and foreign plants.'" The CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names says that he was gardener to the 1st Duke of Northumberland. The genus Pitcairnia in the Bromeliaceae was published in 1788 by French botanist Charles Louis L'Héritier de Brutelle. (Hugh Clarke; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia)

pittenii: a mistake in spelling took place here and was later corrected by Louisa Bolus because this epithet commemorates Joost van Putten (fl. 1929), a farmer in South Africa, commemorated with the former taxa Cephalophyllum pittenii (now Jordaaniella dubia) and Mesembryanthemum pittenii (now Lampranthus vanputtenii). (JSTOR)

plantii: for Robert W. Plant (?-1858), British-born nurseryman, naturalist and plant collector, one-time curator of the Durban Botanical Garden. The taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is the former taxon Watsonia plantii (now W. densiflora). According to JSTOR records it was collected in South Africa in 1851. (JSTOR)

Plaubelia: for Julius August Plaubel (fl. 1828-1834), German mycologist and homeopathist of Gotha in Thuringa. He was a contributor to the 50th Anniversary of the founding of homeopathy by Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann (1755–1843), German physician. The Flora of North says "probably for Julius August Plaubel," so there is some uncertainty here. The genus Plaubelia in the Pottiaceae was published in 1826 by Swiss-German bryologist Samuel Élisée von Bridel. (Hugh Clarke)

plittii: for Charles Christian Plitt (1869-1933), American botanist and lichenologist who had a lichen collection of over 10,000 specimens, the third largest at the time, commemorated with Xanthoparmelia plittii. He taught botany and general science in the public schools of Baltimore and then at Baltimore City college. (Wikipedia)

plowesii: for Darrel Charles Herbert Plowes (1925- ), South African-born plant collector in South Africa and Zimbabwe, naturalist, agricultural officer, specialist on Stapeliads, and co-author with Robert Bailey Drummond of Wild Flowers of Rhodesia, commemorated with Huernia plowesii. (Flora of Zimbabwe)

Pluchea: for Noël-Antoine Pluche (1688-1761), French abbot, seminary teacher and naturalist. The following is quoted from a website page on Pluche at The Online Library of Liberty: "Noël-Antoine Pluche was born in 1688. After completing his studies, he became a professor first of humanities, then of rhetoric in his hometown of Rheims, before taking holy orders. The Bishop of Laon made him director of the collège (secondary school), an offer he accepted partly to escape the controversy that arose around him for his refusal to swear adherence to the bull Unigenitus (1713). After a lettre de cachet was prepared against him, he was provided with private tutorial positions by both Gasville (royal intendant of Rouen) and the Englishman Lord Stafford. After a chance discovery of information useful to the Crown, he was offered a lucrative priory by Cardinal Fleury—which he refused on principle because of his continued refusal to sign Unigenitus. Still, his teachings and writings began to gain some notoriety. He became deaf, retired in 1749 to Varenne-Saint-Maur, and died of apoplexy in 1761. His major work, Spectacle de la nature, was an eight-volume study of life and creation that was translated into virtually all European languages, still appearing in abridged editions in the early nineteenth century. His other works include Histoire du ciel (1739), La Méchanique des langues (1751), and Concorde de la Géographie des différents âges (1765), as well as works on Holy Scripture and French royal coronation ceremonies." The genus Pluchea in the Asteraceae was published in 1817 by French botanist Alexandre Henri Gabriel de Cassini. (The Online Library of Liberty)

Plukenetia/plukenetiana/plukenetii: for Leonard Plukenet (1641-1706), British physician, Royal Professor of botany and gardener to Queen Mary II of England. "[He] published Phytographia (London, 1691–1692) in four parts in which he described and illustrated rare exotic plants. It is a copiously illustrated work of more than 2,700 figures and is frequently cited in books and papers from the 17th century to the present. He collaborated with John Ray in the second volume of Historia Plantarum (London, 1686–1704). Paul Dietrich Giseke (1741–1796) compared Plukenet’s species with those of Linnaeus in Index Linneanus (Hamburg, 1779)." The genus Plukenetia in the Euphorbiaceae was published in 1753 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. Plukenet is also commemorated with Erica plukenetii and probably for Lebeckia plukenetiana and the former taxon Aspalathus plukenetiana (now A. rugosa). (Wikipedia; PlantzAfrica)

plumieri: for Charles Plumier (1646-1704), a prominent French botanist, became royal botanist to Louis XIV, made several collecting expeditions to the Antilles and Central America. Wikidpedia says, "He is considered one of the most important of the botanical explorers of his time. All natural scientists of the 18th century spoke of him with admiration. At his death Plumier left thirty-one manuscript volumes containing descriptions, and about 6,000 drawings, 4,000 of which were of plants, while the remainder reproduced American animals of nearly all classes, especially birds and fish. The botanist Herman Boerhaave had 508 of these drawings copied at Paris; these were published later by Burmann, Professor of Botany at Amsterdam, under the title: "Plantarum americanarum." He was the author of Description des plantes de l'Amérique (Paris, 1693) and Nova plantarum americanarum genera (Paris, 1703–04). He is commemorated with Scaevola plumieri and the former taxon Duranta plumieri (now D. erecta). (Florida Keys Wildflowers by Roger Hammer; Medicinal Plants of Asia and the Pacific by Christophe Wiart; Wikipedia)

pobeguinii: for Charles Henri Oliver Pobéguin (1856-1951), French botanist and plant collector in West Africa, and a colonial administrator in French Africa, author of Essai sur la flore de la Guinée francois and Les plantes médicinales de la Guinée, commemorated with Hygrophila pobeguinii. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; CRC World Dictionary of Grasses)

pocockiae: for Mary Pocock (1886-1977), South African algologist educated in the U.K. She conducted a plant collecting expedition mostly on foot from Rhodesia across Angola in 1925-1926. She taught off and on at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, acted as head of the Botany Department there, and founded the University herbarium. In connection with her interest in marine algae, she conducted researches in various parts of the world including the USA, and was internationally recognized as an authority on algae. She is commemorated with Lampranthus pocockiae named by N.E. Brown in 1930, Oxalis pocockiae and the former taxon Amphithalea pocockiae (now A. micrantha), both of which were collected by her in the Swartberg area of South Arica and named by Louisa Bolus. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Dr. J.M. Lock, pers. comm.; JSTOR)

Podalyria: after Podalirius or Podaleirios, in Greek mythology the son of Asklepios, the god of healing. The genus Podalyria in the Fabaceae was published in 1799 by German botanist Carl Ludwig von Willdenow. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Poellnitzia/poellnitziana/poellnitzianum: for Joseph Karl Leopold Arndt von Poellnitz (1896-1945), German botanist, agriculturist and specialist on succulent plant systematics. The genus Poellnitzia in the Aloaceae was published in 1940 by Dutch naturalist Antonius Josephus Adrianus Uitewaal. He worked closely with Kurt Dinter and is commemorated with Gasteriana poellnitziana, Haworthia poellnitziana, Conophytum poellnitzianum, and the former Anacampseros poellnitziana (now A. filamentosa). (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

poeltii: probably for Josef Poelt (1924-1995), Austrian lichenologist. The taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is Buellia poeltii, which is a species of lichen published by German lichenologist Thomas Schauer in 1965.

Pohlia: for Dr. Johann Ehrenfried Pohl (1746-1800), German botanist, physician and pathologist at Dresden, author and director of a botanical garden, professor of surgery, anatomy and pathology University of Leipzig. The genus Pohlia in the Bryaceae was published by Transylvanian botanist Johann Hedwig. (Wikipedia; Moss Flora of Switzerland)

Poinciana: for Phillippe de Longvilliers (or Lonvilliers) de Poincy (or Poinci) (1583-1660), French nobleman, Bailiff Grand Cross of the Knights of Malta, patron of botany, and French Governor on St. Kitts in the West Indies. The CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names says that Poinciana is "possibly named for Louis de Poinci (Poincy), French Governor in the West Indies, a patron of botany, author of Histoire naturelle et morale des les Antilles de l'Amérique...avec un vocabulaire Caraïbe. Rotterdam 1658." This I'm fairly sure refers to the same person, but the book referred to is of uncertain parentage. It supposedly was authored in the main by French Protestant pastor Charles de Rochefort (1605-1683), and contributed to by others such as Jean-Baptiste du Tertre (1610-1687), French Dominican preacher, botanist, and author of Histoire generale des isles de Christophe, de la Guadeloupe, de la Martinique, et autres dans l'Amerique (1654), and Raymond Breton (1609-1679), French Dominican missionary and linguist. However, du Tertre claimed that his work had been plagiarized by de Rochefort and others have suggested that much of the text was actually written by de Poincy. It has also been proposed that it was largely a work of propaganda instigated by de Poincy. De Poincy at least signed the preface of the second edition, but the degree of his input is unclear. Charles de Rochefort has often been confused with the jurist Cesár de Rochefort (1630-1691), but I have not seen any convincing evidence of a connection between the two. The book Historic Architecture in the Caribbean Islands by Edward Crain refers to French Governor M. Phillipe de Langvilliers de Poincy as an amateur botanist, and the official website of the island of Martinique lists Philippe de Longvilliers, chevalier de Poincy, as governor first from 1639-1645 and then from 1647-1660. In any case, de Poincy was sent to the Caribbean in 1638 originally under a commission by the government of France, and basically set himself up as the ruler of the island of St. Kitts and then expanded his control to St. Croix, St. Bartholomew and St. Martin. Within four years he was building the elaborate Chateau de Montagne on his estate called La Fontaine, reportedly one of the grandest ever built in the Americas. There is some nomenclatural confusion about this epithet because there is a genus Poinciana in the Caesalpiniaceae/Fabaceae, but there is also a tree commonly called the Royal Poinciana in the same family that is actually Delonix regia (previously in genus Poinciana). David Hollombe has fleshed out the history of this confusing taxon in the following manner: the taxon Poinciana pulcherrima, aka Pride of Barbados, was known as Poincillade as far back as 1659 and was presumably named for Philippe de Longvilliers de Poincy. The name was Latinized by Tournefort in 1700 as Poinciana, and he indicated that it was named for de Poincy. Then Linnaeus adopted the name and made it a valid genus in Species Plantarum in 1753. He included only P. pulcherrima in the genus at that time, but added several more species later. Delonix regia, or Royal Poinciana as it came to be widely known, was first described as Poinciana regia in 1829 by the Czech botanist Wenceslaus Bojer because of its similarities to P. pulcherrima and other species that had already been added to that genus. In 1837 it was placed in its own genus Delonix and given the name Delonix regia by botanist Constantine Samuel Rafinesque. So de Poincy could not have had anything to do with the introduction of D. regia, aka the flamboyant tree, into the West Indies because it wasn't even known until over a century and a half after his death, and every source, of which there are many, that state that the flamboyant tree was introduced into the West Indies from Madagascar by Gov. de Poincy specifically for his garden is incorrect. He probably had Poinciana pulcherrima in his garden, and when Delonix regia was later introduced later, the two became confused. However the name Poinciana was intended to honor him. The genus Poinciana with several species including pulcherrima does appear in southern Africa, but Delonix does not. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.)

Poinsettia: for Joel Roberts Poinsett (1775-1851), American statesman, member of the House of Representatives, Secretary of War under President Martin van Buren, botanist, gardener, and diplomat. From 1801 he travelled across Europe, only returning to the U.S. several months after his father's death in 1803. Later that year his sister died, and he inherited a fortune. In 1806 he travelled to Russia and the next year at the invitation of the Russian Czar left with eight companions on a tour of the Empire. So difficult was the journey that only Poinsett and two others survived it. He served as Consul-General to Chile and Argentina from 1810 to 1814 having been appointed by President James Madison. He was special envoy to Mexico 1822-1823 and became the first Minister to Mexico in 1825 (ambassadors not being appointed until 1896). It was here he discovered what in Mexico is called "Flor de Noche Buena" (Christmas Eve flower). He sent samples of the plant back to the States. By 1836 the plant was widely known as ‘poinsettia’. The genus Poinsettia (which is now Euphorbia) was published in 1836 by Scottish physician and botanist Robert Graham. He was a member of the prestigious society, Columbian Institute for the Promotion of Arts and Sciences, which included many prominent men including former Presidents. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

poiretii: for Jean Louis Marie Poiret (1755-1834), a French clergyman, botanist and explorer and plant collector, mainly in Algeria, specialist in algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens; after the French Revolution he became professor of natural history at the Ecole Central of Aisne. He is commemorated with Adiantum poiretii and possibly also for the former taxon Muraltia poiretii (now M. ericoides). (Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.; Flora of Zimbabwe)

Poivrea: for Pierre Poivre (1719-1786), French botanist and naturalist, plant collector and traveller in China, Indochina, the Philippines, and Madagascar, first as a Catholic missionary, then as a member of the French East India Company, author of Voyages d'un Philosophe (The Voyages of a Philosopher), a book that was read with interest by Thomas Jefferson. Poivre first landed on Mauritius during one of his travels in the 1750's with seeds of many tropical plants and spices, determined to break the Dutch monopoly on spices from the East Indies. In the 1760's he served as administrator of Mauritius and Reunion and created a botanical garden with trees, shrubs and plants from the tropics. He introduced clove, nutmeg, pepper and cinnamon and other spices. Called the Botanical Garden of Pamplemousses, it still thrives today on northern Mauritius as the Mauritius National Botanical Garden or Sir Seewoosagur Botanic Garden. Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam is regarded as the father of the Mauritian nation being a leader in its independence movement and its first Prime Minister. 'Pamplemousse' is the French word for grapefruit. The genus Poivrea in the Combretaceae was published in 1806 by French botanist Louis Marie Aubert du Petit Thouars. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

polackii: for Arthur John Richard Polack of Pretoria who died about 1957, with no further information except that it is likely he was a person known to British botanist Brian Laurence Burtt who published the former taxon Streptocarpus polackii, now synonymized to S. cyaneus, in 1946. This taxon is to my knowledge the only one with this specific epithet. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Polemannia/polemannii: for Peter Heinrich Poleman (Polemann, Pohlmann) (c.1780-1839), German chemist, apothecary and keen naturalist who came to the Cape in 1802 and was friendly with people like Burchell, Harvey and Krebs. The pharmaceutical firm he worked for had a big influence on the study of Cape natural history by employing many naturalists and collectors such as Krebs, Bergius, C.F. Drège and Ecklon. He died at Cape Town. The genus Polemannia in the Apiaceae was published in 1837 by Danish botanical collector and apothecary Christian Friedrich Ecklon and German-born South African botanist and plant collector Carl Ludwig Phillip Zeyher. Poleman was also commemorated with the former taxon Mystropetalon polemannii, now synonymized to M. thomii. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

pole-evansii/Polevansia/polevansii: for Dr. Illtyd Buller Pole Evans (1879-1968), Welsh botanist, mycologist and plant pathologist, plant collector, traveller, Fellow of the Linnean Society, Director of the Botanical Survey of South Africa 1918-1939, first editor of the Flowering Plants of South Africa, member of the Transvaal Department of Agriculture. He is commemorated with many species such as Cynodon polevansii, Gladiolus pole-evansii, Streptocarpus pole-evansii, Eucomis pole-evansii, Nananthus pole-evansii, Conophytum pole-evansii, Dinteranthus pole-evansii and the former taxon Digitaria polevansii, now synonymized to D. seriata. The name Pole Evans is sometimes hyphenated and sometimes not. At least two taxa, Haemanthus pole-evansii and Scadoxus pole-evansii, which do not appear in southern Africa, is named for his son Reginald. The genus Polevansia in the Poaceae was published in 1966 by Bernard de Winter, and Vol. 20 of Flowering Plants of South Africa was dedicated to him. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Gunn & Codd)

Polhillia: for Dr. Roger Marcus Polhill (1937- ), botanist at Kew Gardens, authority on legumes, plant collector in the Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana, and Malawi, and editor of Flora of Tropical East Africa 1966-1997. The genus Polhillia in the Fabaceae was published in 1986 by South African botanist Charles Howard Stirton. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

pollardii: for a Mr. Pollard (fl. 1960), security officer for the diamond mines in southern Namibia who facilitated botanical journeys on the company's property, commemorated with Ruschia pollardii. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Pollichia: for Johann Adam Pollich (1740-1780), German physician who practiced in Kaiserslautern around 1780, botanist and entomologist, naturalist and author of Historia plantarum in Palatinatu, a history of plants growing in the Palatinate (an area of southwestern Germany). The genus Pollichia in the Caryophyllaceae was published in 1789 by Scottish botanist William Aiton. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Polyxena: after the mythological daughter of Priam and Hecuba. Priam was the King of Troy during the Trojan War and was the father of Hector and Paris. The genus Polyxena in the Hyacinthaceae was published in 1843 by German botanist Karl Sigismund Kunth. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

poncinsii: for Edmonde Montaigne, Vicomte de Poncins (1866-1937), one of the great explorers of the 19th century, travelling through Russia, India and parts of East Africa, and commemorated with Physcia poncinsii. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Pontederia: for Giulio (Julius) Pontedera (1688-1757), Italian botanist and physician, plant collector, professor of botany at Padua, and Praefectus of the Botanical Garden of Padua. The genus Pontederia in the Pontederiaceae was published in 1753 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Popowia: for Johannes Siegmund Valentin Popowitsch (1705-1774), professor of German and linguistics in Vienna 1753-1766. A polymath, he was primarily interested in biology, botany (especially sponges and fungi) and linguistics. The genus Popowia in the Annonaceae was published in 1838 by Austrian botanist Stephan Friedrich Ladislaus Endlicher. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

porteri: for Harold Nixon Porter (1883-1958), South African architect, town planner and conservationist, president of the Transvaal Horticultural Society, commemorated with Erica porteri. (Gunn & Codd)

poseideonis: possibly after Poseidon, God of the Sea? The taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is Senecio poseideonis, collected in Natal in 1969 by Hilliard and Burtt, with no further information as to its derivation. No other taxon I know of has this specific epithet.

pospischilii: for a certain A. Pospischil who collected in East Africa, commemorated with Cymbopogon pospischilii. (JSTOR; Virtual Herbaria)

Pottia: for Johann Friedrich Pott (1738–1805), German botanist and professor of botany in Braunschweig, Germany, personal physician to the Duke of Brunswick, correspondent with Linnaeus. He maintained an extensive herbarium of vascular plants that was purchased by the Botanical Museum of St Petersburg (currently the Komarov Botanical Research Institute) in 1826. The genus Pottia in the Pottiaceae was published in 1829 by German botanist August Emanuel Fürnrohr.

pottiae: for Reino Leendertz (later Mrs. Pott) (1869-1965), Dutch botanist and the first official botanist employed at the Transvaal Museum, author of Plantengids voor den Hortus Botanicus te Amsterdam., commemorated with Thesium pottiae and Lotononis pottiae. See also leendertziae. (Elsa Pooley; Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

pottsiana: the taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is Riccia pottsiana, with no further information as to its derivation.

pottsii: for (1) George Potts (1877-1948), British-born botanist and professor of botany at the University College of the Orange Free State from 1905 until retirement in 1937. He collected mainly in the Orange Free State and was a member of Dr. Pole Evans' Botanical Survey Advisory Committee, died in Bloemfontein. He is commemorated with Delosperma pottsii and the former taxon Gymnostomum pottsii, now synonymized to Didymodon tophaceus. (Elsa Pooley; Gunn & Codd; JSTOR); (2) George Honington Potts (1829-1907), British-born Scottish painter, decorator and plant cultivator, member of the Scottish Botanical Alpine Club, commemorated with Crocosmia pottsii, formerly Tritonia pottsii, published 1883, and Montbretia pottsii, published 1877, which he discovered growing in his garden and for which he apparently was never able to fully account. ("The Gardener's Chronicle," 1877; David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Pouzolzia: for Pierre Marie Casimir de Pouzolz (1785-1858), French soldier, botanist and writer on flora of France, member of the Linnean Society of Paris and the Academie du Gard, author of Catalogue of plants which grow naturally in the Gard (1842) and Flore du département du Gard, a work which was completed and published after his death. He had a herbarium containing more than 20,000 specimens. The genus Pouzolzia in the Urticaceae was published in 1830 by French botanist Charles Gaudichaud-Beaupré. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

powellii: for John Wesley Powell (1834-1902), famed explorer and runner of the Colorado River through the American Grand Canyon. His research on Indians led to the creation of the Bureau of Ethnology and he became its Director. He also was appointed Director of the U.S. Geological Survey in 1881 and held that post until retiring in 1894. He was founder and President of the Anthropological Society of Washington, an early member of the Biological Society of Washington, an organizer of the Geological Society of Washington, and he helped establish the National Geographic Society and the Geological Society of America, receiving honorary degrees from several universities and becoming President in 1888 of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Few men in America have combined the qualities and accomplishments of exploration and science to the extent that he did, and he was buried in Arlington National Cemetary. He is commemorated with Amaranthus powellii. (Robert W. Freckman Herbarium; Wildflowers of Wisconsin)

pozoi: for Don José del Pozo (sometimes written as D.G. del Pozo) (c.1757-c.1821), a Spanish painter and plant collector who first collected the fern species Stegnogramma pozoi in Spain, according to the plant name author, classmate and lifelong friend the Spanish botanist Mariano Lagasca y Segura. He participated in the Malaspina expedition in 1789 and painted plants that were collected by the expedition members. He died in Peru. (Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.; JSTOR; David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

prageri: for a J. Prager who collected in Great Namaqualand in 1918, commemorated with the former taxon Felicia prageri, now synonymized to F. namaquensis. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

presliana/preslii: for Karel (Carl) Borivoj Presl (1794-1852), professor of botany at Prague University, brother of noted botanist Jan Svatopluk Presl, and author of Flora bohemica in 1820. The journal Preslia of the Czech Botanical Society is named in both of their honors. He is commemorated with Lobelia presslii and the former taxon Hermannia presliana, now synonymized to H. scabra. (Elsa Pooley)

preussii: for Dr. Paul Rudolf Preuss (1861- ), German botanist, traveller and collector, participated in the 1888-1891 Zintgraff Expedition to Cameroon, collected Asplenium preussii in 1891 in Cameroon. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; JSTOR)

Priestleya: for Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), noted English chemist, clergyman, philosopher, Fellow of the Royal Society, prolific author best known for his work on the chemistry of gases and possibly the discovery of oxygen. Hugh Clarke adds: "A multi-talented man, he studied French, Italian, and German; published over 150 works ranging from political philosophy to education to theology to natural philosophy to history and also wrote a seminal work on English grammar (The Rudiments of English Grammar, 1761). By the time he died he was a member of almost every major scientific society including being a Fellow of the Royal Society." Because of his advocacy of religious toleration and equal rights, he helped to found Unitarianism in England. His views were controversial and a mob burned his home and church forcing him to live his final ten years in the United States. The genus Priestleya in the Fabaceae was published in 1825 by Swiss botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names, Wikipedia)

prieurii: for François Mathias René Leprieur (1799-1869), French navy pharmacist and amateur botanist, stationed in Senegambia then lived in the colony of French Guiana, collected in Gambia, Senegal and Madagascar. His work formed the basis of Florae Senegambiae tentamen which was published between 1831 and 1833. He is commemorated with Enteropogon prieurii and Zanthoxylum leprieurii. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses; JSTOR)

primosii: for Mr. Richard Primos (fl. 1928-1936), plant collector of Cape Town. He is commemorated with Vanheerdea primosii, Ruschia primosii, Titanopsis primosii, the former taxa Conophytum primosii (now C. roodiae) and Meyerophytum primosii (now Dicrocaulon microstigma), and possibly also for Cannomois primosii. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

princeae: probably for Magdalene von Prince (1870-1936), German woman who travelled with her husband Tom Prince in 1896 to East Africa, author of Eine deutsche Frau im Innern Deutsch-Ostafrikas: nach Tagebuchblättern erzahlt (A German woman in the interior of German East Africa), and according to JSTOR records collected plants 1898-1899 in Tanzania. The taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is the former Anthericum princeae, collected in Tanzania, published in 1910 and now synonymized to Chlorophytum sphacelatum, with no further information as to its derivation.

pringlei: for Victor L. Pringle, South African plant collector who first collected Haworthia pringlei in 1973. This taxon has now been synonymized to H. bolusii var. pringlei. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

prinslooi: for Gerry J. Prinsloo (fl. 1965), South African succulent grower who discovered Aloe prinslooi. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Desert Tropicals; "What's in a Name: Epithets in Aloe" by Estrela Figueiredo and Gideon F. Smith in Bradleya, 2010)

Printzia: for Jacob Printz (1740-1779), Swedish botanist, pupil of Linnaeus, author of Plantae rariores africanae (1760), which described 100 South African plants, based on a collection sent from the Cape of Good Hope. Jacob Printz himself never visited the Cape. Elsa Pooley says that Printzia is named for a Mr. H.C. Printz of Christiana, Mpumalanga, which is in accord with Hugh Clarke and Deon Kesting. However the genus name Printzia in the Asteraceae was published in 1825 by French botanist Alexandre Henri Gabriel de Cassini, and since the town of Christiana was not even established until the 1870's, Pooley's etymology cannot be correct. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Imperial Encyclopaedic Dictionary, 1901)

priorii: for (1) Richard Chandler Prior, born Alexander (1809-1902), a British medical practitioner and amateur botanist who collected actively in the Eastern Cape and Karoo areas 1846-1848; author of On the Popular Names of British Plants. His father's name was Alexander, but his maternal uncle died and left him property on the condition that he change his name to Prior, which he did. He is commemorated with Gladiolus priorii, Erica priorii, and the former taxa Stachys priorii (now S. scabrida) and Aspalathus priorii (now A. forbesii), and the genus Prioria which does not appear in southern Africa. He is also commemorated with taxa with the specific epithet alexandri. (Gunn & Codd; JSTOR); (2) JSTOR records for the former taxon Watsonia priorii (now synonymized to W. pillansii) show that the holotype was collected by an A. Prior in 1903. This can not refer to Richard Chandler Prior since he died the year before, but I have no more information about this name.

prittwitzii: possibly for Georg von Prittwitz und Gaffron (1861-1936), studied geography, geology, botany, and mineralogy, participated in exploration of German East Africa in 1893-1894. The taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is the former Cineraria prittwitzii, now synonymized to C. deltoidea. Another possibility however is Hauptmann von Prittwitz und Gaffron (fl. 1907) listed by Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names as the honoree of Kalanchoe prittwitzii which was collected in 1907 in Tanzania but does not appear in southern Africa. But since the German word for Captain is Hauptmann, and JSTOR records for Georg von Prittwitz und Gaffron indicate that he collected in Tanzania, these two names probably refer to the same person.

pritzeliana/pritzelii: for Ernst Georg Pritzel (1875-1946), German botanist, phytogeographer and taxonomist, travelled and collected with Ludwig Diels in the Hantam Mountans and Districts of Clanwilliam, Vanrhynsdorp and Calvinia, Western Cape, and later in Australia and New Zealand, commemorated with Gladiolus pritzelii and Moraea pritzeliana. He was the author of Botanische Jahrbücher (1804-1805) and contributed significantly to the treatments for the Lycopodiaceae, Psilotaceae and Pittosporaceae families in Engler and Prantl's Die Natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien. (Wikipedia; JSTOR; CRC World Dictionary of Grasses)

proschii: for Roderich de Prosch (1866-1910), plant collector in Zambia and missionary on the Zambezi affiliated with the Société des Missions Évangeliques de Paris, commemorated with Vangueria proschii. (JSTOR)

Pseudobaeckea: for Dr. Abraham Baeck (1713-1795), Swedish physician, scientist and writer, physician-in-ordinary to the king and President of the Royal College of Medicine, friend of Linnaeus. The genus Pseudobaeckea in the Bruniaceae was published in 1891 by German botanist Franz Josef Niedenzu. (Dictionary of Biographical Reference)

Pseudoleskea: not really named for Nathanael Gottfried Leske (1751-1786), German naturalist, economist and geologist, and friend of Goethe, but an epithet meaning basically 'false Leskea,' and referring to this individual. Leske studied at the Bergakademie of Freiberg, Saxony, under his close friend the famous minerologist and geologist Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749-1817) with whom he carried on a correspondence throughout his life, and the Franckeschen Stiftungen in Halle. He became professor at the University of Leipzig teaching natural history in 1775 and economics from 1777-1786. In 1786 he accepted the chair of financial science and economics at Marburg University, but died shortly thereafter in an accident at the age of 35. His large mineral and natural history collection called the Leskean Cabinet was sold after his death to the Dublin society (later Royal Dublin Society) in 1792 and is now housed in the National Museum of Ireland. He wrote on diverse topics and was a co-editor with others of Leipziger Magazin zur Naturkunde, Mathematik und Oekonomie from 1781. He also formed a significant collaboration with the well-known botanical illustrator Adam Ludwig Wirsing. The genus Pseudoleskea in the Leskeaceae was published in 1852 by German bryologist Philipp Bruch and French botanist Wilhelm Philipp Schimper. (Wikipedia)

Puccinellia: for Benedetto Luigi Puccinelli (1808-1850), Italian botanist, professor of botany, Director of the Botanical Garden of Lucca. The genus Puccinellia in the Poaceae was published in 1848 by Italian botanist Filippo Parlatore. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Pueraria: for Marc Nicolas Puerari (1766-1845), Swiss botanist, teacher, and pupil of Danish-Norwegian botanist and zoologist.Martin Vahl in Copenhagen. The genus Pueraria in the Fabaceae was published in 1825 by Swiss botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

pueschelii: for a Lieut. Püschel who made a small collection in the area of Grootfontein in Namibia, honored by the name Cephalocroton pueschelii. (Gunn & Codd)

puiggarii: for Juan Ignacio Puiggari (1823-1900), co-author of Fungi puiggariani, plant collector in Brazil, commemorated with Calopadia puiggarii. (JSTOR)

purcellii: probably for William Frederick Purcell (1866-1919), British-born emigree to South Africa, specialized on arachnids at the South African Museum, retired in 1905 and spent the rest of his life collecting arachnids and other insects, and making a collection of the flora of the area around his farm. Crassula purcellii was collected in 1906 and named in 1907 by Selmar Schonland. The JSTOR list of collectors also includes a Miss M. Purcell who botanized around 1932, but this would not seem likely to be the derivation here. The taxon Crassula purcellii has now been synonymized to Crassula atropurpurea var. purcellii.

purpusii: for Joseph Anton Purpus (1860-1932), head gardener at the Darmstadt Botanical Garden, lived in Mexico for 50 years and collected plants there, or his older brother the German botanical explorer Carl Albert Purpus, commemorated with Conophytum purpusii and Mesembryanthemum purpusii. I'm not sure which of these brothers belongs to these two epithets, although Carl Albert probably was probably honored more.

putterillii: for Victor Armsby Putterill (c.1896-1967), South African mycologist, appointed government fruit inspector in 1917, head of the mycological laboratory in Cape Town in 1918, and Chief Fruit Inspector in 1926, commemorated with the taxon Ruschia putterillii. (Gunn & Codd; Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Putterlickia: for Aloys Putterlick (1810-1845), Austrian botanist and physician, bryologist and physician, and head of the Natural History Museum of Vienna. The genus Putterlickia in the Celastraceae was published in 1840 by Austrian botanist Stephan Friedrich Ladislaus Endlicher. CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

puttkameriana: for a Mr. Puttkamer (fl. 1914), commemorated with Hereroa puttkameriana. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

pynaertii: for Léon Auguste Edouard Joseph Pynaert (1876-1968), Belgian plant collector in the Congo, commemorated with the former taxon Tiliacora pynaertii, now synonymized to T. funifera. He was the son of Belgian botanist Edouard-Christophe Pynaert (1835-1900), co-editor of several periodicals, including "Flore des Serres et des Jardins," "Revue de l'Horticulture Belge" and the "Bulletin d'Arboriculture." (JSTOR; Wikipedia)

Pyrenowilmsia: directly or indirectly named for Friedrich Wilms (1848-1919), German apothecary, botanical collector and traveller. He was the son of German plant collector Friedrich Heinrich Wilms (1811-1880). Hugh Clarke provides the following: "He came to South Africa in 1883 and initially collected in Pietermaritzburg but later further north to Lydenburg which he used as his base for the next 13 years. Among his expeditions he ventured through the malaria-infested coastal flats of Portuguese East Africa (now Mozambique) in winter when there were fewer mosquitoes about. He returned to Germany (1896) with an extensive collection of mosses, lichens, ferns and phanerograms and described his experiences in Ein botanischer Ausflug ins Boerenland (1898). Later, he was appointed as an assistant, mainly in the moss section of the Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem." The genus Pyrenowilmsia in the Pyrenulaceae was published in 2007 by American lichenologist Richard Clinton Harris and Dutch lichenologist Andre Aptroot. In addition to this genus name he was honored by many taxa with the specific epithets wilmsii, wilmsiana and wilmsianum. (Wikipedia)

quarrei: for Paul Quarré (1904-1980), Belgian botanist and plant collector in the Congo, commemorated with Hyparrhenia quarrei, the former taxon Cassia quarrei (now synonymized to Chamaecrista stricta) and possibly also for the former taxon Ceropegia quarrei, now C. stenantha. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses; JSTOR)

Quartinia/quartiniana/quartinianum: for Ricardo Leao Quartin (or Quartin-Dillon) (1811-1840), French botanist (apparently born in Lisbon), physician, plant collector, student of physician and botanist Achille Richard at the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, died while exploring on the French 1838-1843 expedition led by Charlemagne Théophile Lefebvre to Abyssinia (Ethiopia). He wrote Des differences appréciables entre le sang de la veine porte et celui des autres vein which was probably his doctoral thesis. The genus Quartinia in the Fabaceae was published in 1849 by Achille Richard. Quartin-Dillon is commemorated with Rhus quartiniana (possibly a synonym of Searsia quartiniana), Dioscorea quartiniana, Hermannia quartiniana, and the former taxa Urginea quartiniana (now synonymized to Albuca abyssinica) and Gymnothrix quartiniana (now Pennisetum macrourum). There is also a bird, the yellow-bellied swee (Coccopygia quartinia) which has a subspecies quartinia whose range is Eritrea and Ethiopia, which I would not be surprised to learn was named for him, and many other plant species that do not appear in southern Africa such as Kniphofia quartiniana, Swertia quartiniana, and a couple of dozen others, and a genus Quartinia in the Lythraceae published by Stephen Friedrich Ladislaus Endlicher. (CRC World Dictionary of Grasses; Flora of Zimbabwe; Geneology family tree of Eduarda Quartin Pinto of Rio de Janeiro)

quensonii: for Francois Louis Joseph Quenson (1794-1879), French magistrate, jurist, historian, president of the Société d'agriculture, sciences et arts de Douai, commemorated with the former taxon Strelitzia quensonii, now synonymized to S. nicolai. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

quintanilhae: for Aurélio Pereira da Silva Quintanilha (1892-1987) who apparently enjoyed great prestige among botanists in South Africa. Born in Lisbon, he attended medical school for a time, then moved into the fields of botany and natural history. He was a university professor, a researcher of international renown in the fields of genetics, the biology of fungi, and the study of cotton. He lived in Mozambique for some years and is commemorated with Cucumis quintanilhae. (Biblioteca Digital de Botanica; Harvard University Herbaria database; JSTOR; Wikipedia)

quintasii: for Francisco Joaquim Dias Quintas (fl. 1885-1893), plant collector, commemorated with Dicliptera quintasii. (JSTOR)

rabenhorstii: either for (1) Rudolf Rabenhorst (fl. 1869-1879), plant collector in Central Africa, Mexico, China and elsewhere, or (2) Gottlob (Gottlieb) Ludwig Rabenhorst (1806-1881), German botanist, bryologist, mycologist, pharmacist and author of Deutschlands Kryptogamenflora in two volumes. The JSTOR website has specimen records of the former taxon Calymperes rabenhorstii (now synonymized to C. pallidum) being collected in Nigeria by a Rabenhorst (no initials given), and Rudolf Rabenhorst did collect in Nigeria, whereas I have no information that G.L. Rabenhorst collected there, so that might be a clue. However this species is a moss and G.L. Rabenhorst was a moss specialist. Rudolf Rabenhorst was G.L. Rabenhorst's son. (JSTOR; Wikipedia)

Rabiea/rabieana: sources such as Umberto Quattrocchi's CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names and Eggli and Newton's Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names have identified the person that the epithet Rabiea was named for as W.A. Rabie (fl. 1930), variously described as a South African plant collector, farmer and religious leader of some kind. Through additional researches by Hugh Clarke, we can now say that the epithet probably honors one William Abbot Rabie (1869-1936), a South African deacon and plant collector in the Orange Free State. Hugh's information includes the following: "His family  farm Groenkloof was just outside Fauresmith, the second oldest town in the southern Free State. He was the second of four brothers who all went to  Grey College, Bloemfontein, the third oldest school in South Africa. After leaving school he worked on the farm for 30 years. In 1899 the Anglo-Boer war broke out and after joining the Republican Forces, Rabie was taken captive and sent to the Amritsar POW Camp in India. After the war in 1902, he took up farming again at the family farm. He had to rebuild the house and lived there until his death in 1936. He served on numerous committees and was a popular public speaker in the local community. He served as an active deacon in the church congregation. As a farmer he must have had an interest in nature, certainly it is known that other members of his family did." JSTOR records indicate that the taxon Salsola rabieana was collected by a W.A. Rabie in 1926 in the Fauresmith District of South Africa, and this is certainly the same individual. The genus Rabiea in the Aizoaceae was published in 1930 by British plant taxonomist Nicholas Edward Brown. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Mr. Chris Rabie, pers. comm. to Hugh Clarke; Mr. John Krige, pers. comm. to Hugh Clarke)

raddianum: for Giuseppi Raddi (1770-1829), Italian botanist who explored the basins of the Orinoco and Amazon Rivers in Brazil and studied the cryptogams there, commemorated with Adiantum raddianum. (Flora of Zimbabwe)

radlkoferi: for Ludwig Adolph Timotheus Radlkofer (1829-1927), taxonomist, mycologist, algologist, professor of botany at the University of Munich and Director of the Botanical Museum in Munich, also an authority on the sexual and asexual reproduction of plants and author of Die Befruchtung (1856). He is commemorated with Greyia radlkoferi and the former taxon Pappea radlkoferi, now synonymized to P. capensis. He was also honored with the generic epithet Radlkofera, which does not appear in southern Africa. He died in the same room in which he was born. (PlantzAfrica; Wikipedia)

Radyera/radyeri: for Robert Allen Dyer (1900-1987), South African botanist, Director of the Botanical Research Institute at Pretoria 1944-1963. Hugh Clarke adds: "founder of the Pretoria National Botanical Garden; President, inter alia, of the Pretoria Horticultural Society (1961-1972): author of many taxonomic publications, especially succulents; received many local/overseas awards including the first Gold Medal from the South African Association of Botanists (1973) and an honorary D.Sc. degree from the University of the Witwatersrand (1976)." The genus Radyera in the Malvaceae was published in 1957 by English botanist Arthur Allman Bullock, and Dyer is also commemorated with the taxon Berkheya radyeri. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; JSTOR; Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.)

Rafnia: for Carl Gottlob Rafn (1769-1808), Danish botanist, school teacher and author or co-author of publications including Flora of Denmarks and Holstein, and other influential papers on a broad array of basic and applied sciences such as plant physiology, animal hibernation, and life saving measures for drowning persons. He became a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters in 1798. The genus Rafnia in the Fabaceae was published in 1794 by Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia)

raineriana: for Rainer Joseph (1783-1853), Archduke of Austria, patron of botany. The taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is Leonotis raineriana, with no more information as to its derivation.

Ramboldia: for Gerhard Walter Rambold (1956- ), German lichenologist. Hugh Clarke adds the following: "[He was] Professor of Mycology and head of the DNA Analytics Laboratory at University of Bayreuth, Germany. He studied at the University in Munich, where he obtained his Ph.D. in 1989. In 1982-2006 he mainly collected lichenized and non-lichenized ascomycetes in Central Europe, the Canary Islands, Australia, Southern Africa, and USA (Arizona). He is author of Bibliotheca Lichenologica Volumes 34 (1989) and 48 (1992) with D. Triebel, has authored or co-authored well over 100 papers on mycology, lichenology and ecoinformatics, and is lead editor of the lichen information system LIAS (www.lias.net)." The genus Ramboldia in the Lecanoraceae was published in 1994 by Ginteras Kantvilas, head of the Tasmanian Herbarium at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, and Australian lichenologist John Alan Elix. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; Hugh Clarke; JSTOR)

Randia: for Isaac Rand (?-1743), British botanist, apothecary, gardener, Fellow of the Royal Society, and the first Director and lecturer in botany at the Society of Apothecaries’ Physic Garden, Chelsea, which was among the most highly regarded botanical gardens of Europe during the 18th century. The genus Randia in the Rubiaceae was published in 1753 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; JSTOR)

randii: for Dr. Richard Frank Rand (1856-1937), surgeon trained at Edinburgh. His obituary in Nature says that he "served as medical officer with the pioneer column sent by Cecil Rhodes to Mashonaland in 1890. As medical officer to the Chartered Company's police, and later chief hospital surgeon at Fort Salisbury, he devoted himself specially to the treatment of malaria, the scourge of the early settlers and then not recognized as a mosquito-borne disease. The active period of Dr. Rand's long life was spent in practice in South Africa, chiefly at Salisbury and other places in Southern Rhodesia, and his great experience of tropical diseases was an important asset to the British forces in the Boer War and later in the Great War." He is commemorated with species names in current genera including Leonotis, Melhania, Terminalia, Asclepias, Sisyranthus, Holothrix, Barleria, Turraea, Buchnera, Vangueria and Canthium, and in others that have been synonymized. (JSTOR; Flora of Zimbabwe; Gunn & Codd)

rangei/rangeana: for (1) Paul Theodor Range (1879-1952), German government geologist and naturalist who emigrated to Namibia (SW Africa) and had a passion for collecting plants and kept detailed records of collecting sites, place names, and literature references, commemorated with Sporobolus rangei, Pteronia rangei, Cephalophyllum rangei, Elephantorrhiza rangei, Tetragonia rangeana and other taxa which have been synonymized. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses; JSTOR); (2) Max Range, German physician who collected in SW Africa, and who according to the Etymological Dictionary of Grasses is commemorated with Melinis rangei and Merxmuellera rangei. However both of these species were collected in Namibia (M. rangei by P. Range) according to JSTOR records, and Max Range collected in Nigeria so this is suspect and may not be accurate.

Raspalia: for François Vincent Raspail (1794-1878), French botanist, politician, chemist, and naturalist. He was one of the originators of cell theory in biology and an early proponent of the use of the microscope for the study of plants. The genus Raspalia in the Bruniaceae was published in 1826 by French botanist Adolphe Théodore Brongniart. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

rattrayi: for George Rattray (1872-1941), Scottish-born teacher and naturalist, principal of Selbourne College, East London, for 27 years, who collected extensively in the East Cape. His main interest was in cycads. He is commemorated with Hydrophilus rattrayi, the former taxon Crassula rattrayi (now synonymized to C. pubescens) and probably also for the former taxon Pavetta rattrayi (now P. inandensis). (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Gunn & Codd)

rauhii: for Professor Werner Rauh (1913-2000), German botanist, Director of the Institute of Systematic Botany and Plant Geography, University of Heidelberg, particularly interested in succulents, collected extensively in Namaqualand, the Karoo, Transvaal and the Eastern Cape, commemorated with Conophytum rauhii and the former taxon Crassula rauhii, now synonymized to C. pubescens. He is also honored with the genus Rauhia in the Amaryllidaceae which does not appear in southern Africa, and several other genera. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; JSTOR; Gunn & Codd)

Rauia: for Ambrosius Rau (1784-1930), German botanist, minerologist, naturalist and plant collector, and author of Enumeratio rosarum circa Wirceburgum. The genus Rauia in the Rutaceae was published in 1823 by German botanists Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck and Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Rauiella: for Eugene Abraham Rau (1848-1932), American bryologist, co-author with Alpheus Baker Hervey of Catalogue of North American Musci. The genus Rauiella was published by German botanist Hermann Johann O. Reimers in 1937. (Bryophyte Flora of North America, Provisional Publication, Missouri Botanical Garden)

rautaneniana/rautanenianum/rautanenii: for Rev. Martti Rautanen (1845-1926), Russian-born Lutheran church missionary pioneer who went to South-West Africa, specifically Ovamboland in present-day Namibia, where he served more than 50 years. He was the director of the missionary station and his most important work was the translation of the Bible into Oshindonga. He amassed a significant collection of ethnography which is now housed at the National Museum of Finland, and sent plants that he collected to the University of Zurich. He is commemorated with Schinziophyton rautanenii, Hermannia rautanenii, Eriospermum rautanenii, Nesaea rautanenii, Albuca rautanenii, Petalidium rautanenii, Crinum rautanenianum, and others that have been synonymized, also with the genus Neorautanenia and the genus Rautanenia which does not appear in southern Africa. (Wikipedia; Gunn & Codd)

Rauvolfia: for Leonhard (Leonhart) Rauwolff (Rauvolf, Rauvolff) (1535-1596), German physician and botanist, a traveller, plant collector, and author. "He was a pupil of Guillaume Rondelet in 1560. In 1565 he set up a medical practice in Augsburg. In that year he married Regina Jung, daughter of the patrician, Doctor Ambrosius Jung, the Younger. In 1573 he began a three year journey to the Near East. This journey was made possible by his brother-in-law Melchior Manlich. He hoped Leonhard would come back with new plants and drugs that could be traded profitably by his firm that already traded with the Levant. But in addition to his botanical investigations, Leonhard observed and recorded his impressions of the people, customs, and sights of these Levantine trading centers as well. For example, he was the first European to describe the preparation and drinking of coffee. Leonhard visited many countries such as Syria and Armenia. In 1573 he visited Constantinople, in 1574 he was in Baghdad and in 1575 he was in Jerusalem. Leonhard was the first botanist of the new era who had traveled this far into Asia. Circa 1576 he published the results of his botanic expeditions in his fourth herbarium Viertes Kreutterbuech -- darein vil schoene und frembde Kreutter. In 1582 he published his travel journal "Aigentliche Beschreibung der Raiß inn die Morgenländerin" in German. It also appeared in English and Dutch. Written from the point of view of an early Protestant pilgrim, his depictions of Jerusalem and of religious life in the Near East, both Christian and Muslim, are of particular historical value. John Gill (theologian) refers to this work a number of times in his Exposition of the Bible to show the accuracy of biblical history. In 1588 the leaders of Augsburg reverted to Catholicism, and Rauwolff, a leader of the Protestant opposition, left. He next served as city physician in Linz for 8 years. In 1596 he joined the imperial troops fighting the Turks in Hungary, where he died." The genus Rauvolfia in the Apocynaceae was published in 1753 by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. (Wikipedia)

ravenelii: for Henry William Ravenel (1814-1887), American botanist and mycologist, author of American Fungi in 8 vols., botanist on the government commission sent to Texas in 1869 to study livestock diseases,.commemorated with Ricasolia ravenelii which occurs in southern Africa and over ninety other species which do not. (Wikipedia)

rawei: for Rolf Rawé (1939- ), plant collector and author of Cacti in Southern Africa (1966) and Succulents in the Veld (1968), commemorated with Conophytum rawei.

rawlinsonii: for S.I. Rawlinson, collector and succulent grower in the Republic of South Africa, commemorated with Gasteria rawlinsonii. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; PlantzAfrica; JSTOR)

Rawsonia/rawsonii: for Sir Rawson William Rawson (1812-1899), British pteridologist, traveller, colonial administrator, Colonial Secretary of the Cape of Good Hope 1854-1864, Gov. of Bahamas 1864, Jamaica 1865, Windward Islands 1869-1875. His personal herbarium of around 2,000 ferns collected in Mauritius, the Cape and West Indies was purchased by the British Museum in 1900. The genus Rawsonia in the Flacourtiaceae was published in 1860 by Irish botanist William Henry Harvey and German botanist Otto Wilhelm Sonder. He is also the likely derivation of the taxon Cheilanthes rawsonii. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

raynalii: for Aline Marie Raynal (née Roques) (1937- ), French botanist, wife and co-collector of French agronomist Jean Raynal (1933-1979), collected in Burkina Faso and Mali, worked at the Phanerogams Laboratory at the French National Museum of Natural History, commemorated with the former taxon Scirpus raynalii, now synonymized to Schoenoplectus erectus. (Wikipedia)

readei/readii: for Robert W. Reade (fl. 1865), a plant collector mostly in the Grahamstown area of South Africa, pupil at Shaw College when Peter MacOwan was the principal, commemorated with the former taxa Habenaria readei (now synonymized to H. anguiceps) and Ornithogalum reedii (now Dipcadi ciliare). (Gunn & Codd)

rebeloi: for Dr. Tony Rebelo, South African botanist, Scientific Officer for the Protea Atlas Project at the South African National Biodiversity Institute, Kirstenbosch, which records locations of proteas throughout southern Africa, co-author of books on pollination ecology, proteas and vegetation types of South Africa. Dr. Rebelo is commemorated with Serruria rebeloi which he discovered in 1998 on the farm belonging to Thys de Villiers of Boskloof in the Bredasdorp Mountains. (Protea Atlas Project)

rechingeri: for Karl Heinz Rechinger (1906-1998), Austrian plant taxonomist, phytogeographer and botanical collector, author of Flora Aegaea, head of the Department of Botany and later Director-General of the Natural History Museum in Vienna and an academic teacher at Vienna University, son of botanist Karl Rechinger and husband of botanist Frida Rechinger, commemorated with Othonna rechingeri which was published and named for him by his good friend the Swedish botanist Bertil Nordenstam. ("Othonna rechingeri B. Nord. spec. nova, a hexaploid succulent from South Africa" by Bertil Nordenstam)

reckii: there is a JSTOR specimen record for Holothrix reckii (now synonymized to Holothrix randii) being collected by an S. Reck in South Africa in 1905, with no further information as to its derivation. (JSTOR)

reddii: for Dr. Venumbaka Balakrisha Reddi (fl. 1994), a radiation oncologist of East London, South Africa, commemorated with Haworthia reddii. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

regelii: for Eduard August von Regel (1815-1892), German botanist, head gardener at the Zurich Botanical Garden and then Director of the Imperial Botanic Gardens in St. Petersburg, author of Monographische bearbeitung der betulaceen (1860) and Tentamen rosarum monographiae (1877), father of physician and botanist Johann Albert von Regel (1845-1908), commemorated with the former taxon Crassula regelii, now synonymized to C. exilis and also with the genus Regelia which does not appear in southern Africa. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Rehmannia: for Matthew Augustine Joseph Rehmann (1779-1831), German physician who studied medicine in Vienna (1794-1801). Hugh Clarke provides the following: "He became a practitioner of Count Rasumovsky, the Russian ambassador in Vienna and followed him to St. Petersburg. From 1805 to 1806, he acted as the Russian legation doctor mission under the direction of Count Golovkin J. Alexandrovich (1762-1846) to China, but only went as far as the Mongolian-Chinese border. His reports on the journey brought him admission as a Russian medical officer. After his return, he lived as a general practitioner in Moscow in early 1810, before being appointed professor at the University of Moscow. In 1812, he moved to St. Petersburg where he was appointed councilor and two years later, he became personal physician to Emperor Alexander I. In 1821 he became head of the Russian Civil Medical System. He died from cholera in 1831." The genus Rehmannia in the Scrophulariaceae or Orobanchaceae was published in 1836 by Russian botanist (born in Germany) Friedrich Ernst Ludwig von Fischer and German (Russified) botanist Carl Anton von Meyer based on an earlier publication by Russian physician and naturalist Joseph Liboschitz.

rehmanniana/rehmannianus/Rehmanniella/rehmannii: for Anton Rehmann (Rehman) (1840-1917), Polish botanist, geomorphologist, geographer and explorer who visited South Africa. He received his Ph.D. in botany from Jagiellonian University in 1864. He explored areas in what is present-day Ukraine and Moldova in 1865 and three years later travelled through southern Russia, becoming a professor of Plant Anatomy at the University of Krakow in 1869. From 1875-1877 and again 1879-1880 collecting over 9,000 specimens. In 1882 he became a professor at Lviv University and later was appointed first Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and then in 1888-89 the Rector. In 1888-1889 he served as President of the Natural Science Nicholas Copernicus Society. He was the author of Travel sketches from southern Africa (1881), Echoes from southern Africa (1884), and The Tatras from a physical and geographical perspective (1895). JSTOR adds that "When writing in Polish he spelt his name Rehman, as opposed to the German spelling with two 'n's." The moss genus Rehmaniella in the Funariaceae was published in 1881 by German bryologist Johann Karl August Müller. Anton Rehmann was a major plant collector whose name is commemorated on at least 60 taxa including species in Gladiolus, Plectranthus, Stachys, Hemizygia, Aeollanthus, Melhania, Sebaea, Coccinea, Pelargonium, Nerine, Abutilon, Pavonia, Senecio, Polygala, Zantedeschia, Barleria, Selago, Indigofera, Hebenstretia and many others both current and former. The genus Rehmannia however was not named for him, see previous entry. (Elsa Pooley; Gunn & Codd; Harvard University Herbaria; Flora of Zimbabwe; Encyclopedia of Life; JSTOR; Trees and Shrubs of Mpumalanga and Kruger National Park; Wikipedia)

rehmii: Wikipedia states that Heinrich Simon Ludwig Friedrich Felix Rehm (1828-1916), German mycologist and lichenologist, is commemorated with Citrullus rehmii, Erica rehmii and the former taxa Monsonia rehmii (now M. umbellata) and Inula rehmii (now Pentatrichia rehmii), but JSTOR records do not indicate he ever collected in Africa, and he is not mentioned in Gunn & Codd. The holotype of Inula rehmii was collected in 1939 in Namibia and the isotype of Erica rehmii in South Africa in 1946, whereas H.S.L.F.F. Rehm died in 1916. JSTOR records list the collector of Erica rehmii and Inula rehmii as S. Rehm, and Gunn & Codd specifically credit Pentatrichia rehmii to the German plant physiologist Sigmund Eugen Adolf Rehm (1911-2001) who came to South-West Africa in 1939, was interned in South Africa during WWII, and was appointed as a plant physiologist for the Horticultural Research Institute in Pretoria, eventually becoming Assistant Chief, before taking up the post of professor of botany in Göttingen, Germany. JSTOR records list him as having been a plant collector in South Africa and Namibia, so he is the likely honoree of these taxonomic epithets. Ted Oliver has confirmed that he he is the honoree for Erica rehmii. (Ted Oliver, pers. comm.)

rehneltiana/rehneltianus: for Friedrich Rehnelt (1861-1945), German succulent plant enthusiast, and Inspector of the Botanical Garden of the University of Giessen, commemorated with Hereroa rehneltiana. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Reichardia: there is a genus Reichardia in the Asteraceae (not in South Africa) that is named for the German physician and botanist Johann Jacob Reichard (1743-1782), author with Linnaeus of Genera Plantarum (1778), supervisor of the botanical garden and library of the Senckenberg Foundation in Frankfurt, but I can't say for sure whether the genus Reichardia in the Fabaceae is named for the same individual. It was published in 1821 by German physician and botanist Albrecht Wilhelm Roth, who also published the above-mentioned Reichardia Roth in the Asteraceae in 1787 and Reichardia Roth in the Scrophulariaceae in 1800. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

reichenbachiana: probably for Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach (1824-1889), German ornithologist, botanist and one of the foremost orchidologists of the 19th century, professor of botany at Leipzig, Director of the Botanical Gardens at Hamburg University, son of well-known botanist and ornithologist Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach (1793-1879), commemorated with the former taxon Eulophia reichenbachiana, now E. foliosa.

reilleyana: for the Reilly family of Mlilwane, Swaziland, James Weighton Reilly (nicknamed 'Mickey'), an Irish-born former trooper in the Anglo-Boer War, his wife Billie Wallis and their son Ted Reilly, considered a legend in Swazi wildlife conservation and the current owner of Reilly's Rock Hilltop Lodge, who have done so much for the preservation of natural game land. He established three game reserves in Swaziland, Mlilwane, Hlane, and Mkhaya. His name is sometimes written as Reilly and sometimes as Reilley. The taxon in southern Africa that bears this specific epithet is Drimiopsis reilleyana, which used to be Ledebouria reilleyana. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

reinekeana: the holotype of Lobelia reinekeana (now synonymized to L. flaccida) was collected by an E. Reineke in the Pietersburg area of South Africa in 1913, so I assume that this is who the taxon honors, but I have no further information. (JSTOR)

reinwardtii: for Caspar Georg Carl Reinwardt (1773-1854), Prussian-born Dutch botanist, professor of chemistry, pharmacy and natural science, collected in South Africa, founder and first director of agriculture of the botanic garden at Bogor (Buitenzorg) in Java, commemorated with Haworthia reinwardtii and the former taxon Oxalis reinwardtii, a synonym of Biophytum reinwardtii and more recently Biophytum abyssinicum. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Wikipedia; Flowers of India; JSTOR)

reitzii: this one is something of a puzzle. The Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names says that Aloe reitzii is named for an F.W. Reitz (fl. 1937). The website of San Marcos Growers says it commemorates "Francis William Reitz, then the South African Minister of Agriculture and nephew of the president of the Orange Free State." Another website about the Tonteldoos Valley says it honors "F.W. Reitz, who first collected the plant and cultivated it in his garden." Francis William Reitz, Sr. (1810-1881) was an Afrikaaner farmer and politician, and it was his son Francis William Reitz, Jr. (1844-1934) who was the Chief Justice and then 5th President of the Orange Free State Republic, and his son Deneys Reitz (1882-1944) became the Minister of Agriculture in the Union government. It would seem kind of a coincidence that Reitz, Jr. would have both a son and a nephew who served as Minister of Agriculture, so there must be something wrong here. To further confuse the issue, Deneys Reitz apparently had a son named Francis William Reitz. The name Aloe reitzii was published in 1937 by Gilbert Westacott Reynolds which corresponds to the Eggli & Newton entry. The website "What's in a Name: Epithets in Aloe" by Estrela Figueiredo and Gideon F. Smith in Bradley (2010) states: "For Mr. F.W. Reitz, who discovered it and drew Reynolds’ attention to it." So which F.W. Reitz is the right one is unclear.

Relhania: for Rev. Richard Relhan (1754-1823), clergyman born at Dublin, a botanist, plant collector, talented painter, bryologist, lichenologist, and one of the founders of the Linnean Society, author of Flora Cantabrigiensis about the plants of the Cambridge area. (1785). The genus Relhania in the Asteraceae was published in 1789 by French botanist Charles Louis L'Héritier de Brutelle. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

renauldii: probably for Ferdinand François Gabriel Renauld (1837-1910), French bryologist, co-author with Jules Cardot of Histoire naturelle des plantes mousses (Natural History of Mosses). The taxon in southern Africa that had this specific epithet was the former taxon Metzgeria renauldii, now synonymized to M. leptoneura. This is the only taxon with this specific epithet. Metzgeria is a genus of liverworts.

rendallii: for Dr. Percy John Rendall of Barberton (1861-1948) who first collected Ceropegia rendallii and sent samples to Kew Gardens in 1894. He was assistant colonial surgeon and Justice of the Peace and Commissioner of the Court of Requests for Gambia, also Resident Medical Officer to the Sheba Gold-mining Company in Barberton District of the Transvaal. He was an amateur zoologist and ornithologist, had a good collection of birds, and collected plants in the Gambia, Sierra Leone and South Africa. (Elsa Pooley; David Hollombe, pers. comm.; Decadses Kewenses, Plantarum Novarum in Herbario Horti Regii Conservatarum)

Rendlia: for Alfred Barton Rendle (1865-1938), British botanist, traveller and plant collector, Keeper of the Botany Department of the British Museum, Fellow of the Royal Society. The genus Rendlia in the Poaceae was published in 1914 by Italian botanist Emilio Chiovenda. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Renealmia: for Paul de Reneaulme (Reneaume, Reneaulm) (1560-1624), French botanist and eminent physican of Blois. Hugh Clarke provides the following: "[He] botanised mainly in Switzerland, Southern France and Italy as well as the towns of Bois and Paris. He had an interest in the medical use of plants and in 1606 wrote a book on pharmacopoeia which he had to withdrawal as a result of a lawsuit forbidding publication of the recipes in his book. This publication also described various plants indigenous to America, including Tobacco. His major work was Specimen historiae plantarum (1611), a book of 150 pages of text, in Latin and some Greek, featuring 108 plants, with 24 superbly illustrated pages, made from woodcuts, etched by Reneaulme himself." His co-author of Specimen historiae plantarum was Jacques-August de Thou (1553-1617). He also authored in 1606 Ex Curationibus Observationes quibus videre ets tutò citò & iucundè posse debellari. The genus Renealmia in the Zingiberaceae was published in 1782 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus the Younger, who said in his publication "The illustrious Mr. Paul Reneaulme of Blois (France), Doctor of Theoretical Medicine, most knowledgeable in practical chemistry, and well versed in botany." (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; "An Annotated Catalogue of the Generic Names of the Bromeliaceae" by Jason R. Grant and Gea Zijlstra)

Rennera: for Otto Renner (1883-1960), German botanist and bacteriologist, a professor of botany, traveller, and director of the Botanical Garden of Jena. "Otto Renner was a German plant geneticist, following the work of Erwin Baur, Renner established the "Plastids are major organelles in plant cells that are responsible for photosynthesis and the storage of starches. The genus Rennera in the Asteraceae was published in 1957 by German botanist Herman Merxmüller. (Wikipedia, CRC World Dictionary of Pant Names)

renniei: the type of Conophytum renniei was collected by a J. Rennie, according to JSTOR records. There was a John Vernon Lockhart Rennie (1903-1994) who was a geologist and professor of geography at the University of Cape Town, and since he is also listed in JSTOR records as a plant collector, this is likely to be him. He was the author of Lower Cretaceous Lamellibranchia from Northern Zululand (1936) and he was also a lecturer in geology at Rhodes University College in Grahamstown.

renschiana/renschii: for Karl Rensch (1837-1905), German or Austrian botanist to whom J. M. Hillebrandt sent his specimens for distribution to other botanists while he was traveling in Africa, commemorated with Solanum renschii and Nervilia renschiana. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; JSTOR)

Requienia: for Esprit Requien (1788-1851), French botanist, malacologist, traveller and botanical explorer, He developed a herbarium of international importance and discovered many taxa. He was a director of the Calvet Museum, Avignon for 34 years where he founded the department of natural history. In 1840 he  bequeathed his important natural history collections and library reference collection to the Calvet Museum. The genus Requienia in the Fabaceae was published in 1825 by Swiss botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Retzia: for Anders Johan Retzius (1742-1821), Swedish botanist, lichenologist and bryologist, entomologist and professor of natural history at the University of Lund. In addition to these disciplines, he also did work on chemistry, zoology, minerology and paleontology. Hugh Clarke adds: "He described many new species of insects and did fundamental work on their classification. Was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 1782." The genus Retzia in the Retziaceae was published in 1776 by Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

revoilii: for Georges Révoil (1852-1894), French plant collector and author of Voyages au cap des Aromates (Afrique Orientale). The taxon in southern Africa that has this specific epithet is Rhoicissus revoilii. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

rexii: for George Rex (1765-1839), British entrepreneur who spent most of his life in the Cape Colony, on whose estate near Knysna the taxon Streptocarpus rexii was first found. He was the founder of Knysna and held various positions in the Colony before settling down on a farm. (PlantzAfrica)

Reyemia: for Dr. Heinrich Meyer who practiced medicine in Calvinia in the 1860's and collected in the Hantam Mts which are in the Namaqualand region of the Northern Cape Province. He came from Germany to the Cape in the mid-1860's, and later practiced medicine at Cape Town in the 1880's. The genus Reyemia in the Scrophulariaceae is an anagram based on the name Meyer and was published in 1993 by South African botanist and taxonomist Olive Mary Hilliard. (Gunn & Codd)

reynoldsii: for Dr. Gilbert Westacott Reynolds (1895–1967), author of Aloes of South Africa (1950), who was an optician in Johannesburg before he moved to Swaziland in 1960, and studied and cultivated plants, mostly aloes, in his spare time. His other great work was The Aloes of Tropical Africa and Madagascar (1966). In the course of gathering material for his two classic volumes, he travelled some 40,000 km, collected numerous plants in addition to his aloe specimens, and spent four weeks at Kew. He was an authority on the genus Aloe, and is commemorated with Aloe reynoldsii, Delosperma reynoldsii, Dierama reynoldsii and the former taxon Streptcarpus reynoldsii, now synonymized to S. haygarthii. (PlantzAfrica; Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; JSTOR)

Reynoutria: my original entry stated that Reynoutria is uncertainly identified as being named after a somewhat obscure Dutch or French botanist and/or naturalist named either Reynoutre or van Reynoutre. Sources uncovered by David Hollombe relate to a man named Karen van Sint Omaars, alternatively spelled Charles Saint Omer (1533-1569), a Flemish botanist and humanist, and lord of among other towns one called Dranouter in West Flanders. The 16th century horticulturist Carolus Clusius helped him lay out a very extensive garden and also advised him in the compilation of a large illustrated book of watercolors he had commissioned to be entitled Centuriae Plantarum Rariorum. His death at the age of 36 aborted the book project, but his work was incorporated into another by the same title published by others many years later. The genus name in the Polygonaceae was first described by Dutch botanist Maarten Houtteyn in 1777. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Rhadamanthus: after Rhadamanthus, in mythology the son of Zeus or Jupiter, and Europa, who was made the judge of souls in the underworld. The genus Rhadamanthus in the Hyacinthaceae was published in 1866 by British botanist Richard Anthony Salisbury. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

rheedii: for Hendrik Adriaan von Rheede tot Draakestein (1637-1691), Dutch naval officer and botanist, colonial admnistrator of the Dutch East India Company, governor of Malabar, an area along the southwestern coast of India, author of the twelve-volume Hortus Malabaricus, commemorated with Entada rheedii. (Wkipedia)

Rhynea: for William (Guillielmo, Willem) ten Rhyne (Rhijne) (1647-1700), a Dutch physician and botanist with the Dutch East India Company who collected at the Cape, author of Dissertatio de Arthritide: Mantissa Schematica: De Acupunctura: Et Orationes Tres (1682) and An Account of the Cape of Good Hope and the Hottentotes, a pioneering work on leprosy and a treatise on tea, also honored with the genus Tenrhynea. JSTOR has a note for Rhynea DC that "The name is in honour of W. v. Rhyne, a traveller in S. Africa of the 17th century." The genus Rhynea in the Asteraceae was published in 1838 by Swiss botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle. (Wikipedia)

ricardianum: for Richard Grässner (1875-1942), German cactus enthusiast and nurseryman, commemorated with Conophytum ricardianum. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Riccardia: for one or more of the members of the Riccardi family, Ottavio (Octavius) Riccardi, Francesco Riccardi (1648-1718), Cassandra Capponi Riccardi, Cosimo Riccardi (1671-1751) and Vincenzio Riccardi (1704-1752), all of whom are mentioned in Pier (Pietro) Antonio Micheli's Nova Plantarum Genera as having supported the work. Samuel Frederick Gray published the name Riccardia in the Aneuraceae in 1821. He didn't explain the names of his new genera but many of them matched the names of people referred to in the Nova Plantarum. Wikipedia states that the name honors Octavius Riccardi of Florence, a sponsor of Nova Plantarum.

Riccia: for Pietro Francesco (Francisco) Ricci, Florentine botanist and 18th century Italian Senator, a member of the Botanical Society in 1729 in Florence, who left some of his works to the Academy of Florence. The genus Riccia in the Ricciaceae is a genus of liverworts that was published in 1753 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. The Weeds and Suspected Poisonous Plants of Queensland by Frederick Manson Bailey refers to Riccia, Micheli, and says the name honors Pietro Francisco Ricci, but The English Flora, Vol. 1 by James Edward Smith, William Jackson Hooker and Miles Joseph Berkeley says "Named in compliment to Pietro Francesco Ricci, a Florentine botanist." This is confirmed by other sources such as the 2013 work England's Rare Mosses and Liverworts, Their History, Conservation and Ecology by Ron D. Porley.

Richardia: the history of the name Richardia is a long and complex one deserving of an essay-length entry by someone more knowledgeable than myself. But to reduce it to what I think are its most fundamental elements, Richardia was a name originally given by Linneaus in 1753 to plants in the Rubiaceae and intended to honor British botanist and physician Richard Richardson (1663-1741), collector of mosses and lichens, and botanical and historical books. He had a marvelous garden, considered one of the best in England, which even included one of the first hothouses in England. In 1818, Karl Sigismund Kunth announced that the rubiaceous plants should be called Richardsonia and he proposed the name Richardia for a plant in the Araceae in honor of Louis Claude Marie Richard (1754-1821), French botanist and author who originated some of the special descriptive terminology for orchids. This was the way things stood for quite a while until more recently when the araceous genus Richardia became Zantedeschia, and the name Richardia was restored to certain of the rubiaceous plants. Richardia was also a name published by John Lindley in 1847 for a plant in the Asteraceae, but that name appears now to have disappeared, and I don't know who Lindley named it for or what happened to it. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

richardiana: probably for Achille Richard (1794-1852), who collected in Ethiopia and Madagascar. He was one of the leading botanists of his day and wrote the first flora of Tropical East Africa, the Tentamen Florae Abyssinicae, printed in 1845 and 1851, and studied and described several genera of orchids. Taxa in southern Africa with this specific epithet include Disa richardiana and the former Cheiridopsis richardiana (now synonymized to Ihlenfeldtia vanzylii). (Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.)

richardii: (1) among the various Richards who are listed in botanical literature (and referred to above), and for whom taxa with the name richardii might have been named, are Louis Claude Marie Richard (1754-1821), noted French botanist and plant collector, and his son Achille Richard (1794-1852), who collected in Ethiopia and Madagascar, also French botanist and plant collector Jean Michel Claude Richard (1784/1787-1868) and French lichenologist Oliver Jules Richard (1836-1896). And this doesn't even inlude all the botanist/collectors whose first name might have been Richard. The current and former taxa in southern Africa with this specific epithet include Potamogeton richardii, Ornithogalum richardii (now O. deltoideum), Eriosema richardii (now E. nutans), and Macromitrium richardii. I don't know who any of them is named for; (2) Richard Taylor of the Saasveld Forestry College in the Eastern Cape, head of the department of wood production engineering and wood technology lecturer, forest botanist and hiker in George who discovered the species, and a keen supporter of the Protea Atlas Project, commemorated with Erica richardii. This taxon is one of the dozens of ericaceous taxa which were collected and named by Edward George Hudson "Ted" Oliver (1938- ) and Inge Magdalene Oliver (1947-2003). (Ted Oliver, pers. comm.)

richardsiana: for James Richards (?-1901), Assistant Secretary of the Royal Horticultural Society, may have been an accountant. Begonia richardsiana was named in 1871.

Richardsonia: see Richardia. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

ridleyi: the JSTOR website has a specimen record for the holotype of Nerine ridleyi which lists a G.H. Ridley (George Herbert Ridley, 1870-1920) as having collected it in 1913 in the Municipal Gardens in Cape Town. He was Superintendent of the public gardens of greater Cape Town, and may have been a Curator at Kirstenbosch Gardens.

Riella: for Michel-Charles Durieu de Maisonneuve (1796–1878), French soldier and botanist. Hugh Clarke adds: "(Riella = diminutive form of ‘Du Rieu’). He studied at the military school of Saint-Cyr and received the rank of sublieutenant. He worked in the French army until 1848 taking part in the Battles of Trocado against Spain (1823) and of Smala against the Algerians (1843), [rising to the rank of captain]. In the mid-1820s he developed an interest in natural history and botany and went on the Morea expedition to Greece with his friend the naturalist Jean Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent (1829). He also visited France, Spain and northern Portugal. He studied cryptograms with the top botanists of the day. In 1858 he succeeded Jean François Latterrade (1784–1858) as Director of the botanical garden at Bordeux and was a professor of botany at the University of Bordeaux (1867-1877)." He was in Algeria from 1840 to 1845 and published a series of accounts of this expedition entitled Exploration scientifique de l'Algérie. He was a member of the Linnaean Society of Bordeaux. The genus Riella in the Riellaceae was published in 1852 by French military physician and botanist Jean Pierre François Camille Montagne. He was also honored at one time with the generic names Maisonneuvea and Duriella, both of which are now considered synonyms of Riella, and Durieua which is either synonymous with Lafuentea, Daucus or Riella depending on which published name you're dealing with). (Hugh Clarke; Wikipedia; JSTOR)

Rikliella: for Martin Albert Rikli (1868-1951), Swiss botanist, plant geographer, traveller and botanical collector, Curator of the Botanical Museum of the E.T.H. Zurich. The genus Rikliella in the Cyperaceae was published in 1973 by French botanist Jean Raynal. (Eldgenössische Technische Hochschule, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names).

rileyi: for Mr. A.W. Riley (fl. 1959), a farmer in the Pietersburg area of the former Transvaal, commemorated with Delosperma rileyi. He collected the type specimen near the Olifants River Bridge in Sekukuniland, South Africa in 1959. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; JSTOR)

ringoetii: for Arthur Ringoet (1889-1952), plant collector in the Congo, commemorated with the former taxon Trichodesma ringoetii, which he collected in 1912, and which has now been synonymized to T. physaloides. (JSTOR)

Riocreuxia: for Alfred Riocreux (1820-1912), French artist and botanical illustrator. Hugh Clarke adds: "The botanist Adolphe Théodore Brongniart (1801-76), saw his sketches and was probably responsible for bringing him to the Paris Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle. T. G. Hill, author of The Essentials of Illustration (London, 1915), has stated that Riocreux’s work on seaweeds for a work by Gustave Thuret as "the finest plates ever published in a botanical work" while the distinguished Dutch botanist F. A. Stafleu, writing in 1966, commented: "Riocreux was one of the great botanical artists of all times." The genus Riocreuxia in the Asclepiadaceae was published in 1844 by French botanist Joseph Decaisne. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.)

rionii: probably for Alphonse Rion (1809-1856), Swiss college professor and canon at the Cathedral of Sion in the canton of Valais, Switzerland. He was the author of Guide du botaniste en Valais. The taxon Ranunculus rionii was published by Swiss physician and botanist Franz Joseph Lagger in 1848.

ripartii: probably for Jean Baptiste Marie Joseph Solange Eugene Ripart (1814-1878), French bryologist. The taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is Lecanora ripartii.

Ritchiea: for Joseph Ritchie (?-1821), British explorer and traveler, surgeon and plant collector in Africa. The genus Ritchiea in the Capparaceae was published in 1826 by Scottish botanist Robert Brown. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

ritellii: possibly for a Major Ritelli (?) in Italian Somalia. The taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is the former Aspilia ritellii, now synonymized to A. mossambicensis. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

rivae: for Dr. Domenico Riva (1856-1895), Italian botanist and plant collector in Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia. The distribution of the taxon Stemodiopsis rivae includes Ethiopia, and JSTOR records list a D. Riva as the collector of the holotype.

Rivina: for Augustus Quirinus Rivinus (1652-1723), German botanist and physician, professor of botany and physiology, and curator of the University of Leipzig’s medicinal plants garden. Hugh Clarke adds: "In 1701 he became professor of pathology and in 1719 Professor of Therapeutics and permanent Dean of the Faculty of Medicine. The same year, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society. He authored Introductio generalis in rem herbariam (Leipzig, 1690), a classification of plants based on the the structure of flowers, mainly the shape of the corolla, and three other books on plant orders." The genus Rivina in the Phytolaccaceae was published in 1753 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus.   (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.)

roaneanus: for Herbert Michael Roan (1909-2003), English succulent plant collecter and one of the founders of the British National Cactus and Succulent Society, commemorated with Adromischus roaneanus. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

robbertsii: probably for Dr. Petrus Johannes Robbertse (1932- ), South African professor and lecturer at Fort Hare University and the University of Port Elizabeth, author of a thesis entitled "A morphological study of the genus Acacia Miller in South Africa," commemorated with Acacia robbertsii.

robbinsii: for Mr. F. Robbins who collected specimens in 1941, commemorated with Bryobartramia robbinsii which he collected and which was described and published by New Zealand botanist George Osborne King Sainsbury. (Australian Journal of Botany; "Bryobartramiaceae" by Ilma G. Stone)

robertsiana: a Spanish-language Wikipedia article states that the specific epithet Turbina robertsiana (which was originally Ipomoea robertsiana) commemorates John William Roberts (1882-1957), an American botanist and mycologist, but I can find nothing to substantiate this, except the near coincidence of the year of his death (1957) and the year of publication (1958). A Yahoo Groups message board on stapeliads states that it was named for Dr. Austin Roberts (1883-1948), plant collector in charge of the bird and mammal collection at the Transvaal Museum where a wing was named in his honor. He collected some 30,000 birds and 13,000 mammals for the museum. He is the author of Birds of South Africa (1938) and Mammals of South Africa (published posthumously in 1951). Although he was primarily a zoologist and an ornithologist, JSTOR records do list him also as a plant collector. He was killed in an automobile accident in the Transkei. The taxon was published by Adrianus Dirk Jacob Meeuse in 1958. (Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

robertsoniae: according to JSTOR records, the lectotype of Gladiolus robertsoniae was collected in 1916 by W.M. Robertson in the Orange Free State, yet their database of collectors does not include any W.M. Robertson or a William Robertson who collected in South Africa around this time. The 'iae' ending normally indicates a woman, but I can't find any reference to a female Robertson who fits these parameters. So at this point this is a mystery.

robillardei: for Jean Aime Victor de Robillard (1813-1892), sugar plantation owner, natural historian, plant collector and resident of Mauritius who collected the type of Campylopus robillardei there. (JSTOR)

Robinia: for Jean Robin (1550-1629), French botanist, royal gardener and herbalist to Kings Henry III, Henry IV and Louis XIII of France, worked at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Hugh Clarke adds: "He published a catalog of 1300 species grown in 1601 under the title Catalogus stirpium tam indigenarum exoticarum quam. The Paris Faculty of Medicine appointed Jean Robin in 1597 for the construction of a botanical Garden. Two of the acacia trees planted early in the 17th century by Robin, one at Jardin des Plantes, the other off the north facade of the church of St. Julien-le-Pauvre near the Notre Dame, still stand." The genus Robinia in the Fabaceae was published in 1753 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.)

robinsonii: the JSTOR records for Salsola robinsonii are a bit confusing. They have the holotype being collected by E.A. Robinson and W. (Johan Wilhelm Heinrich) Gless in 1974 in Namibia. This would presumably refer to Edward Armitage Robinson (1921-2013), plant collector in South Africa, Malawi, the Congo, and Zambia. But they also list the isotype being collected on the same date in Namibia by E.R. Robinson and W. Gless. This would refer to Ernest Richard Robinson (1948- ), research assistant with the Namib Desert Research Unit, later lecturer in botany at the University of Fort Hare and the University of the Witwatersrand, plant collector who collected in Namibia and the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Clearly some mistake has been made and the E.A. Robinson and E.R. Robinson references are to the same person. Other taxa in southern Africa that have this epithet are Oxalis robinsonii, collected in South Africa in 1929, and the former Didymoglossum robinsonii, now synonymized to D. reptans, and another synonym of which, Trichomanes robinsonii, was collected in 1938 by someone named Robinson with no initials. There are other collectors and botanists who have worked in southern Africa such as B.H. Robinson, D.A. Robinson (fl. 1947-1950), plant collector in Zimbabwe, Hercules George Robert Robinson (1824-1897) and William Robinson (fl. 1925), but whether any of these names are in play for these taxa is uncertain. According to Gunn & Codd, E.A. Robinson is commemorated with at least eight other taxa which do not appear in southern Africa. There are other Robinsons as well who did not work in southern Africa and many taxa with the specific epithets robinsonii, robinsoniana, robinsonianum and robinsonianus. Again according to Gunn & Codd, Edward Armitage Robinson arrived in Africa in what was then Northern Rhodesia, and collected there and mostly in Zambia, but some of his specimens came from the Congo, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Botswana and Natal. There is no indication either in that book or in JSTOR records that he ever collected in Namibia, so the derivation of Salsola robinsonii would then seem to be from Ernest Richard Robinson. His master's thesis from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in 1976 was entitled "Phytosociology of the Namib Desert Park, South-West Africa." The evidence would seem to point to E.R. Robinson for this taxon.

Robsonodendron: for Dr. Norman Keith Bonner Robson (1928- ), English botanist from the British Natural History Museum, London, who made important botanical expeditions to Morocco , Zambia , and Malawi. The genus Robsonodendron in the Celastraceae was published in 1997 by Robert H. Archer. (Trees and Shrubs of Mpumalanga and Kruger National Park; Sappi What's In A Name: The Meanings of the Botanical Names of Trees)

robynsiana: probably for Frans Hubert Edouard Arthur Walter Robyns (1901-1986), Belgian botanist and plant collector in tropical Africa (Congo), South Africa and Hawaii, father of botanist and professor Georges André Albert Marie Walter Robyns. The taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is Acacia robynsiana. Both of them are listed as plant authors, and both have taxa named for them, but according to JSTOR records only Robyns senior collected in South Africa.

Rochea: for Daniel de la Roche (1743-1813), Swiss botanist and physician, and his son François Etienne (1780/1781-1813), botanist and physician. Originally De Candolle published the name Rochea in the family Crassulaceae in 1802 for Daniel, and then in 1828 may have divided it into two sections, Daniela named for Daniel and Franciscea for François. De la Roche practiced in Edinburgh where he got hs degree, then in Geneva and Paris. Like many physicians, he was intensely interested in botany and aided the young Swiss botanist A.P. de Candolle. Both father and son died of typhus that was brought to Paris by Napoleon's troops returning from Russia. Since then Rochea has been synonymized with Crassula and is no longer a current genera. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Rochelia: for Anton Rochel (1770-1847), Austrian botanist, surgeon and officer in the Austrian army, traveler, and Curator of the Pest Botanical Garden. Hugh Clarke adds: "He wrote a book on the Flora of Banat (1828), an eastern province of the old kingdom of Hungary, now part of Rumania, and a book (in translation) called A Botanical journey into the Banat, namely the southern and eastern borders of Hungary. The genus Rochelia in the Boraginaceae was published in 1824 by German botanist and ornithologist Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.)

rochetiana: for Charles L. Xavier Rochet d'Héricourt (1801-1854), French chemist or botanist and plant collector in Ethiopia. His name is variously given as Charles Francois-Xavier Rochet d'Héricourt, C.E.X. Rochet d'Héricourt, or Claude Francois Xavier Rochet d'Héricourt. He made several voyages to Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) between 1839 and 1845. He is commemorated with Faurea rochetiana and Olinia rochetiana. (PlantzAfrica; Flora of Zimbabwe; JSTOR)

rodinii: for Prof. Robert Joseph Rodin (1922-1978), American botanist and plant collector, Professor of Botany at California Polytechnical University San Luis Obispo 1953-1976, studied ferns in Namibia and elsewhere, author of Ferns of the Sierra. He was the botanist on the University of California African Expedition--Southern Section in 1947-1948. He is commemorated with the former taxon Adromischus rodinii, now synonymized to A. marianiae, which he collected in Namaqualand, near Hellsberg in the Richtersveldt, in 1947. (University of California, Berkeley and Jepson Herbarium)

rodriguesiana: for a Frère Rodrigues (fl. 1887-1891) who collected Canoparmelia rodriguesiana at Ambositra, Madagascar. The taxon was published in 1899 in genus Parmelia. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Roella: for Wilhelm Roell, 18th century professor of anatomy in Amsterdam and horticulturist. The genus Roella in the Campanulaceae was published in 1753 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Roepera/roeperianum: for Johannes August Christian Roeper (1801-1885), German botanist, plant collector and professor of botany at Rostock. He was a botanical colleague of Schimper, the original author of the species Hypericum roeperianum. He was responsible for accumulating the core collection of the Botanischer Garten Universität Rostock based on collections of Heinrich Gustav Flörke, Adelbert von Chamisso and Ferdinand von Mueller. The genus Roepera in the Zygophyllaceae was published in 1825 by French botanist Adrien Henri Laurent de Jussieu, son of Antoine Laurent de Jussieu. (Flora of Zimbabwe; Tree and Shrubs of Mpumalanga and Kruger National Park)

Rogeria: for Baron Jacques-Francois Roger du Loiret (1787-1849), French plant collector and colonial official. Hugh Clarke adds: "[He was] a lawyer and French colonial administrator who became governor of Senegal from 1821-1827; he studied Senegal's agricultural possibilities and tried to set up plantations, unsuccessfully, both because the Senegalese trading communities were reluctant to take up agriculture and because such attempts were always subject to petty harassment by neighbouring African states; he thoroughly explored that country in 1826 with naturalist Georges Samuel Perrottet (1793-1870) and collected many plants; in 1828, he published a “collection” of  forty-three Wolof [= Senegalese language] folktales, Fables sénégalaises, with notes about Senegambia, its climate, main products, civilization and customs." The genus Rogeria in the Pedaliaceae was published in 1826 by French botanist Alice Raffeneau Delile. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; Hugh Clarke; pers. comm.)

rogersiae: for Bertha Rogers (fl. 1928) who collected the holotype of Trichodiadema rogersiae and the former taxa Psilocaulon rogersiae (now synonymized to P. junceum). (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Women and Cacti)

rogersii/rogersiana: for (1) Rev. (then Archdeacon) Frederick Arundel Rogers (1876-1944), British-born South African botanist and missionary, prolific collector of plants in South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, the Belgian Congo and Rhodesia, author of A Provisional List of Flowering Plants and Ferns of Albany and Bathurst, commemorated with species in genera Crassula, Delosperma, Orbea, Anisotes, Sterculia, Scilla, Sesbania, Tragia, Thesium, Rhus, Grewia, Eragrostis, Watsonia, Cyphia, Hermbstaedtia, Solanum, Tieghemia, Metalasia, Felicia, Zygophyllum, Commelina, Albuca, Barleria, Dyschoriste and Argyrolobium, and many others that have now been synonymized. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Gunn & Codd; JSTOR); (2) Rev. William Moyle Rogers (1835-1920), plant collector, British clergyman, appointed Vice-Principal of Bishop's College, Cape Town, commemorated with Gladiolus rogersii and Ornithogalum rogersii. (JSTOR)

Rohria: for Julius Philip Benjamin von Röhr (1737-1793), Prussian-born botanist and plant collector, naturalist, medical doctor and watercolorist, who emigrated to Denmark and who sent many plants to Europe from South America and the West Indies. The genus Rohria in the Asteraceae was published in 1791 by Danish-Norwegian botanist Martin Henrichsen Vahl. (Wikipedia)

rolfii: for Rolf Rawé (1870's, 1980's), German succulent plant enthusiast and authority on Conophytum, commemorated with the former taxon Conophytum rolfii, now synonymized to C. obcordellum. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Romulea: after the legendary Romulus, founder and first king of Rome. The genus Romulea in the Iridaceae was published in 1772 by Italian botanist Giovanni Francesco Maratti. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

ronaldii: for a Mr. Ronald (fl. 1932), commemorated with Stomatium ronaldii, but with no further information. There is another taxon in southern Africa, the former Herrea ronaldii, now synonymized to Conicosia elongata, but I don't know whether that taxon name honors the same individual or not, and I'm not even sure of the first epithet above. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Rondeletia: for Guillaume Rondelet (1507-1566), French physician and botanist, zoologist and ichthyologist, professor of medicine at the University of Montpellier, France, where he became Chancellor of the medical faculty in 1556. He had two main interests, medicine and fish. The genus Rondeletia in the Rubiaceae was published in 1753 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

roodeae/Roodia/roodiae/roodieae: for Petrusa Benjamina Rood (née Van Rhyn) (1861-1946). This is a bit of a puzzle because JSTOR records record that the holotype of Veltheimia roodeae was collected by an E. Rood in Van Rhynsdorp in 1923, the taxon being published the next year by Edwin Percy Phillips. However Gunn & Codd list a Veltheimia roodiae (note different spelling) as commemorating Petrusa Benjamina Rood, South African plant collector. Neither the IPNI database nor the Tropicos database list any V. roodiae, but both include V. roodeae. I have no further information about E. Rood other than to assume based on the epithet's 'ae' ending that it is a woman. The Kew HerbWeb website which displays the specimen image also lists the taxon Vanheerdea roodiae as having been collected by Mrs. E. Rood. JSTOR further records Conophytum roodiae as having been collected by Mrs. E. Rood in 1924 near Van Rhynsdorp. The Women and Cacti site credits Petrusa Benjamina Rood for Vanheerdea, Conophytum, Conicosia, Cheiridopsis and Pleiospilos, and states that she was from Van Rhynsdorp, which is confirmed by Gunn & Codd as her birth and death place. The only path through this maze is to assume that Mrs. E. Rood and Petrusa Benjamina (née Van Rhyn) Rood are in fact one and the same person, and in fact I have found a geneological website which provides the confirming link, that Petrusa Benjamina Van Rhyn's first husband was a man named Evert Rood who died in 1921 (her second husband was named J. Lambrechts). Her father, the Honorable Petrus Benjamin Van Rhyn, founded the town of Van Rhynsdorp in 1880. I have no information which explains the variation in spelling of the specific epithets which include roodeae, roodiae and roodieae, but that's the way the publication of species names goes sometimes. Gunn & Codd say that Petrusa Benjamina Rood was a plant collector who sent succulent and bulbous plants and seeds to botanists such as Nicholas Edward Brown, Illtyd Buller Pole Evans, Neville Stuart Pillans and Thomas Nicholas Leslie. She is also honored with the genus Roodia in the Aizoaceae, which was published in 1922 by N.E. Brown. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; JSTOR; Women and Cacti; HerbWeb)

rooperi: Elsa Pooley says that Kniphofia rooperi is named for Capt. Edward Rooper, stationed in East London between 1848 and 1850, a botanical painter who sent this plant to England, but the online version of the UK paper The Telegraph states it commemorates "Reverend Thomas Rooper of Wick Hill in Brighton, who grew it. The original plant was sent by his son, a captain stationed in the Border Area between 1848 and 1850." I'm not sure which of these is the correct honoree. (Elsa Pooley)

rosaliae: for Miss Rosalie Du Plessis (later Mrs. C. Gill) (fl. 1932-1955), staff member of the Bolus Herbarium, who collected Glottiphyllum rosaliae in South Africa in 1955. (JSTOR)

roscheri: for Dr. Albrecht Roscher (1836-1860) of Hamburg, German geographer and explorer, member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, plant collector in Sierra Leone and Tanazania, collected seaweeds near Zanzibar and amassed botanical knowledge of the island in 1859, author of Eine Afrika-Expedition in den Tod (An Africa Expedition to the Death?), met the explorer John Hanning Speke, discovered Lake Nyasa and was murdered by slave traders at the age of 24. He is commemorated with the orchid species Vanilla roscheri. (Journal of the Linnean Society of London: Botany, Vol. 32; Wapedia; The Conchological Society of Great Britain and Ireland: Collectors in East Africa)

rosenbrockii: for Alexander Johann Rosenbrock (1880-1955) German-born botanist who collected in South Africa, teacher at the German school in Port Elizabeth, and married the daughter of Isaac Louis Drège, commemorated with the former taxon Anthericum rosenbrockii, which is now synonymized to Chlorophytum crispum. (JSTOR)

Rosenia: for Eberhard Rosén (1714-1796), Swedish physician, botanist, and professor of practical medicine, founder of Lund Hospital and rector of Lund University, and his brother Nils Rosén (1706-1773), also a physician. Hugh Clarke adds about Nils Rosén: "Swedish professor of medicine and anatomy at Lund University; physician to various Kings of Sweden; member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; made Knight of the Polar Star when he changed his name to Nils Rosén von Rosten. He is often considered the founder of pediatrics and authored The diseases of children, and their remedies regarded as 'the first modern textbook on the subject.' " The genus Rosenia in the Asteraceae was published in 1800 by Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.)

rosenii: possibly for Count Carl Gustaf Bloomfield Eric von Rosen (1879-1948), Swedish honorary doctor, patron, explorer and ethnographer. He participated in expeditions to Lappland, South America and the White Nile, and wrote successful books about them. I've encountered two stories involving von Rosen and the German Nazi leader Hermann Göring, one is that Göring married the sister of von Rosen's wife, and the other that he married his niece. The former is correct. His wife was Baroness Mary von Rosen (née von Fock) and she was the sister of Carin Axelina Hulda Göring (née von Fock), whose husband was Hermann Göring. Carl Gustaf's son Carl Gustaf Ericsson von Rosen was a pioneer aviator and flew combat missions for Finland and for the rebels in Biafra. See also erici-rosenii. Taxa in southern Africa with these epithets include Vernonia rosenii and the former taxa Moraea erici-rosenii, now synonymized to M. natalensis, and Ficus rosenii, now F. petersii. (JSTOR)

rossii: for Dr. James Ross, botanist who worked on the Fabaceae of South Africa, commemorated with Eriosema rossii. (A Field Guide to the Wildflowers of KwaZulu-Natal by Elsa Pooley)

rossouwii: for Gerhard "Gerrie" Rossouw, gardener at the National Botanic Garden at Kirstenbosch and Karoo Garden at Worcester, commemorated with Ornithogalum rossouwii. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Rothia/rothii: for Albrecht Wilhelm Roth (1757-1834), German botanist and physician, author of a treatise of German flora, Tenetamen florae germanica, and a book on Indian flora Navae plantarum species praesertim Indiae oriental. The genus Rothia in the Fabaceae was published in 1807 by South African lichenologist, mycologist and taxonomist Christiaan Hendrik Persoon. There is also a taxon Cordia rothii, now synonymized to Cordia sinensis, but I don't know whether this is named for the same individual. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Rothmannia: for Dr. Georg Rothman (1739-1778), Swedish botanist and physician, named by his friend the Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg. Both were pupils of Linnaeus, and Rothmann was a traveller and plant collector in North Africa. After working in Tunisia and Libya from 1773 to 1776, he went bankrupt and returned to Stockholm where he died shortly thereafter. He was a teacher of logic and physics at a grammar school that Carl von Linne attended, and he sent specimens he collected to Peter Jonas Bergius. He was known also for his translations of Voltaire and Alexander Pope into Swedish. The genus Rothmannia in the Rubiaceae was published in 1776 by Thunberg. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Rottboellia/rottboellii: for Christen Friis Rottböll (Rottboell) (1727-1797), Danish botanist and physician, traveler, pupil of Linnaeus, professor of medicine, Director of the Copenhagen Botanical Garden. The genus Rottboellia in the Poaceae was published in 1782 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus the Younger. Rottböll is also commemorated with the former taxon Tetraria rottboellii, now synonymized to T. bromoides. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

rottleri: for Johan Peter Röttler (1749-1836), Danish missionary botanist in India and Sri Lanka who collected more than 2000 plants. He collected a few specimens at the Cape and his herbarium was posthumously given to Kings College, London, before being transferred to Kew. The taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is Funaria rottleri, formerly Gymnostomum rottleri, which was collected by Röttler. (Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

Roubieva: for Guillaume Joseph Roubieu (1757-1834), a French physician (anatomist) and professor of Botany at Montpellier. He studied at Montpellier obtaining his Ph.D. in 1829. He authored a number of publications including Dessins de raisins et d'olives, Competitio ad aggregationem, De utilitate chemiae in medicina ? Quanti conferant chemiæ notiones, ad illustranda phœnomena respirationis in homine tum sano, tum ægrotante (1829), and Opuscules d’anatomie d’histoire naturelle (1816). The genus Roubieva in the Amaranthaceae was published in 1834 by French naturalist and doctor Christian Horace Bénedict Alfred Moquin-Tandon. The genus name was wrongly spelled.

roupelliae: for Mrs. Arabella E. Roupell (1817-1914), noted British botanical artist who painted plants for a book on Cape flowers in 1850 entitled Specimens of the Flora of South Africa By a Lady with botanical text by William Henry Harvey. She is commemorated with Protea roupelliae. Her family is also honored with the generic epithet Roupellia, a genus which does not appear in southern Africa. (Elsa Pooley; Gunn & Codd)

rourkei: for Dr. John Patrick Rourke (1942- ), South African botanist, curator of Compton Herbarium at Kirstenbosch, specialist on the taxonomy of Cape flora, President of the Botanical Society of South Africa, author of The Proteas of Southern Africa, commemorated with Dorotheanthus rourkei, Watsonia rourkei, Leucadendron rourkei, Galium rourkei, Grubbia rourkei and Diosma rourkei. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Gunn & Codd)

rouwenortii: for Hendrik Adriaan Willem, Baron van Rouwenoort (1741-1815). The Roowenoort family were patrons of Dutch physician and botanist David de Gorter who published the name Anthericum rouwenortii in 1783. This taxon has now been synonymized to Chlorophytum capense. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

rouxii: for (1) C.H.D. Roux (fl. 1935), South African plant collector in South Africa who collected for Louisa Bolus. He is commemorated with Stomatium rouxii, Chasmatophyllum rouxii (formerly Rhinephyllum rouxii) and Pleiospilos rouxii, all of which were collected in 1935/1936 in the Victoria West area; (2) there is also in southern Africa an Ixia rouxii which JSTOR records indicates was collected in 1927 by a J.P.J. Roux in Porterville, Western Cape, but I have no information on this individual. (JSTOR; Gunn & Codd)

rowlandii: for a Lt.-Col. Anthony Rowland-Jones (fl. 1949-1951), regional ranger of Punda Maria in Kruger National Park who collected Euphorbia rowlandii in 1951 in the park. (Trees and Shrubs of Mpumalanga and Kruger National Park; JSTOR)

rowleyanus: for Gordon Douglas Rowley (1921- ), British botanist, succulent enthusiast and author of The Succulent Compositae, President of the African Succulent Plant Society, Chairman of the British Cactus and Succulent Society, commemorated with Senecio rowleyanus. (Wikipedia; JSTOR)

roxburghii/roxburghiana: for William Roxburgh (1751-1815), Scots-born medical practitioner and botanist, employed by the English East India Company, Director of the Calcutta Botanical Gardens, made two trips to the Cape where he discovered many new species of Proteas, author of Plants of Coromandel, Hortus Bengalensis, and Flora Indica. At the time he was in India, British civil servants were permitted to go to the Cape for six months of the year on half pay to escape the heat, or go back to England with no pay, and it was under this program that Roxburgh first came to South Africa. He is commemorated with Serruria roxburghii, Sparaxis roxburghii, Pinus roxburghii and Chloris roxburghiana. (JSTOR; Gunn & Codd; Cape Horticultural Society News, Aug. 2011)

Royena/royenii: for Adriaan van Royen (1704-1779), Dutch botanist and physician, professor of botany and medicine at Leyden University, Director of the Botanic Garden at Leyden 1730-1754, friend and close associate of Linnaeus who published the genus Royena in the family Ebenaceae in 1753. Linnaeus also published the species Codon royenii. Adriaan van Royen's major work was his flora of Southeast Asia. His nephew was botanist David van Royen (1727-1799) who was Adriaan's successor at Leyden and greatly added to his uncle's collection. It's possible that David van Royen sent Linnaeus the description of the plant that came to be named Codon royenii, and was the person for whom Linnaeus named it. PlantzAfrica says that the genus might be named for both of these Dutchmen since they both associated with Carl Linnaeus during the latter's years in Holland. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; JSTOR)

royffei: for a Mr. H. Royffe, plant collector in South Africa who collected Psoralea royffei in 1910. This taxon has since been synonymized to Otholobium caffrum. (JSTOR)

roylei: for John Forbes Royle (1798-1858), British botanist employed as a surgeon by the British East India Company, succeeded Dr. George Govan as Curator (1823-1831) of the Saharunpur Botanic Garden in the Himalayan mountains, Fellow of the Royal Society and Secretary of the Horticultural Society of London, Professor of Materia Medica at King's College (1837-1856), collected mostly in India and Nepal but also in South Africa on his way between India and England. He is commemorated with the taxon Schoenoplectus roylei as well as the genus Roylea which does not appear in southern Africa. (Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

Ruckeria: for Johann Friedrich Rücker (17th century), German pharmacist and plant collector at the Cape. He was employed by the Dutch East India Company for five years prior to 1696 and brought back seeds and bulbs for Christian Mentzel (1622-1701), counselor and physician to the Elector of Brandenburg. Mentzel wrote a multilingual compilation of common names entitled Index nominum plantarum universalis multilinguis (1696) and mentions Rücker in this publication. The genus Ruckeria in the Asteraceae was published in 1838 by Swiss botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle. (Hugh Clarke; Thesaurus Literaturae Botanicae by G. Pritzel)

rudatisii: for August Gottlieb Hans Rudatis (1875-1934), German botanist and horticulturist, worked in the Zurich Botanic Garden under Schinz, in charge of the alpine garden at the Botanical Garden in Dahlem, went to Natal in 1904, made extensive collections of plants, birds and insects mainly from his farm, seriously injured during an attempted robbery, was not successful in setting up a nursery for the sale of indigenous plants. He is commemorated with Ceropegia rudatisii, Searsia rudatisii, Stachys rudatisii, and the former taxa Schizochilus rudatisii (now S. zeyheri), Eugenia rudatisii (now E. natalitia), Mimusops rudatisii (now M. obovata), Anthericum rudatisii (now Chlorophytum saundersiae) and Monsonia rudatisii (now M. grandifolia). (Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

rudolfii: for (1) Friedrich Richard Rudolf Schlechter (1872-1925), German traveller, plant collector, botanist and taxonomist, specialist on orchids, curator of the Berlin Botanical Museum, explored Africa, Indonesia, New Guinea, South and Central America and Australia. His herbarium was destroyed during the bombing of Berlin in 1945. His major work was Die Orchidaceen von Deutsch-Neu-Guinea published between 1911 and 1914 He was also the author of Die Orchideenfloren der südamerikanischen Kordilleranstaaten on South American orchids and over 300 papers. In addition to the genera that were named for him, he is also commemorated with Crassula rudolfii, Euphorbia rudolfii, Melanospermum rudolfii, Diascia rudolphii, the former Phyllopodium rudolphii which along with Selago rudolphii is a synonym of Pseudoselago humilis, and the former taxon Sebaea rudolfii, now synonymized to S. natalensis. It's possible that Helichrysum rudolfii was also named for him or it could have been named for H.W. Rudolf Marloth. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; JSTOR; Gunn & Codd); (2) Hermann Wilhelm Rudolf Marloth (1855-1931), German-born South African botanist, pharmacist, chemist, botanical explorer and plant collector, see Marlothia etc., commemorated with Erica rudolfii. (Ted Oliver, pers. comm.); (3) Godlieb Rudolph Koekemoer (1936- ), father of Dr. Marinda Koekemoer who joined her on many collecting trips, commemorated with Amphiglossa rudolphii. (Marinda Koekemoer, pers. comm.); (4) the other taxa with this epithet including Agathosma rudolphii and the former Ornithogalum rudolphii (now O. tenuifolium), I have so far been unable to discover the derivation of.

ruedebuschii: for a Mr. Rüdebusch (fl. 1927), a farmer in Namibia at whose home the German botanist Kurt Dinter was a guest on several occasions. Dinter named Schwantesia ruedebuschii in his honor. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Ruellia/Ruelliopsis: for Jean Ruel (Jean de la Ruelle) (1474-1537), French botanist and physician, and author of a treatise on botany De Natura Stirpium libri tres (1536). Although called to be herbalist to François I of France, he declined the appointment saying that it would interfere with his other work. He was ordained canon of Notre-Dame de Paris and for the next twenty years he dedicated his life to the major work of translating, commenting on, and restoring the real texts of the ancient Greek medical authors such as Dioscorides, Hippocrates, Galen, Euclid, Celsus and Pliny. The genus Ruellia in the Acanthaceae was published in 1753 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. The genus Ruelliopsis, which literally means 'resembling the genus Ruellia,' also in the Acanthaceae, was published in 1899 by British botanist Charles Baron Clarke. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

rueppelianum: see ruppelii. The taxa in southern Africa that had this specific epithet were the former Hypodematium rueppelianum (now H. crenatum) and Pennisetum rueppelianum (now P. setaceum).

ruhlandii: for Wilhelm Otto Eugen Ruhland (1878-1960), German botanist and plant physiologist, worked for a number of years at the Imperial Biological Research Center for Agriculture and Forestry, then became associate chair of botany at the University of Halle and then a full professor at the University of Tuebingen, also head of the botanical garden at the University of Leipzig. He is also a plant author who published the species Eriocaulon schlecteri which is the current name for the former Eriocaulon ruhlandii.

ruhmeriana: for Gustav Ferdinand (de) Ruhmer (1853-1883), German botanist and assistant at the Botanical Museum in Berlin, spent 1882-1883 in Libya, died at Schmalkalden, Germany. He is commemorated with Lysimachia ruhmeriana. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Rumohra: for Karl Friedrich Ludwig Felix von Rumohr (1785-1843), German art expert and writer, collector of antiquities and patron of botany. The genus Rumohra in the Davalliaceae was published in 1819 by Italian botanist Giuseppe Raddi. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Rungia: for Professor Friedlieb (Friedlob) Ferdinand Runge (1795-1867), a German analytical chemist. This is according to the original publication Plantae Asiaticae Rariores 3: 109-110. 1832. According to Wikipedia, "His chemical work included purine chemistry, the identification of caffeine, the first coal tar dye (aniline blue), coal tar products (and a large number of substances that derive from coal tar), paper chromatography, pyrrole, chinoline, phenol, thymol and atropine." He taught chemistry at the University of Breslau and later worked for a chemical company. There have been misattributions of the derivation of this epithet stating that it was named for Rungia (Rungiah), a well-known botanical artist in India who worked for Robert Wight, the Scottish surgeon, naturalist, plant collector and Director of the Madras Botanic Garden who published the work Icones plantarum Indiae Orientalis which contained plates by the artists Rungia and Govindoo. The genus Rungia in the Acanthaceae was published by Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck in 1832. (Wikipedia; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Jose Mari-Mutt, pers. comm.)

ruppelii: possibly for (Wilhelm Peter) Eduard (Simon) Rüppell (1794-1884), German explorer and naturalist, traveller and plant collector in Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan, author of Travels in Abyssinia, remembered as much for the zoological and ethnographical collections he brought back to Europe as for his explorations. His name is sometimes listed as Ruepell or Ruppell, and is on a number of birds, reptiles and mammals. The taxon involved here is either Pennisetum ruppelii or Pennisetum rueppelianum, the first of which is considered an invalid name and the second as synonymized to P. setaceum. (Wikipedia; Encyclopedia Britannica)

Ruppia: for Heinrich Bernhard Ruppius (1688-1719), German botanist, author of Flora jenensis. The genus Ruppia in the Potamogetonaceae was published in 1754 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

ruprechtii: for Franz Josef Iwanowitsch Ruprecht (1814-1870), Austrian-born Russian physician and botanist, curator of the herbarium of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, assistant director of the St. Petersburg botanical gardens between 1851 and 1855, and professor of botany in 1855 at the University of St. Petersburg, commemorated with the former taxon Hyparrhenia ruprechtii (now synonymized to Hyperthelia dissoluta), also honored by genus Ruprechtia which does not appear in southern Africa. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses; Wikipedia; CRC World Dictionary of Grasses)

Ruschia/ruschiana/ruschianus/ruschii: for Ernst Julius Rusch (1867–1957), a German-born Namibian farmer, businessman, plant collector and one of the founders of Windhoek. He came to South-West Africa as a volunteer soldier and established a farm where he grew and sold succulent plants and often hosted Moritz Kurt Dinter. The genus Ruschia in the Aizoaceae was published in 1926 by German botanist Martin Heinrich Gustav Schwantes. He is also commemorated with Conophytum ruschii (now Conophytum jucundum) and Avonia ruschii. Other species with these specific epithets that are probably but not certainly named for the father are Hoodia ruschii, Tromotriche ruschiana, Ruschia ruschiana, and the former taxa Piaranthus ruschii (now synonymized to P. cornutus), Urochloa ruschii (now U. panicoides), Caralluma ruschiana (now Tromotriche umdausensis) and Elytropappus ruschianus (now Seriphium plumosum). (Gunn & Codd; JSTOR; Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; PlantzAfrica)

Ruschianthus/Ruschianthemum/ruschii: for Ernst Franz Theodor Rusch (1897–1964), Ernst Julius Rusch's son, who took many collecting trips together with his father, commemorated with Ruschianthus in the the Aizoaceae published in 1960 by Louisa Bolus and Ruschianthemum also in the Aizoaceae published by 1960 by Hans Christian Friedrich. He is also commemorated with Salsola ruschii which he collected in 1958. (PlantzAfrica)

ruschiorum: for both Ernest Julius Rusch and Ernst Franz Theodor Rusch, who jointly are commemorated with Lithops ruschiorum.

Ruspolia: for Eugenio Ruspoli (1866-1893), Italian explorer, ethnologist and naturalist, botanical and zoological collector, killed by an elephant. The genus Ruspolia in the Acanthaceae was published in 1896 by German botanist and mycologist Gustav Lindau. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

russakiana: for Christian Ferdinand Friedrich von Krauss (1812-1890), the name being an anagram of kraussiana, commemorated with Erica russakiana which he collected in 1838. (JSTOR)

Russelia: the genus Russelia is a bit confusing. The IPNI listing for it in the Saxifragaceae indicates it was published by Carl Linnaeus the Younger in 1782 but that name is considered invalid. The IPNI listing for it in the Scrophulariaceae was published in 1760 by Nicolaus Joseph von Jacquin. Tropicos lists it as being in the Plantaginaceae and POSA lists it as being in the Vahliaceae. The genus was named for Dr. Alexander Russell (1715?-1768), British physician, naturalist and traveller who worked in Aleppo, Syria for almost fifteen years and became the principal practitioner. He published A Natural History of Aleppo in which he recorded the progress of a plague which broke out first in 1742. In 1759 he was elected physician of St. Thomas' Hospital in London where he worked until his death. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the Medical Society of London. The taxon that is in southern Africa is the former Russelia capensis which was published by the younger Linnaeus in 1782 but which was changed by Carl Peter Thunberg to Vahlia capensis. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

rustiana/rustii: for Johann Conrad Rust (1865-1921), German farmer and merchant, emigree to South Africa in 1879, plant collector in southern Africa, moved to Namibia in 1900, commemorated with Lampranthus rustii, Phyllopodium rustii, Pelargonium rustii, the former Struthiola rustiana (now synonymized to S. ciliata) and possibly also for the former Anthericum rustii (now Chlorophytum crispum). (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Gunn & Codd)

rutenbergii: for Diedrich Christian Rutenberg (1851-1878), German lichen collector, commemorated with Cryphaea rutenbergii. (Justs' Botanischer jahresbericht: Systematisch geordnetes, Vol. 9 edited by Johann Leopold Just et. al.)

Ruthea: for Johann Friedrich Ruthe (Ruthé or von Ruthe) (1788-1859), German teacher, botanist and entomologist with a special interest in the Hymenoptera and Diptera. He studied botany at the University of Berlin in 1811 and became a school teacher in Berlin and Frankfort but retired early in 1842 due to ill health. He was the co-author with Arend Friedrich August Wiegmann (1802-1841) of a zoology textbook entitled Handbuch der Zoologie (1843), and the author of Flora der Mark Brandenburg und der Niederlausitz Pflanzen (Flora of the March of Brandenburg and Lower Lusatia) (1834). The genus Ruthea in the Apiaceae was published in 1862 by German naturalist Carl August Bolle. (Wikipedia)

Ruttya: for John Rutty (1697-1775), an 18th century physician in Dublin, naturalist, entomologist, and lichenologist. He was the author of Essay towards a Natural History of the County of Dublin which included its flora, fauna, geology, and meteorology, and of The Mineral Waters of Ireland, Natural History of the County of Dublin, Materia Medico, Antigua and Nova and A history of the Rise and Progress of the People called Quakers in Ireland. The genus Ruttya in the Acanthaceae was published in 1842 by Irish botanist William Henry Harvey. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

rycroftiana/rycroftii: for Dr. Hedley Brian Rycroft (1918-1990), South African botanist, professor of botany at Cape Town University, and the third director (first South African-born director) of Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens, author of What Protea Is That? and Our Flower Paradise, collected in South Africa and Angola. He is commemorated with Aspalathus rycroftii and Haworthia rycroftiana. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Gunn & Codd)

ryderae: for Mrs. Eleanore Frederica Ryder (née Fisher-Rowe) (1875-1958), English succulent plant collector in the Western and Eastern Capes of South Africa in the 1920's and 1930's, wife of the Honorable Archibald Dudley Ryder, co-collector of South African botanist Robert Allen Dyer. She is commemorated with Trichodiadema ryderae, Stomatium ryderae, and the former taxa Watson ryderae (now synonymized to W. fourcadei) and Glottiphyllum ryderae (now G. linguiforme). (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Gunn & Codd; Women and Cact)

rydingianus: for Per Olof Ryding (1951- ), plant collector in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Malawi, commemorated with Aeollanthus rydingianus. He was a "former staff member of Asmara University, Eritrea, where he collected African plants. He joined the staff of the Botanical Museum and Libary of the University of Copenhagen in 1994 and is a senior Lecturer. He is the coordinator of the Lamiaceae for the Ethiopian Flora Project and has contributed a number of accounts of genera for the family and the account of Plantaginaceae." (JSTOR)

ryneveldiae: for a certain W. van Ryneveld, plant collector in South Africa, commemorated with the former taxon Faucaria ryneveldiae, now F. felina. (JSTOR)

sabinae: for Sabine Lüdtke (née Bleissner) (1943- ), German plant collector in southern Africa, commemorated with Eragrostis sabinae. During a visit to South-West Africa in 1963, Sabine Bleissner gathered approximately 300 specimens on collecting trips with her mother, Brigitte, O.H. Volk, and J.H.W. Giess. She settled permanently in Namibia in 1969 and worked in physiotherapy. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses; JSTOR)

Saccardoa: for Pier Andrea Saccardo (1845-1920), Italian botanist and mycologist, professor of natural history at the University of Padua (1869), and author of Sylloge fungorum omnium hucusque cognitorum first in 9 volumes in 1882-1890 and then in 25 volumes in 1931. Hugh Clarke adds: "He was later promoted to professor of botany and director of the botanical gardens (1879). He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Padua in 1867 having worked there as an assistant at the University from 1866. His only work is Sylloge, a list of all the names that had ever been used for fungi, with an entry for each, identifying the currently correct name for that fungus. This consists of 160,000 pages of entries, with only 120 pages of errata. Even with the help of Giovanni Battista de Toni, Paul Sydow, Augusto Napoleone Berlese, and his son Daniel Saccardo, this took the last 35 years of his life." Many of his early mycological papers were published in the journal Michelia which he established. His system of classifying fungi by spore color and form was the primary one used up until the use of DNA analysis. The genus Saccardoa in the Lobariaceae was published in 1869 by Italian botanist Vittore Benedetto Antonio Trevisan de Saint-Léon.

sacleuxii: for Father Charles Sacleux (1856-1943), French Roman Catholic missionary, plant collector in Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania, and Mozambique, and Swahili lexicographer who is considered the father of swahili studies in France, author of Dictionnaire Français-Swahili, Dictionnaire Swahili-Français, and a Swahili grammer. In addition to a number of taxa which do not appear in southern Africa, he is commemorated with the former Piper sacleuxii, now synonymized to P. capense. (JSTOR)

Saelania: for Anders Thiodolf Sælen (1834-1921), Finnish bryologist. He studied physical mathematics at the University of Helsincki (1856) and was an assistant from 1859-1866 at the Helsinki museum. He put together a flora of eastern Finland, including cotyledons and ferns, drew up a list of the botanical collections at the museum with William Nylander (1859), and with Elias Lönnrot, and compiled the first Finnish flora in the Finnish language (1866). From 1868-1904 he served as a physician at Lapinlahti Central Institution for the insane and was the nation’s leading authority on the subject. In 1916 he published a complete bibliography of Finland's botanical literature up to 1900. The genus Saelania in the Ditrichaceae was published in 1878 by Swedish-Finnish bryologist Sextus Otto Lindberg. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Saintpaulia/Saintpauliopsis: for Adalbert Emil Walter Redcliffe Le Tanneaux von Saint Paul-Illaire (1860-1940), German traveller, author, district commissioner, plant collector in East Africa, and district governor of Usambara. The name was been variously given as Walter Freiherr (= Baron) Saint Paul Illaire and Walter Saint Paul Hilaire, and his year of death as 1910 or 1940. He was a plantation owner in Tanga, then a small town on the East African coast and now one of the larger cities of Tanzania. He apparently preferred to be called Walter von Saint Paul. Hugh Clarke adds this: "[He was a] German colonial official in East Africa who in 1892 discovered this Tanzanian (then German East Africa) plant in the wooded Usambara mountains located southeast of Lake Victoria near the border of Kenya. He sent seeds of the so-called 'African Violet' [or Usambara violet as it was called in Germany] (similar to violets) to his father in Fischbach, Silesia, Germany, Baron Ulrich von Saint Paul [Marshall of the Court], who was an avid amateur horticulturalist. He not only sowed the tiny seeds in his greenhouse at his hometown of Fischbach and cultivated the plants until they bloomed, but took seeds and plant samples to Hermann Wendlend, Master Gardener of the Herrenhaus Greenhouses who described the plant in the journal Gartenflora, Berlin, in 1893, and in Möllers Deutsche Gärtner-Zeitung, Erfurt, on May 20, 1893 (Edition 16, Volume 8)." According to a German Wikipedia article, he was "representative of the German East Africa Company in East Africa, customs director, general agent of the company in Zanzibar, district captain of Tanga, colonial political staff at the "Cologne Gazette", founder and director of East Africa's Company, and co-founder of the Colonial Department the German Agricultural Society." He was the author of a Swahili phrasebook Swahili-Sprachfuhrer, also Der Fluch der Deutschen "Gewissenhaftigkeit" (The Curse of the Germans "Conscientiousness"), Kriegs-Xenien (War Reminders), and The Adjustment of the German colonial claims. The genus Saintpaulia in the Gesneriaceae was published in 1893 by German botanist and Master Gardener of the Herrenhaus Greenhouses Hermann Wendland who received seeds and plant samples from Baron von Saint-Paul-Illaire by way of his father Ulrich, and genus Saintpauliopsis in the Acanthaceae was published in 1934 by French botanist Pierre Staner. The generic name Saintpauliopsis literally means 'resembling genus Saintpaulia,' and so is only an indirect reference to the person referred to here. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Botanary; Hugh Clarke)

Salacia: after Salacia, in Roman mythology the goddess of salt water who presided over the depths of the ocean, wife and queen of Neptune. The genus Salacia in the Celastraceae was published in 1771 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. (Elsa Pooley; Wikipedia)

salmdyckiana/salmiana/salmii: for Joseph Franz Maria Anton Hubert Ignatz Fürst zu Salm-Reifferscheid-Dyck (1773-1861), German botanist, botanical artist and author of Hortus Dyckensis, Cacteae in horto Dyckensi cultae, Monographia generum Aloes et Mesembrianthemi, and many garden catalogs, horticulturist and succulent plant collector, commemorated with Glottiphyllum salmii, Opuntia salmiana, Gasteria salmdyckiana and the former taxon Cotyledon salmiana, now synonymized to C. woodii, as well as the genera Dyckia and Salmea, neither of which appear in southern Africa. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; JSTOR)

Saltera/salteri: for Terence Macleane Salter (1883-1969), British botanist, traveler, Royal Navy paymaster who was stationed at Simonstown and remained in South Africa thereafter, worked at the Bolus Herbarium 1930-1960, prolific plant collector in South Africa, co-editor of The Genus Oxalis in South Africa and Flora of the Cape Peninsula. He is commemorated at least with taxa in the genera Oxalis, Disa, Phylica, Lampranthus, Aspalathus, Babiana, Gladiolus, Erica, Strumaria, Stoebe, Drimia and Lachenalia, and likely others both current and synonymized, as well as the genus Saltera in the Penaeaceae which was published in 1958 by British botanist Arthur Allman Bullock. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Gunn & Codd; Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturists)

saltii: for Henry Salt (1780-1827), British traveller in Abyssinia, commemorated with Trachyandra saltii (formerly Anthericum saltii). (Elsa Pooley; Flora of Zimbabwe)

saltmarshei: for an E. Saltmarshe (fl. 1890), plant collector in South Africa and Swaziland, commemorated with the former Ornithogalum saltmarshei, now synonymized to O. tenuifolium. (JSTOR; Gunn & Codd)

Salvadora: for Juan Salvador y Bosca (1598-1681), Spanish apothecary, botanist and plant collector from Barcelona. The genus Salvadora in the Salvadoraceae was published by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in 1753. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Salvinia: for Antonio Maria Salvini (1633-1729), Italian professor of Greek at the University of Florence and mentor and friend of botanist Pier Antonio Micheli. The genus Salvinia in the Salviniaceae was published in 1754 by French astronomer and botanist Jean François Séguier. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Trees and Shrubs of Mpumalanga and Kruger National Park)

Sanchezia: for José Sanchez, nineteenth-century professor of botany and Royal Botanist of the newly established Jardin Botánico attached to the Real Colegio de Cirugia de la Armada (1748) at Cádiz, Spain. The genus Sanchezia in the Acanthaceae was published in 1794 by Spanish botanists Hipólito Ruiz López and José Antonio Pavon. (Wikipedia; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Sandersonia/sandersonii: for John Sanderson (1820-1881), Scottish horticulturist, prolific botanical collector in South Africa, died in South Africa. He is commemorated with current species names in the genera Asplenium, Lapeirousia, Hermannia, Brachystelma, Ceropegia, Basananthe, Polystachya, Bulbophyllum, Senecio, Utricularia, Cyphostemma and Cissus, and with synonymized species names in the genera Argyrolobium, Erythrina, Selago, Cycnium, Schizochilus, and Lissochilus, as well as the genus Sandersonia in the Colchicaceae which was published in 1852 by British botanist William Jackson Hooker. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Flora of Zimbabwe; JSTOR)

Sanionia: for Carl Gustav Sanio (1832-1891), German botanist and professor, earned a doctorate of medicine and botany at the University of Königsberg, made first scientific description of compression wood. The genus Sanionia in the Amblystegiaceae was published in 1907 by German amateur bryologist Leopold Loeske. (Wikipedia; Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society)

sankeyi: for Humphrey John Sankey (1885-1945), British-born South African plant collector and forester who collected speciments for Kew in the East Cape, especially interested in orchids, also worked as a forester in Nigeria, farmed and died in Kenya. He is commemorated with Argyrolobium sankeyi, Disa sankeyi and the former Eulophia sankeyi, now synonymized to E. cooperi. (JSTOR: HerbWeb; Gunn & Codd)

Sansevieria: there is some confusion regarding the derivation of this generic epithet. The Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names and the Illustrated Handbook of Succulent Plants say that it is for Count Pietro Antonio Sanseverino, an 18th century Italian patron of horticulture in Naples around 1785, whereas other sites such as the CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names and Wikipedia say that it honors Raimondo di Sangro (1710-1771), Prince of Sansevero, Italian nobleman and author. The town of San Severo was formerly known as Castellum Sancti Severini, then San Severino and Sansevero. A Spanish website named Arboles Ornamentales states in Spanish "Al parecer el género debería llamarse Sanseverinia, en honor de Pietro Antonio Sanseverino, Duque de Chiaromonte y precursor de un jardín de plantas raras y exóticas en el sur de Italia, personaje al que deseaba dedicar el género su descubridor, Vincenzo Petanga, de Nápoles, pero por un error lingüístico de Thunberg, quien describió el género, lo denominó Sansevieria, dedicándolo al militar, inventor y erudito napolitano Raimondo di Sangro (1710-1771), séptimo príncipe de Sansevero." The approximate translation of this passage indicates that the idea of Vincenzo Petagna, Neapolitan botanist and discoverer of the plant, who published it as Sanseverinia in the Liliaceae in 1787, was to dedicate the plant to his patron Pietro Antonio Sanseverino, Duke of Chiaromonte, and owner of a botanical garden with rare plants in the South of Italy. However, Thunberg, who described the genus and published the name Sansevieria in the family Dracaenaceae in 1794, erroneously attributed the name to the above mentioned prince Raimondo di Sangro. This at least sheds some light on why it is not clear for whom this genus is named, but it does appear that it should commemorate Count Pietro Antonio Sanseverino. But in either case, why the genus name is not Sanseveria rather than Sansevieria is a mystery to me.

Santessonia: for Rolf Santesson (1916- ), Swedish lichenologist, professor emeritus of botany at Uppsala University. The lichenized fungi genus Santessonia in the Caliciaceae was published in 1978 by American bryologist Mason Ellsworth Hale, Jr. and Spanish lichenologist Gernot Vobis.

sardienii: for Tommy Sardien (1932- ), plant collector in South Africa, co-collector with Ernst Jacobus van Jaarsveld.who was the author of the taxon Ornithogalum sardienii. I'd like to have some confirmation of this.

sargeantii: for Mr. Percy Sargeant, resident of Cape Town, experienced mountaineer, conservationist and photographer of high altitude flora, commemorated with Lachenalia sargeantii. (PlantzAfrica; African Bulbs)

sauerae: for Miss Mary Sauer (fl. 1933), commemorated with Lampranthus sauerae and the former taxon Carpobrotus sauerae, now synonymized to C. quadrifidus. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

saundersiae: for Lady Katharine Saunders (née Wheelright) (1824–1901), married to James Renault Saunders and mother of Charles James Renault Saunders, a well-known plant collector and artist who emigrated to South Africa in 1854 and sent bulbs of Ornithogalum saundersiae to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London, in 1887. She is also commemorated with Aloe saundersiae, Sisyranthus saundersiae, Chlorophytum saundersiae, and the former taxa Drimiopsis saundersiae (now Resnova humifusa), Bonatea saundersiae (now B. cassidea), Schrebera saundersiae (now S. alata) and Angraecum saundersiae (now Aerangis mystacidii). (Women and Cacti; Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

saundersii: for (1) Sir Charles James Renault Saunders (1857-1935), son of the above Katherine Saunders, chief magistrate in KwaZulu-Natal who collected Dermatobotrys saundersii and Pachypodium saundersii. (Women and Cacti; Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Gunn & Codd; PlantzAfrica); (2) Elsa Pooley in A Field Guide to the Wildflowers of KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Region says that Gladiolus saundersii was named for William Wilson Saunders (1809-1879), British insurance broker, entomologist and botanist, President of the Entomological Society, Treasurer of the Linnean Society of London, who first grew and illustrated it in 1870. However the website of the Pacific Bulb Society says that it commemorates Lady Katharine Saunders (née Wheelright) (1824–1901), see saundersiae. A Spanish Wikipedia website says that Dermatobotrys saundersii and Pachypodium saundersii (as well as Streptocarpus saundersii and Gladiolus saundersii) were named for William Wilson Saunders, and for the Dermatobotrys and the Pachypodium this is clearly wrong.

Savia: for Gaetano Savi (1769-1844), Italian physician and botanist, director of the Third Botanical Garden of Pisa, taught physics and botany at the University of Pisa, elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, author of Flora Pisana, Botanicum Etruscum and Flora Italiana. The genus Savia in the Euphorbiaceae was published in 1806 by Carl Ludwig von Willdenow. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

savileae: for Henrietta Savile (née Willoughby) (1766-1846), the Hon. Mrs. Richard Lumley Savile, later the Countess of Scarborough, commemorated with Erica savileae. (Ted Oliver, pers. comm.)

saxbyi: for H.H. Saxby, bryophyte plant collector in Ghana around 1910, commemorated with Metzgeria saxbyi. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

scaettae: for Helios Francesco Antonio Scaetta (1894-1941), plant collector in Ethiopia, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mali, Rwanda and the Congo, commemorated with the former taxon Pennisetum scaettae, now synonymized to P. macrourum. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses; JSTOR)

Scaevola: for C. Mucius Scaevola, 6th century B.C. Roman hero whose surname means "left-handed" from the Latin scaevus, "left." Actually 'Scaevola' was a sobriquet he received after he lost his right arm. The genus Scaevola in the Goodeniaceae was published in 1771 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

schaeferi/schaeferianus: for Dr. Fritz Shäfer (Schaefer) (?-1911), plant collector born in South-West Africa, medical practitioner on the Lüderitz Bay-Keetmanshoop Railway, collected in the Klein Karras area of Namibia, commemorated with Ferraria schaeferi, Hermbstaedtia schaeferi, and Manulea schaeferi. There are other taxa in southern Africa with this taxon including Viscum, Oxalis, Tylecodon, Stipagrostis and others that have been synonymized, but I'm not sure who they commemorate. (Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

schaereri: since Buellia is a genus of lichenized fungi, and there is a Swiss cryptogamist named Ludwig Emanuel Schaerer (1786-1853), it seems reasonable to assume that this is who Buellia schaereri is named for, but this is just a guess.

Schaueria: for Johannes Conrad Schauer (1813-1848), German botanist and professor of botany at the University of Greifswald. He published on the myrtles of western Australia. The genus Schaueria in the Acanthaceae was published in 1839 by German botanist and physician Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia)

Schefflera: there has been some confusion about who the genus Schefflera is named for. PlantzAfrica has stated that it honors one Jacob Christoph Scheffler (1698-1742) of Gdansk (Danzig), Poland, botanist and physician. The CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names states a similar derivation and says that this individual was possibly the author of Disputatio botanico-medico inauguralis De Asaro. Many other sources have repeated this. Other sources point to a J.G. Scheffler (1722-1811), also described as a physician in Danzig. The similarity of the names J.G. Scheffler and J.C. Scheffler (albeit with different life dates) seems suspicious, as well as the fact that at least one website mentions J.C. Scheffler with J.G. Scheffler's dates. But further research by David Hollombe has revealed that the genus was actually named for Johann Peter Ernst von Scheffler, variously described as German or Polish, born 1739, died sometime between 1800 and 1810. He was a physician and botanist of Danzig, later of Warsaw, and contributed plants that were described in Gottfried Reyger and Christian Mentzel's work entitled Testamen Florae Gedanensis Methodo Sexuali Adcommodatae (1764). This information is confirmed in the Rees Cyclopaedia, volume XXXI, published 1819. The German botanist Georg Christian Wittstein, who wrote the Etymologisch-botanisches Handworterbuch in 1852, apparently derived the names of a number of genera for the only people he knew of with matching names, such as in the case of Schefflera as well as Casimiroa and Forestiera. The genus Schefflera in the Araliaceae was published in 1777 by the German naturalists Johann Reinhold Forster and Johann Georg Adam Forster. (PlantzAfrica)

scheffleri: for Georg Scheffler (1874/1875-1911), German plant collector and ornithologist in Kenya (1906-1910), Tanzania (1899), Uganda and South Africa. He was at the Berlin-Dahlen Botanical garden before being sent to Cameroon by the Colonial Office, and was commemorated with the former taxon Clerodendrum scheffleri, now synonymized to Rotheca cuneiforme. His name is also on the Scheffler's barred owlet, Glaucidium scheffleri. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; David Hollombe, pers. comm.; JSTOR)

schellenbergii: for Dr. Gustav August Ludwig David Schellenberg (1882-1963), German botanist, specialist in the pantropical family Connaraceae, commemorated with Aizoon schellenbergii and possibly also the former taxon Schrebera schellenbergii, now synonymized to S. trichoclada. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

schelpei/schelpeana: for Edmund Andre Charles Louis Eloi Schelpe (1924-1985), well-known South African plant ecologist, taxonomist and plant collector, author of An Introduction to the South African Orchids, commemorated with Umbilicaria schelpei, Pterygodium schelpei, Lachenalia schelpei, Asplenium schelpei, Marsilea schelpeana, Hesperantha schelpeana and the former taxon Osmunda schelpei, now synonymized to O. regalis, and probably also for Riccia schelpei and Cephaloziella schelpei. (Elsa Pooley; JSTOR)

schelpeorum: for Prof. Edmund (Ted) Schelpe (1924-1985) and Mrs. Sybella Schelpe. He was the director of the Bolus Herbarium and Ted Oliver's professor; they were  the first collectors of the species Erica schelpeorum which was published by Oliver in 2002, and this taxon is the only one with it. (Ted Oliver, pers. comm.)

schenckii: for Adolf Schenck (1857-1936), German geographer, minerologist and botanist. From 1884 to 1887 he was on a minerological expedition to German South-West Africa. Before returning home, he visited mines and goldfields in the present-day nations of South Africa, Botswana and Mozambique. He had a brother named Heinrich who was also a botanist. Adolf Schenck is commemorated with Brownanthus schenckii, Tetragonia schenckii, Codon schenckii, Xanthoparmelia schenckeana, and the former taxa Barleria schenckii (now B. rigida), Berkheya schenckii (now B. spinosissima), Sesamum schenckii (now S. triphyllum), Euryops schenckii (now Othonna sedifolia) and Felicia schenckii (now F. namaquana), and probably also for Gazania schenckii. (Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

schickiana/schickianum: for Carl Schick (1881-1953), German amateur botanist interested in succulents, commemorated with the former taxa Cheiridopsis schickiana (now synonymized to C. robusta), Conophytum schickianum (now C. pageae), and Mitrophyllum schickianum (now M. clivorum).

schiemanniana: for Elisabeth Schiemann (1881-1972), German geneticist, crop researcher and cereal breeder, commemorated with Brachychloa (formerly Heterocarpha) schiemanniana. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses)

Schiffneriolejeunea: probably for Victor Félix Schiffner (1862-1944), French botanist and bryologist, specialist in the study of hepatics. Hugh Clarke adds this: "He studied at the University of Prague, collected liverwort speciments in Java and Sumatra (1893-1894), thereafter becoming Professor of Botany at the University of the Prague (1895). He collected bryophytes in Brazil in 1901 and on his return was appointed a professor at the University of Vienna (1902-1932). He authored Hepaticae in Engler & Prantl’s Die Natürliche Pflanzenfamilien (1893), Die Hepaticae der Flora von Buitenzorg (1900) (Liverwort Flora of Java), but gave up working on exotic liverworts after the first installments of Species Hepaticarum appeared and turned to the European flora. An unfinished manuscript on the liverworts of Brazil, based on his travels in 1901 in the framework of the “botanischen Expedition der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften nach Südbrasilien,” was completed by Sigrid Arnell in 1964." JSTOR says "He amassed a personal herbarium of 50,000 hepatics and mosses, which was acquired by Harvard University in 1931." He was also the author of Conspectus hepaticarum archipelagi Indici (1898), Monographia Hellebororum (1890), and Studien über Algen des adriatischen Meeres (Studies on Algae of the Adriatic Sea, 1915). He was also honored by the generic epithets Schiffnerina, Schiffnerula and Schiffneria, and a number of taxa with specific epithets schiffneri and schiffnerianum, most if not all of which were probably named for Victor Félix Schiffner. The genus Schiffneriolejeunea in the Lejeuneaceae was published in 1933 by Dutch bryologist Frans Verdoorn. (JSTOR; Hugh Clarke; Wikipedia)

schijffii: for Hermanus Philipus ("Manie") van der Schijff (1921- ), South African professor of botany and head of the Department of Botany at the University of Pretoria, ecologist for the National Parks Board based in the Kruger National Park (1951-1956), president of the South African Biological Society and the South African Association of Botanists, commemorated with Eucomis schijffii. The Manie van der Schijff Botanical Garden at the University of Pretoria is named in his honour. (Elsa Pooley; PlantzAfrica; JSTOR; Gunn & Codd)

schimperi/schimperiana: several Schimpers show up in the botanical literature, a Georg Heinrich Wilhelm Schimper (1804-1878) who collected mainly in Ethiopia, Wilhelm Philipp Schimper (1808-1880), a German botanist by the name of Andreas Franz Wilhelm Schimper (1808-1880), and even an M.W. Schimper whose name is on a Kew HerbWeb specimen record for Delosperma schimperi (= Trichodiadema schimperi) although this almost certainly was a typo since G.H.W. Schimper collected the isolectotype in 1863. Further research turns up the following: Wilhelm Philipp Schimper was a German-French botanist who was the father of Andreas Franz Wilhelm Schimper (1856-1901) and a cousin to botanist Georg Heinrich Wilhelm Schimper and naturalist Karl Friedrich Schimper (1803-1867), who were brothers. Wilhelm Philipp Schimper was curator and then Director of the Natural History Museum in Strasbourg, and then was professor of geology and natural history at the University there. He was mainly interested in bryology and paleobotany, and was the co-author of Bryologia Europaea which described all European mosses. He was the son of an Alsatian pastor who became a paleontologist and one of the foremost of European bryologists. Georg Heinrich Wilhelm Schimper did a lot of work in northern Africa, was the author of Journey to Algiers, and settled in Ethiopia, so he is probably the one who is referred to in a couple of websites as Wilhelm G. Schimper. Andreas Franz Schimper was a botanist and phytogeographer who made collecting trips to Venezuela, the West Indies, Ceylon, and Java, and was the author of Pflanzengeographie auf Physiologischer Grundlage in which he coined the term 'tropical rainforest.' He was a professor at the Bonn Botanical Institute and at the University of Basel. He was one of the first to divide the continents into floral regions. Karl Schimper apparently originated the idea of glaciation which gave rise to modern theories of ice ages and climate cycles. One problem that arises in trying to determine which Schimper goes with which taxon is that the specimen records sometimes say W. Schimper, or G.W. Schimper, or W.G. Schimper or G.H.W. Schimper or just Schimper. In one case, one of two specimen records of the same collection with the same date and number that went to different repositories has 'Schimper W.G.' as the collector and the other has 'Schimper G.H.W.' as the collector, and this is presumably from his own records. His are the most confusing entries, since his name is alternatively given as Wilhelm Schimper, George Heinrich Wilhelm Schimper, Wilhelm G. Schimper and Wilhelm Georg Schimper. I think that all of these are the same person and I suspect that most of the taxa that have the names schimperi and schimperiana including taxa in genera Crassula, Asystasia, Trichodiadema, Osyridicarpos, Corchorus, Striga, Hyparrhenia, Pennisetum, Lapeirousia, Ficus, Momordica, Usnea, Embelia, Habenaria, Eulophia, Brassica, Bidens, Euclea, Commiphora and Athyrium are in honor of G.H.W. Schimper. Gunn & Codd have an entry only for Andreas Franz Wilhelm Schimper, but state that "tropical African taxa named after a Schimper mostly, if not exclusively commemorate other members of the family." JSTOR has a note for Wilhelm Philip Schimper that "His herbarium material from Africa, often attributed to him, is from other collectors particularly his cousin G.H.W. Schimper and his son A.F.W. Schimper." (Wikipedia; JSTOR; Flora of Zimbabwe; Trees and Shrubs of Mpumalanga and Kruger National Park)

schinziana/schinzianum/schinzianus/schinzii/Schinziophyton: for Hans Schinz (1858-1941), Swiss professor of systematic botany and Director of the Botanical Garden in Zurich, and an explorer and botanist who collected in South Africa and Namibia. He spent several years in Namibia and on the basis of that work published an important scientific, geographic and ethnographic study of the colony which was one of the first comprehensive works on the Ovamboland region. He was also the author of Flora der Schweiz in several volumes. He is commemorated with many species names including current taxa in genera Maerua, Triraphis, Anthephora, Corallocarpus, Cyperus, Hibiscus, Brachystelma, Lepidium, Dicoma, Berkheya, Geigeria, Philyrophyllum, Nesaea, Euphorbia, Ozoroa, Grewia and Stapelia, and many others that have been synonymized. It's likely that all the taxa with these epithets honor Hans Schinz. The genus Schinziophyton in the Euphorbiaceae was published in 1990 by British botanist Alan Radcliffe-Smith, and also for the genera Schiniella and Schinzafra which do not appear in southern Africa. (Elsa Pooley; Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.; Gunn & Codd; JSTOR; HerbWeb; Wikipedia)

Schkuhria: for Christian Schkuhr (1741-1811), German botanist. The following was translated from a German website: "Christian Schkuhr was a trained gardener and later worked as a physical scientist for the University of Wittenberg. Besides his occupation, he conducted botanical studies throughout his life. Not only did he learn to draw, to engrave and to use a microscope (using selfmade instruments) to publish his Botanisches Handbuch (Handbook of Botany), he also learned how to print (cf. Boehmer’s epilogue for the first volume of the handbook with a rather detailed description of the author’s life). With his rather modestly equipped work, Schkuhr not only wanted to help plant lovers to get to know the names of native plants and plants introduced to the area by using Carl von Linné’s system, which by then had been accepted almost everywhere in Germany, but also wanted them to get familiar with the value of plants with regard to medicinal use, local economy and agriculture. At the same time, he regarded his handbook as a substitute for a so far non-existent guide to the flora of Wittenberg (cf. volume 1, p.3). The plant species were classified according to Linné’s system and very frequently Schkuhr placed several species next to each other, as was the case with the sweet vernal grass. He stated both the Latin and the German name of the species and gave a brief characterization of the plant and a detailed description and explanation of the figures on the table. Furthermore, Schkuhr gave anthesis, required location, and how widespread the species was, in particular its extent of occurance in and around Wittenberg, as well as the usefulness of the species and further particulars, such as color and smell, peculiar." The genus Schkuhria in the Asteraceae was published in 1797 by German physician and botanist Albrecht Wilhelm Roth. (Wikipedia; UMass Amherst Library)

Schlechteranthus/schlechteri/Schlechteria/Schlechterina: for Friedrich Richard Rudolf Schlechter (1872-1925), German botanist, traveler and plant collector in Africa, assistant to Harry Bolus, came to the Cape in the 1890's; and/or his brother Max Schlechter (1874-1960). Of the two brothers, Friedrich was unquestionably the senior from a collecting sense. He came to the Cape five years before his brother and although the two of them did spend about a year collecting together, most of the species with these epithets were collected by Friedrich. There are too many species to list. Friedrich was also honored with the genus Schlechterina in the Passifloraceae which was published in 1902 by German botanist Hermann August Theodor Harms. Gunn & Codd and the Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names both record the genus Schlechteranthus ( published in 1929 in the Aizoaceae by German botanist Martin Heinrich Gustav Schwantes) as commemorating Max Schlechter, although one source could have picked it up from the other, while the CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names says it honors his brother. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

schleicheri: probably for Johann Christoph Schleicher (1768-1834), Swiss botanist, bryologist and mycologist, plant collector in Germany, France, Italy and Switzerland, author of Catalogus plantarum in Helvetia. He was also honored with the generic name Schleichera which does not appear in southern Africa. The taxon in southern Africa with the above epithet is Acarospora schleicheri.

schlichtianus: for Albert Wilhelm Hugo von Schlicht (1817-1893), German pharmacist, apothecary, and chemist who emigrated to South Africa, commemorated with the former taxa Brownanthus schlichtianus and Mesembryanthemum schlichtianum both of which have been synonymized to Brownanthus arenosus. (Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

schliebenii: for Hans-Joachim Eberhardt Schlieben (1902-1975), German botanist, photographer, and writer who collected in Tanzania and South Africa, commemorated with the former taxa Aristida schliebenii (now synonymized to A. junciformis), Rapanea schliebenii (now R. melanophloeos) and Rhus schliebenii (now R. megalismontana). He is also commemorated with the genus Schliebenia which does not appear in southern Africa. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses; Gunn & Codd; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; JSTOR)

Schlotheimia: for Ernst Friedrich, Baron von Schlotheim (1764-1832), German paleobotanist and politician. Hugh Clarke provides the following: "He studied at Göttingen and Freiberg (Saxony), a student of Abraham Werner, one of the founding fathers of geology. He gathered together an extensive collection of the remains of (carboniferous) plant fossils which he described in his illustrated book Ein Beitrag zur Flora der Vorwelt (1804). His major work, Die Petrefactenkunde (1820) supplemented by a folio atlas (1822), illustrates the “petrified and fossil remains of the animal and vegetable kingdom of a former world.” He held various posts: Privy Councilor, President of the Chamber at the Court of Saxony and from 1822, Curator of the library, art, and Natural history collections of the Duke of Saxony in Gotha." It was the first time in Germany that fossils had been identified according to the binomial system of Carl Linnaeus. According to the History of Paleobotany: Selected Essays, he was a student of one of the founding fathers of geology, Abraham Werner of Freiberg. His specimens are in the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. The genus Schlotheimia in the Orthotrichaceae was published in 1812 by Swiss-German bryologist Samuel Élisée von Bridel. (Wikipedia; History of Paleobotany: Selected Essays edited by A.J. Bowden et. al.)

Schlumbergera: for Frédéric Schlumberger (1823–1893), French horticulturist and collector of cacti and other succulents who lived in Les Château de la Haye des Authieux in Authieux-sur-le-Port-Saint-Ouen on the outskirts of Rouen, France. Charles Lemaire named this cactus for him in 1858 in recognition of a number of submissions Schlumberger made to Revue horticole during the period of 1854-1857. Other writers have suggested that the attribution should be made for the Belgian Frederick Schlumberger (1804–1865), but an internet article "Origin of the generic name Schlumbergera" by Peter Coxhead makes a strong case in favour of the first mentioned Schlumberger. A website called The Garden of Eaden says that the species Schlumbergera truncata, the so-called 'Christmas Cactus,' apparently has nothing to do with Christmas but received its name because it blooms at that time. There are also a number of taxa with the specific epithet schlumbergeri, some of which are in the Cactaceae. but I have been unable to determine whether they are named for Frédéric Schlumberger. I have also been unable to learn exactly where he collected, whether it was somewhere overseas or whether he just collected plants that were available near his home. The genus Schlumbergera in the Cactaceae was published in 1858 by French botanist Antoine Charles Lemaire. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Schmidelia: for Casimir Christoph Schmidel (1718-1792), German physician, naturalist and plant collector, Professor of Pharmacology and then Professor of Medicine at the recently established Friedrichs Academy in Bayreuth, lecturer on physiology, anatomy, surgery, pathology and forensic medicine, Privy Councillor and Head of the Board of Health at Ansbach, author of Erz Stuffen und Berg Arten ("Ore Specimens and Mineral Species of the Mines") with engravings by Nuremberg engraver Johann Michael Seligmann. The genus Schmidelia in the Sapindaceae was published in 1767 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus, and it is now considered an illegitimate name that has been changed to Allophylus. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; The Mineralogical Record Museum of Art; JSTOR)

Schmidtia: this epithet has a somewhat confusing derivation. The genus Schmidtia Tratt. in the Poaceae was originally published in 1816 by Austrian botanist and mycologist Leopold Trattinnick, and he intended the name to honor Franz Wilibald Schmidt (1764-1796), Czech botanist and zoologist from Bohemia, specialist in spermatophytes, plant collector and accomplished painter, and a person who was a frequent correspondent and friend of Trattinnick. According to the CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names, he was also a physician. He was the author of Flora Boëmica Inchoata: Exhibens Plantarum Regni Boëmiae Indigenarum Species. An article about him in the South African Journal of Botany, Vol. 75, Issue 3 (2009) by J. Kirschner says, "During about ten years of botanical activity before his untimely death, F.W. Schmidt published a number of papers and books and created about 800, mostly unpublished, drawings and watercolours. A contemporary of T. Haenke, he soon became a leading personality in botany in Bohemia; he described many new species and a number of them are generally accepted now. F.W. Schmidt was head of a private botany school and a botanical garden in Prague, sponsored by Count Malabaila de Canal. There he got access to extra-European plants, and used the international contacts of his Maecenas to acquire foreign plants. Observations of a number of these plants were published by him in his thesis (Schmidt, 1793), where he also described several plants from South Africa." This epithet (Schmidtia Tratt.) is now considered invalid. The genus Schmidtia in the Poaceae that is now recognized as valid, and has what is referred to as a conserved name, is Schmidtia Steudel ex J.A. Schmidt. The form of this epithet indicates that J.A. Schmidt validly published the name based on an earlier publication or description by German physician and authority on grasses Ernst Gottlieb von Steudel. Steudel did not say who the name was supposed to honor, but it is generally regarded that it was for Johann Anton Schmidt (1823-1905), German botanist, professor of botany, traveler, plant collector. The JSTOR entry about him says: "German botanist from Hamburg who trained at the University of Heidelberg (1848-1849) and subsequently (1849-1850) at the University of Göttingen (Dr. phil., 1850). He made an important expedition to the Cape Verde Islands (1851-1852) where he collected a number of new taxa. Returning to Germany, he made his living as a lecturer in Heidelberg (1852-1863), and wrote a local flora of the region. Schmidt later moved to Hamburg, where he was a private scholar (1863-1904), and eventually died at Elberfeld near Hamburg. He should not be confused with several similarly named plant collectors and other botanists. Specimens commonly attributed to him from Senegal (1821-1822) and distributed by F.W. Sieber must have been made by another J. Schmidt." There are two things that are odd about this attribution. First, that Trattinnick would honor one Schmidt and Steudel another. And secondly, that J.A. Schmidt would end up publishing a name that was intended to honor himself. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia; JSTOR; Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.; José Mari-Mutt, pers. comm.)

schmidtiana: possibly for Richard Schmidt (1862-1938), head librarian at Leipzig University. In going back over these entries, I can find no notes on where I got this derivation. I cannot confirm it, so must regard it with suspicion. Schmidt is a very common name and there are many botanists and collectors that have it. The taxa in southern Africa with this epithet are the former Aloe schmidtiana (now A. cooperi) and Haworthia schmidtiana (now H. nigra).

schmidtii: there are at least three Schmidts that have collected in the southern African region, A.A. Schmidt (fl. 1950), G.A.F. Schmidt, and K.A. Schmidt (1932), and many other Schmidts involved in botany and/or plant collecting, and any one of these could be in play here. Taxa with this epithet include the former Anacampseros schmidtii (now Avonia albissima) and Crinum schmidtii (now C. moorei), with no information as to the derivation.

schneideriana: for Camillo Karl Schneider (1876-1951), Austrian botanist, garden architect, horticultural journalist and author of Handworterbuch der Botanik, general secretary of the Austro-Hungarian Dendrological Society, commemorated with Eberlanzia schneideriana. He was an authority on Berberis but his monograph on the genus was destroyed by Allied bombing in 1943. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; JSTOR)

schnelliae: for a Mrs. J. Schnell who first collected a single specimen of the orchid Eulophia schnelliae in the vicinity of King Wlliamstown in 1942 and sent it to the Bolus Herbarium. Subsequently it was thought to be extinct until it was rediscovered by members of the Orchid Society in 2009 near Port Edward, however it has now been placed in synonymy with Eulophia macowanii. There is also a taxon formerly called Dryopteris schnelliae which has been synonmyized to Athyrium newtonii, and this may or may not honor the same person. (JSTOR)

schoemanii: for Paul Schoeman, founder of Weltevrede Succulent Nursery in Port Elizabeth, commemorated with Haworthia schoemanii. (Bruce Bayer, pers. comm.)

schooneesii: for Diderikus Anthonie Schoonees (1907-2001), a South African teacher at Steytlerville, commemorated with Aloinopsis schooneesii. He was born at Steytlerville, was present at the annual meeting of the South African Association for the Advancement of Science in  Caledon in 1930, and later was a lecturer at Stellenbosch. He wrote several papers on the morphology of anurans (frogs).. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; JSTOR; David Hollombe)

Schotia: for Richard van der Schot (1733-1790) of Delft, Holland, chief gardener of the Botanical Garden at the Imperial Palace at Schönbrun near Vienna which had been designed at the behest of the Emperor Franz I Stephan, husband of the Empress Maria Theresa, by the famous Leyden florist Adrian Steckhoven in 1753. The Emperor was a keen natural scientist and, the Empress having chosen Schönbrun as her principal residence, Franz I Stephan bought a neglected field from the neighboring village of Heitzing, on which it was his intent to create a "Dutch garden." This garden was then extended, the original garden being today the location of the Palm House, and the extended section being today the Botanic Garden. Van der Schot acted as Steckhoven's assistant and brought to Vienna plants purchased from several Dutch gardens. At the time the scientist Nicolaus Joseph von Jacquin was residing in Vienna and had an association with a family friend originally from Leyden named Gerard van Swieten (1700-1772) who had become professor of medicine at the University of Vienna and court physician to the Empress Maria Theresa, and had been involved in the process of creating a botanical garden at Schönbrunn. Van Swieten conceived the idea of sending von Jacquin on a botanical expedition to the West Indies and tropical America, and with the approval and financial support of the Emperor selected van der Schot to accompany him. Thus, beginning in 1755, van der Schot with von Jacquin and two others, Italian zoologists John Buonamici and Ferdinand Barculli, travelled to the Caribbean. The expedition which continued until 1759 eventually visited the islands of Martinique, Grenada, St. Vincent, Domingo, Eustatius, St. Christopher, St. Bartholomew, Aruba, Jamaica, Cuba, and Curacao, and the coastal regions of Columbia and Venezuela, collecting plants and animals, and eventually sending seven collections back to Vienna, but van der Schot returned in February 1756 with the second collection of materials, most of which arrived in good condition. The history of the period from then until he became head of the Vienna Zoo and Menagerie in 1789 (a position he held for only a short time before he died) is extremely thin. He continued to work at the gardens, and in 1780, being far advanced in years and having been confined to his rooms by a fit of gout, was neglectful of the garden leading to a tragic loss. On one of the coldest winter nights, the person responsible for keeping up the fire in the hothouse let it go out, then overheated it in the morning, and the temperature swings caused the destruction of many of the most beautiful plants. I have found several references to Richard van der Schot having visited South Africa and other countries but this is not true. When a scientific mission was proposed to go to America in 1782 to collect natural history specimens and live plants to restock the greenhouses at Schönbrunn, the Emperor appointed Franz Joseph Märter to be the leader. Van der Schot was tasked with selecting two gardeners to accompany the expediton and he picked Franz Boos (who would later go to the Cape with the gardener Scholl in 1786) and Franz Bredemeyer (who would go with Joseph van der Schot to Mauritius in 1791). I have been unable to find out much about Richard van der Schot's later years. Several sources including PlantzAfrica, the CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names, A.W. Smith's A Gardener's Handbook of Plant Names, Trees and Shrubs of Mpumalanga and Kruger National Park, Sappi What's In A Name: The Meanings of the Botanical Names of Trees, and Stearn's Dictionary of Plant Names all have said that van der Schot's date of death was 1819, but the JSTOR database says 1790, and a Wikipedia article on Franz Boos says that in 1790 "after the death of Richard van der Schot," Emperor Leopold II appointed Franz Boos Director of the Schönbrunn Menagerie. This fits with Schot's having been head of the zoo 1789-1790. I can find no reference to any history of his after 1790. And most persuasively, information I have received from Mr. R. Stangl, librarian of the University of Vienna Botany Department, and based on the paper of Jan Mokre referred to below gives Richard van der Schot's dates of birth and death as Dec. 9th, 1733 - Feb. 19th, 1790. There was another gardener at Schönbrunn around the same time by the name of Heinrich Schott who did die in 1819, so this might be the source of the confusion. The earliest source I have been able to find for this date (1819) is the 1887 work The Illustrated Dictionary of Gardening, A Practical and Scientific Encyclopaedia of Horticulture for Gardeners and Botanists edited by George Nicholson of Kew Gardens, which may be where the error began in the first place. Very often a single incorrect source is relied upon by others and the misinformation spreads throughout the literature. In 1791 after Van der Schot's death, his son Joseph (one source gives his dates as 1763-1819 and another as 1770-1812) and Franz Bredemeyer were ordered by Emperor Leopold to go to the Isle of France (Mauritius), collect plants, and then go to the Cape and pick up the gardener Scholl who had been there since 1786 and still had a collection of plants from Mauritius and the Cape waiting to be brought home. Unfortunately the captain of the ship was ill-intentioned toward the botanists and decided to bypass the Cape and sail for Málaga instead, and so the younger van der Schot never made it there. He did become a head gardener at Schonbrunn and went to North America to collect plants. The genus Schotia in the Fabaceae was published in 1787 by Nicolaus Joseph von Jacquin who was Director of the botanical gardens of the University of Vienna and Professor of Botany and Chemistry there, and it may be assumed that it was based on materials sent back from South Africa by Franz Boos who was there 1786-1788. The epithet was named for van der Schot presumably because of his relationship with von Jacquin. (PlantzAfrica; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia; Missouri Botanical Garden Rare Books Library; Briefe aus Amerika: 1799-1804 by Alexander von Humboldt; Mr. R. Stangl, pers. comm.; Jan Mokre, "Fürstliche Forstwirtschaft und Bürgerliche Freiheit. Die Botanische Studien- und Sammelreise des Joseph van der Schot nach Nordamerika," in Elisabeth Zeilinger, Osterreich und die Neue Welt: Symposion in der Osterreichischen Nationalbibliothek, Wien, Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, 1993, pp. 107-120; The Illustrated Dictionary of Gardening, A Practical and Scientific Encyclopaedia of Horticulture for Gardeners and Botanists, edited by George Nicholson, Vol. 6, p. 380; Annals of Botany Vol. 2 edited by Carl Dietrich Eberhard Konig; Alice Notten, pers. comm.)

schraderi/schraderianum: for Heinrich Adolf Schrader (1767-1836), German botanist and mycologist, author of Flora Germanica (1806), Nova genera plantarum (1797), Hortus Gottingensis (1809) and Systematische Sammlung Cryptogamischer Gewächse (1796-97), Director of the Göttingen Botanic Garden. He is commemorated with Pleopeltis schraderi and Lepisorus schraderi, and possibly also for Chenopodium schraderianum. He is also honored with the genus Schraderanthus which does not appear in southern Africa. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses; Flora of Zimbabwe)

Schrebera/schreberi: for Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber (1739-1810), German botanist and zoologist, correspondent and student of Linnaeus, Professor of Materia medica at the University of Erlangen, President of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Fellow of the Royal Society, author of the multi-volume Die Säugethiere in Abbildungen nach der Natur mit Beschreibungen on the mammals of the world, a work of entomology entitled Schreberi Novae Species Insectorvm, and other works, commemorated with Brasenia schreberi and the genus Schrebera in the Oleaceae which was published in 1798 by Scottish surgeon and botanist William Roxburgh. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia)

schreiberae: the taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is Salsola schreiberae, and aside from the suggestion that the person honored is a woman, I can't say much. The taxon was collected in Namibia in 1972 and published in 1974 by Russian botanist Victor Petrovič Botschantzev.

schreuderiana: for Anna Elisabeth Schreuder (1895-?), wife of Paul Andries van der Bijl (1888-1939), commemorated with the former taxon Parmelia schreuderiana, now synonymized to Xanthoparmelia chalybaeizans. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

schroederi: for Friedrich Wilhelm Martin Schröder, Stationsassistent in Togo from 1897-1906, and later a secretary in the imperial colonial office, commemorated with Asparagus schroederi. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

schroeppelii: my only clue about this name is that the Harvard University Index of Botanists does list an Adolf Schröppel (Schroeppel) (1906-?), who was a cryptogamic botanist, but the specific epithet here belongs to a genus of shrubs (Cadaba) in the family Capparaceae, so I don't know whether this is the person so honored. The name was published by Karl Suessenguth in 1951. There are JSTOR specimen records of this taxon being collected in Namibia in 1939 by Otto Heinrich Volk (1903-2000) who was a fellow German and would have been a contemporary. His wife and co-collector was Annemarie Schröppel (1908-?). The taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is Cadaba schroeppelii, and this is the only taxon with this epithet.

schroeteri: possibly for Carl Joseph Schröter (Schroeter) (1855-1939), Swiss ecologist and limnologist, lecturer in botany then professor at the Technical College, Zurich, author of Pflanzenleben der Alpen, studied fossil woods and phytogeography. He was in South Africa in 1910. The taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is Phymaspermum schroeteri which was collected in 1926 by R.H. Compton and published by him in 1931. (Gunn & Codd)

schuldtiana/schuldtianus/schuldtii: for a German horticulturist named Hans Schuldt (1929-1970), owner of the horticultural establishment of his uncle Albert Schenkel, Hamburg. A German website about Schuldt's grandson Hans Karsten Kleeberg says "Hans Schuldt was a botanist with a scientific background. As part of his research, he cultivated a number of different plant species, which have since been named after him. He set trends in the marketing of seeds and globalized business through cooperation agreements with plantations in Central and South America, East and South Africa as well as in the Asian hemisphere. He established [in] the world a variety of business relationships [to] which he introduced his grandson, [who he] later introduced as his successor." He is commemorated with Adromischus schuldtianus and there are several other species in genera Ophthalmophyllum, Argyroderma and Haworthia with these epithets but I have been unable to confirm who they are for. There is something odd about the above-mentioned website however because it says that Schuldt was born in 1929 and his grandson was born in 1950, but that's impossible. I can't find anything else about him. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

schultesii: possibly for Julius Hermann Schultes (1804-1840), Austrian botanist, co-author of Volume 7 of the Roemer & Schultes edition of the Systema Vegetabilium and/or his father Josef August Schultes (1773-1831), Austrian physician, botanist and naturalist, author of Flora of Austria (1794) and Flora of Bavaria (1811). The taxon in southern Africa with this epithet was the former Trachyandra schultesii, now synonymized to Chlorophytum triflorum. Oddly enough, Julius Hermann Schultes (1804-1840) apparently had a brother named Julius Hermann Schultes (1820-1887), botanist and physician, curator of the herbarium of Leyden. One clue that links this epithet with these individuals is that a taxon named Chlorophytum dubium was published in 1829 by Josef August Schultes and Julius Hermann Schultes (1804-1840), and this taxon is a synonym of C. triflorum.

schultzei: for Leonhard S. Schultze (1872-1955), a German zoologist, anthropologist, geographer and philologist, author of Aus Namaland und Kalahari (1907), commemorated with Leipoldtia schultzei, Brachystelma schultzei and possibly also for the former taxon Crotalaria schultzei, now synonymized to C. colorata. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

schultzii: for Carl Heinrich Schultz (1805-1867), German physician and botanist, brother to botanist Friedrich Wilhelm Schultz (1804–1876). He was called 'Bipontinus' (Schultz-Bip., a reference to his birthplace, Zweibrücken or Two Bridges) to differentiate him from the Carl Heinrich Schultz (1798-1871) who was called 'Schultzenstein' and was also a German botanist. The name 'Schultzenstein' was supposedly also a reference to his birthplace, possibly a family estate of some kind because he was born in Alt-Ruppin. Taxa in southern Africa with this epithet are Stoebe schultzii and the former Oxalis schultzii, now synonymized to Oxalis obtusa. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; Wikipedia)

schumanniana/schumannianum: for Dr. Karl Moritz Schumann (1851-1904), botanist, taxonomist and an academic colleague of Professor Adolf Engler at Berlin, curator of the Botanisches Museum in Berlin-Dahlem from 1880 until 1894, first chairman of the German cactus society and editor of its Journal, prolific author of botanical papers and occasional plant collector, commemorated with Pavetta schumanniana. He is also remembered with the genera Schumannia, Schumanniophyton and Schumannianthus, none of which appear in southern Africa. There are also taxa in southern Africa with these epithets in genera Thesium, Dicliptera, Strychnos, Pavonia and Pappea, but I have only uncertain evidence that they were named for Karl Schumann. JSTOR records also show that there was an R. Schumann and an Adolf Wilhelm Schumann (1918-2001) both of whom collected in South Africa, and their names can't be discounted. (PlantzAfrica; Wikipedia; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

schumannii: for Dolf Schumann, see dolfiana, commemorated with Erica schumannii. (Ted Oliver, pers. comm.)

Schwabea: for Samuel Heinrich Schwabe (1789-1875), German astronomer, botanist, pharmacist, and member of the Royal Society of London. The genus Schwabea in the Acanthaceae was published in 1839 by Austrian botanist Stephan Friedrich Ladislaus Endlicher. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Schwantesia: for Martin Heinrich Gustav Schwantes (1881-1960), German botanist, archeologist and professor of pre-history, expert in the Mesembryanthemaceae, author of Flowering stones and mid-day flowers. The genus Schwantesia in the Aisoaceae was published in 1928 by South African botanist Louisa Bolus. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

schwarzii: for Friedrich (Fritz) Schwarz, 20th century cactus collector of German descent who collected in Mexico. The Harvard University Herbarium list of botanists includes a Fritz Schwarz (1900-1988) but has him only as a collector in Mexico so he is probably the same individual. As to why the name of a German cactus collector in Mexico would be put on the South African taxon Widdringtonia schwarzii, this is another mystery. Widdringtonia schwarzii was collected by Marloth in the Baviaanskloof Mts of the Eastern Cape. (Wikipedia; PlantzAfrica; JSTOR)

schweickerdtiana/schweickerdtii: for Herold Georg Wilhelm Johannes Schweickerdt (1903-1977), German botanist and plant collector in Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa, curator of the Botanical Garden of the University of Göttingen from 1940 to 1964, commemorated with Gasteria schweickerdtiana, Schoenoxiphium schweickerdtii, and the former taxa Grewia schweickerdtii (now G. hexamita) and Caralluma schweickerdtii (now Orbea carnosa). (Gunn & Codd; Wikipedia)

schweinfurthiana/schweinfurthii: for George August Schweinfurth (1836-1925), Latvian-born German botanist, ethnologist and traveller in Central East Africa, the Congo, the Libyan desert, and from the the Nile River to Khartoum. He was the author of Im Herzen von Afrika ("The Heart of Africa") (1874), and Artes Africanae; Illustrations and Descriptions of Productions of the Industrial Arts of Central African Tribes (1875). He made considerable advances in our knowledge of the inhabitants and the flora and fauna of Central Africa. His major geographical discovery was the existence of the Uele (Welle) River, which is an important tributary of the Congo River. He was the first European to encounter the pygmy races of East Africa. He is commemorated in current and synonymized taxa in genera Amblygonocarpus, Convolvulus, Englerastrum, Strychnos, Isoetes, Heppia, Secamone, Orbea, Pachycarpus, Asclepias, Musa, Lissochilus, Eulophia, Potamogeton and Kalanchoe. (Wikipedia; Princeton Library; JSTOR)

Schwenckia: for Martin Wilhelm Schwencke (1707-1785), Dutch physician and professor of botany at the Hague. The genus Schwenckia in the Solanaceae was published in 1764 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus who initially spelled the name Schwenkia. (The British Encyclopedia by William Nicholson; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; "On the Correct Spelling of the Generic Name Schwenckia with a note about Martin Wilhelm Schwencke" by H. Heine, Kew Bulletin, Vol. 16, No. 3, 1963)

Schwetschkea: for Karl Gustav Schwetschke (1804-1881), bookseller of Halle, studied Latin and Greek at the Universities of Heidelberg and Halle, edited the newspaper Der Hallische Courier and published among other scholarly works the journal Allgemeine Monatsschrift für Literatur. The genus Schwetschkea in the Leskeaceae (formerly Myriniaceae) published in 1875 by German botanist Johann Karl August (Friedrich Wilhelm) Mûller. The single taxa in southern Africa that formerly had this epithet was Schwetschkea rehamnnii, which is now Helicodontium lanceolatum. (Mosses of Eastern North America by Howard Crum)

scottii: for Charles Leslie (C.L.) Scott (1913-2001), South African plant botanical author, authority on Haworthia, and author of The Genus Haworthia, commemorated with Haworthia scottii. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

scullyi: for William Charles Scully (1855-1943), Irish-born South African magistrate in Springfontein as well as in Namaqualand and the Transkei, plant collector who came to Cape Town as a child, diamond prospector with Cecil Rhodes, and one of South Africa's best known authors though little known outside the country. He was Chief Magistrate of Port Elizabeth. He was generally sympathetic with the aboriginal African peoples of South Africa as evidenced by his books Daniel Vananda and Kafir Stories. He is commemorated with the taxa Disa scullyi, Acanthopsis scullyi, Gladiolus scullyi, Spiloxene scullyi, and the former taxa Arctotis scullyi, now A. decurrens, and Diascia scullyi, now Hemimeris racemosa. (Elsa Pooley; Gunn & Codd; JSTOR; Wikipedia)

seaforthianum: for Lt.-Gen. Francis Mackenzie Humberston, (aka Francis Humberston Mackenzie), 1st and last Baron Seaforth (1754-1815), British politician and general, plant collector, Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the Linnean Society, Governor of Barbados during which period he ended slavery and slave killing on the island, who introduced Solanum seaforthianum and other plants to Britain from the West Indies. An online government fact sheet for this taxon, part of the Electronic Flora of South Australia, states that "The species was cultivated in Britain from material introduced from the West Indies by Lord Seaforth (Francis Mackenzie Humberston, 1754-1815), governor of Barbados from 1801 to 1806. Lord Seaforth was responsible for the introduction of many living plants to the gardens of England and these are illustrated in early issues of Curtis' Botanical Magazine and Andrews' The Botanists Repository." He lost his hearing and almost all of his speech as a result of having had scarlet fever at the age of 12. His name is listed as both Francis Mackenzie Humberston (275 results on Google) and Francis Humberston Mackenzie (1660 results on Google). Several geneology sites list his last name as Mackenzie with his ancestors as Mackenzies. A website of the Brooklyn Museum has quite a detailed history of the Mackenzie name as it relates to Seaforth and lists him as Francis Humberston Mackenzie, 1st Baron Seaforth. Encyclopedia Britannica 1911 says "In 1797 Francis Humberston Mackenzie (1754-1815), chief of the Clan Mackenzie, was created Lord Seaforth and Baron Mackenzie of Kintail." This name is echoed by Britons: Forging the Nation by Linda Colley. Yet a website of the Yale University Library refers to him as Francis Mackenzie Humberston, as does the Harvard University Database of botanists, The Figge Art Museum (now the Davenport Museum of Art) has a portrait by Thomas Lawrence the text for which states that "Lawrence's sitter for this portrait is believed to be Francis MacKenzie Humberston, Baron Seaforth and MacKenzie (1754-1815), descendent of the old Scottish earls of Seaforth and clan chief of the MacKenzies." The CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names credits the genus Seaforthia to Francis Mackenzie Humberston (1754-1815), Lord Seaforth and Mackenzie. According to David Hollombe, the confusion may be related to inheritance. His father was Major William Mackenzie, his mother was Mary Humberston, and his children, all named Mackenzie, were William Frederick (died young), George Leveson Boucherat (died young), William Frederick, Francis John, Mary Elizabeth Frederica, Frances Catherine, Carolyn (acidentally killed), Charlotte Elizabeth, Augusta Anne and Hellen Ann, His older brother was Colonel Thomas Frederick Mackenzie Humberston (1753-1783), who had added the surname Humberston to his own when he inherited the Humberston family lands at about the age of 18, and when he died (as a result of having received a four-pound cannonball through the body in 1783), because all of his male children had predeceased him, Francis became the last male heir of the Earls of Seaforth. So Francis inherited his lands and titles and must have also adopted the name Mackenzie Humberston. (Curtis's Botanical Magazine Vol. 45; R.A. Howard's Early Botanical Records from the West Indies; Wikipedia; David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Searsia: for Paul Bigelow Sears (1891-1990), American plant ecologist, professor of botany at Oberlin College 1938-1950, Chair of the Conservation Program, Yale University, and head of the Yale School of Botany. He was the author of the 1935 book Deserts on the March and Charles Darwin, The living Landscape, Lands Beyond the Forest, and The Naturalist as a Cultural Force. The genus Searsia in the Anacardiaceae was published in 1942 by American botanist Fred Alexander Barkley. (PlantzAfrica; Jepson Herbarium)

Sebaea: for Albert Seba (1665-1736), Dutch pharmacist, zoologist,  naturalist, plant collector, traveller and author who, living in Amsterdam, obtained his large collections which he sold to the Russian czar, by asking sailors and ship surgeons to bring him exotic plants and animal products. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and the author of Locupletissimi rerum naturalium thesauri accurata descriptio and Cabinet of Natural Curiosities. The genus Sebaea in the Gentianaceae was published in 1810 by Scottish botanist Robert Brown. (Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.; Wikipedia; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

seelyae: for Dr. Mary Kathryn Seely (née Jensen) (1939- ), Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa, described by Clifford and Bostock as a South African plant ecologist, but by the website "Biographies of Namibian Personalities" as an American zoologist who came to Namibia from UCLA, was Director of the Namib Desert Research Station at Gobabeb 1970-1990 and then of the Desert Research Foundation of Namibia. These two entries seem difficult to reconcile, but Gunn & Codd confirm that she was an American zoologist. She is commemorated with Stipagrostis seelyae which she collected in 1985 in Namibia. (JSTOR)

Seemannaralia: for Berthold Carl Seemann (1825-1871), German botanist and explorer, naturalist, botanical collector, naturalist on the HMS Herald, editor of Bonplandia 1853-1862, editor of the Journal of Botany 1863-1869, author of The Botany of the Voyage of HMS Herald (1845-1851). He collected plants in the Pacific and South America. In 1851 he climbed Table Mountain with Carl Ludwig Phillip Zeyher. In 1859 he published a botanical catalogue of the flora of Fiji, then managed a sugar estate in Panama, was part of an ambitious project to build a railway connection across Central America, and finally died of fever at a gold mine in Nicaragua. The genus Seemannaralia in the Araliaceae was published in 1906 by French botanist and paleontologist René Viguier. He was also commemorated with two genera named Seemannia and a genus Seemannanthus, none of which appear in southern Africa. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia; JSTOR)

Seetzenia: for Ulrich Jasper Seetzen (1767-1811), German traveller, a naturalist and botanical collector. "His chief interests were in natural history and technology; he wrote papers on both these subjects which gained him some reputation, and had both in view in making a series of journeys through the Netherlands and Germany. He also engaged in various small manufactures, and in 1802 obtained a government post in Jever, however, the interest which he had long felt in geographical exploration culminated in a resolution to travel. In the summer of 1802 he started down the Danube with a companion Jacobsen, who broke down at Smyrna a year later. His journey was by Constantinople, where he stayed six months, thence through Asia Minor to Smyrna, then again through the heart of Asia Minor to Aleppo, where he remained from November 1803 to April 1805, and made himself sufficiently at home with Arabic speech and ways to travel as a native. Now began the part of his travels of which a full journal has been published (April 1808 to March 1809), a series of most instructive journeys in eastern and western Palestine and the wilderness of Sinai, and so on to Cairo and the Fayum. His chief exploit was a tour round the Dead Sea, which he made without a companion and in the disguise of a beggar. From Egypt he went by sea to Jidda and reached Mecca as a pilgrim in October 1809. In Arabia he made extensive journeys, ranging from Medina to Lahak and returning to Mocha, from which place his last letters to Europe were written in November 1810. In September of the following year he left Mocha with the hope of reaching Muscat, and was found dead two days later, having, it is believed, been poisoned by the command of the Imam of San‘a’. For the parts of Seetzen's journeys not covered by the published journal (Reisen, ed. Kruse, 4 vols, Berlin, 1854), the only printed records are a series of letters and papers in Zach's Monatliche Correspondenz and Hammer's Fundgruben. Many papers and collections were lost through his death or never reached Europe. The collections that were saved form the Oriental museum and the chief part of the Oriental manuscripts of the ducal library in Gotha." This Wikipedia entry was quoted from the Encyclopedia Britannica Vol. 21, now in public domain. The genus Seetzenia in the Zygophyllaceae was published in 1826 by Scottish botanist Robert Brown. (Wikipedia; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Seidelia: possibly for Christoph Friedrich Seidel (fl. 1869), German botanist, as stated by the CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names. However one of the sources for this derivation given by this work is Stafleu & Cowan, Taxonomic Literature, 5: 490 (1985) which says "Seidelia Baill. (1858) may be named for this author, but no etymology was given," so there is some uncertainty about this. W.P.U. Jackson echoes this as a possibility and states that Seidel was a horticulturist in Dresden. The genus Seidelia in the Euphorbiaceae was published in 1858 by French botanist and physician Henri Ernest Baillon. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; David Hollombe, pers. comm.; W.P.U. Jackson)

seineri: for Franz Seiner (1874-1940), Austrian journalist, traveller and plant collector in South-West Africa, commemorated with Jatropha seineri, Ornithogalum seineri, and the former taxa Hermannia seineri (now H. eenii), Dolichos seineri (now Neorautanenia brachypus), Abutilon seineri (now A. rehmannii), Helichrysum seineri (now H. lineare), Melinis seineri (now M. repens) and probably several others. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

seitziana: there are three former taxa in southern Africa with this epithet, Hermannia seitziana (now H. engleri), Dicoma seitziana (now Pteronia eenii) and Cissus seitziana (now Cyphostemma bainesii), and various databases of botanists and plant collectors contain the names of several people with the name Seitz, but I have nothing definitive on this one.

Selliguea: for Monsieur de Selligue (fl. 1823), French optician. Hugh Clarke provides the following: "[He was] a pioneer in the development of the microscope. At the end of 1823, Vincent and Charles Chevalier, opticians in Paris, began, on the recommendation of M. Selligue, to construct an achromatic microscope. His early pioneering efforts were described in Rapport sur le microscope achromatique de M. Selligue (1824) for the Académie Royale des Sciences. Although Selligue’s early designs were not really successful, his claim to fame is that he utilized the concept of combining achromatic object-glasses, which was an innovative breakthrough." Another source, The Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, Vol. 6, by L.H. Bailey, described him as a 'naturalist and mechanician.' Wikipedia says: "In 1832, he together with David Blum patented an application of shale oil for direct illumination. In 1838, he patented 'the employment of mineral oils for lighting'. His process of distilling bituminous shales (oil shale) was first described in the Journal des Connaissances Usuelles in 1834. This process for the oil shale retorting was first used in Autun, France, in 1838. This is considered the start of the modern oil shale industry." The genus Selliguea in the Polypodiaceae was published in 1824 by French naturalist Jean Baptiste Geneviève Marcellin Bory. (Historia Filicum by John Smith; Hugh Clarke)

Selliguea- the person discussed is Alexander François Gilles (Selligue) (1784-1845), French engineer who made the first achromatic objectives. See Lottke's work, p. S-45.

sellowianum: for Friedrich Sello (changed to Sellow in later years) (1789-1931), German botanist, naturalist and explorer most known for work in South America, one of the earliest students of the flora of Brazil, worked in the Botanical Garden of Berlin under Carl Ludwig Willdenow, attended lectures by Cuvier and Lamarck, worked at the Jardin des Plantes, received financial assistance from Alexander von Humboldt, drowned in a river at the age of 42. He is commemorated with Ptychomitrium sellowianum. (Wikipedia; Lexikon Deutschsprachiger Bryologen Vol. 1 by Jan-Peter Frahm and Jens Eggers)

Semonvillea: the CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names says this generic epithet is named for Hyppolite Boisel, Baron de Monville (1794-1863), French amateur industrialist, botanist and plant collector, specialist in cacti. However, William Henry Harvey's Flora Capensis states that it commemorates a M. Semonville, French botanist. However, the intrepid Hugh Clarke has found another JSTOR entry which is far more persuasive, that in fact the CRC World Dictionary and William Henry Harvey are both wrong, and that the person so honored with this epithet is Charles-Louis Huguet of Montaran, Earl and Marquis de Sémonville (1759-1839), French politician, diplomat and son of Charles de Montaran Huguet, an advisor to King Louis XV and Secretary of the Royal Finances. In 1811, the young Swiss-French botanist Jacques Étienne Gay was in Paris and needed employment. According to a JSTOR entry, "[he] was soon taken in by C.L. Huguet, marquis de Sémonville, who gave him a job in his office working for the senate. Several years later, at the Restoration, Huguet named him Secretary for the Committee of Petitions of the restored Chambre des Pairs (the Peerage of France), and he worked there until it was definitively abolished in 1848." So this was his day job while he pursued botany on the side. And in return, Gay named the genus Semonvillea in the Molluginaceae for his patron in 1829. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; JSTOR; Flora Capensis)

sendtneriana: for Otto Sendtner (1813-1859), German botanist of the University of Munich and a pioneer in the field of phytogeography, one of the first botanists to study the flora of Bosnia, collected algae, mosses, ferns and monocotyledons, first curator of the herbarium at the University of Munich, also worked with Ludwig Molendo and August Holler to study the bryoflora of the Alps, commemorated with Molendoa sendtneriana.

Senebiera: for Jean Senebier (1742-1809), Swiss botanist, bibliographer and linquist, clergyman, physiologist, librarian of the city of Genève. The genus Senebiera in the Brassicaceae was published in 1799 by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle. According to the POSA database, although not to Tropicos, this genus is no longer valid and has been synonymized to Coronopus. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

sephtonii: for Paul Sephton (1926-2005), a figure in the world of South African tennis and skiing, had a keen interest in and knowledge of botany, astronomy and the sciences. The taxa in southern Africa with this epithet is Ornithogalum sephtonii and it was published by Hilliard and Burtt in 1983. They also collected the holotype in 1981 and perhaps Paul Sephton was an associate or a friend of theirs who had shared some botanical outing or other.

Serruria: for Joseph (Josephus) Serrurier (1668-1742), Professor of botany, experimental physics and medicine at the University of Utrecht and author of Oratio pro Philosophia (1706). The genus Serruria in the Proteaceae was published in 1807 by British botanist Richard Anthony Salisbury. (PlantzAfrica; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

serusiauxii: for Dr. Emmanuël Sérusiaux (1953- ), Dutch lichenologist, professor in the Department of Botany at Université de Liége, Belgium, commemorated with Xanthoparmelia serusiauxii. He has collected in Papua, New Guinea, Belgium, France, Vietnam, Gabon and the U.S. The presumption that this is the derivation is based largely on the fact that Dr. Sérusiaux is a lichenologist who has collected this taxon, and that there are other lichen species with the epithet serusiauxii such as Taeniolella serusiauxii, Arthotheliopsis serusiauxi, Sclerococcum serusiauxii, Echinoplaca serusiauxii and Pseudopyrenula serusiauxii, some of which or all of which honor the same individual. ("New or Interesting Lichenicolous Fungi," Bull. Soc. Nat. Luxemb. 93 (1992); JSTOR)

seydeliana/seydelii: for Richard Heinrich Wilhelm Seydel (1885-1972) a German farmer and collector of plant in the northern-central parts of Namibia (S.W. Africa) for the Pflanzen Physiologisches Institute, Göttingen, commemorated with Salsola seydelii and the former Eleocharis seydeliana, now synonymized to E. schlechteri. (JSTOR; Gunn & Codd)

shandii: for Mr. John Shand (fl. 1920?), magistrate in Ladismith, Western Cape, commemorated with Gibbaeum shandii. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

shannonii: for the Countess of Shannon, either (1) Catherine Ponsonby Boyle (1746-1827), daughter of the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons and wife of the 2nd Earl (1727-1807), or (2) Sarah Hyde Boyle (c. 1780-1820), daughter of the 3rd Duke of Devonshire and wife of the 3rd Earl (1771-1842). The taxon in southern Africa that has this specific epithet is Erica shannonii. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Shantzia: for Homer LeRoy Shantz (1876-1958), American botanist, traveler in Africa and plant collector, professor of botany and zoology at several universities, researcher for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, President of the University of Arizona, and Chief of the Division of Wildlife Management of the U.S. Forest Service. He also worked with the Geography Branch of the Office of Naval Research. The genus Shantzia in the Malvaceae was published in 1928 by American botanist Frederick Lewis Lewton. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

shawii: for John Shaw (1837-1890), Scottish teacher, geologist, bryologist and amateur botanist, Headmaster of the South African College School, Cape Town, contributed papers on mosses to the Journal of Botany, collected South African plants which are at Kew, died at Cape Town, commemorated with Albuca shawii and Aspalathus shawii. (Trees and Shrubs of Mpumalanga and Kruger National Park; Gunn & Codd; JSTOR; Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturists)

shawii: for the Rev. Thomas Shaw (1693-1751). Wikipedia says: "He was born about in Kendal, Westmorland. From the grammar school of his native town, he went to The Queen's College, Oxford, where he took his Master's degree in 1719. On entering holy orders, he was appointed chaplain to the factory at Algiers. While in north Africa he traveled through Algiers, Tunisia, Syria, Egypt, and Arabia in the first half of the eighteenth century. He is best known for his account of his travels, first published in Oxford in 1738 and published in a French translation in The Hague by Jean Neaulme in 1743. The preface of this edition indicates that he would have lived twelve years in Algiers (1720-1732). He became a Fellow of his college in 1727, in his absence. During his travels he made crude daily geodetic surveys from which he draws maps attached to his work. he also made use of the Roman geographer Antoninus and the 12th century Arab geographer Al Idrissi in his works. On his return, in 1733, Shaw took his doctor's degree, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1740, on the death of Henry Felton, he was nominated principal of S.t Edmund Hall, with which he held the Greek professorship, and the vicarage of Bramley in Hampshire, till his death in 1751. The first edition of Shaw's Travels in Barbary and the Levant was printed at Oxford, in 1738. Richard Pococke commented unfavourably on parts of the work in his Description of the East (1745), and Shaw published two supplements in vindication, which were incorporated in the edition of 1757. Today Shaw is better known in France than his native England." Thanks to David Hollombe for bringing this attribution to my attention.

sheilae/Sheilanthera: named for his wife Sheila Lois Buchanan (c. 1913-1994) by Dr. Ion James Muirhead Williams (1912-2001). Dr. Williams was the founder/owner of Vogelgat Nature reserve. He was instrumental in establishing the walking paths in Fernkloof Nature Reserve and the Fernkloof Herbarium. The taxa in southern Africa with the specific epithet sheilae are Acmadenia sheilae and Leucadendron sheilae. Sheila L. Williams is listed by JSTOR as a co-collector of Dr. Ion Williams, who published A Revision of the Genus Leucadendron (1972) and both Acmadenia sheilae and Leucadendron sheilae. His wife's original material is segregated in the Sheila Lois Williams Herbarium at the Fernkloof Herbarium, a private herbarium established earlier by I.J.M. Williams, and the genus Sheilanthera in the Rutaceae was published in 1981 by him. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; JSTOR)

sheilae: other taxa in southern Africa with the specific name sheilae such as Aloe sheilae, Rhytidocaulon sheilae, Anthemis sheilae, Echinops sheilae, Delphinium sheilae and others are named for British botanist and plant collector Iris Sheila Collenette (1927- 2017) (née Darnton), wife of geologist N. Collenette whom she met while working in Borneo. She was a specialist in the flora of the Arabian peninisula, and the author of An illustrated guide to the flowers of Saudi Arabia and Wildflowers of Saudi Arabia.

Sherardia: for William Sherard (1659-1728), British botanist, traveller and plant collector in Greece and Asia Minor, British Consul to Smyrna (1703-1716), founder of the Sherardian Chair of Botany at Oxford, pupil of Joseph Pitton de Tournefort and Herman Boerhaave, and Fellow of the Royal Society, considered to be one of the outstanding English botanists of his day. His brother James had a garden of rare plants the taxa of which which were described by Dillenius in his Hortus Elthamensis. The genus Sherardia in the Rubiaceae was published in 1753 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia)

Shutereia: for Dr. James Shuter (?-1826) who collected many plants in the area of Madras. The genus Shutereia in the Convolvulaceae was published in 1833 by Swiss botanist and mycologist Jacques Denys Choisy. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; A General System of Gardening and Botany Vol. 4 by George Don)

sibbettii: for Mr. Cecil James Sibbett (1881-1967), South African naturalist, Chairman of the Council for the Botanical Society of South Africa, possibly author of Pictorial material of Cecil J. Rhodes, his contemporaries and later South African personalities, possibly author of The Odyssey of a District Governor of Rotary (1940), possibly a war correspondent during the Boer War who met Rudyard Kipling, commemorated with Neohenricia sibbettii. There are a lot of possiblys here, but the British National Register of Archives does have a Cecil James Sibbett (1881-1967) listed as a South African administrator, and a website of gravesites in South Africa displays a photo of the grave of Cecil James Sibbett (1881-1967) and Cecil Mary Sibbett (1881-1967). However, this entry as it stands should be regarded with some suspicion. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Sickmannia/sickmannianum: for Johann Rudolph Sickmann (1779-1849), German botanist. The genus Sickmannia in the Cyperaceae was published in 1834 by German botanist, zoologist and physician Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck. There is also a former taxon Schoenoxiphium sickmannianum, now synonymized to S. lanceum), which I presume without much evidence is named for the same individual. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

sieberi/sieberiana/sieberianum/sieberianus: for Franz Wilhelm Sieber (1789-1844), a Bohemian botanist, traveller and plant collector, author of Herbarium florae aegyptiaceae, committed to the Prague insane asylum where he spent the last fourteen years of his life. He is listed by JSTOR as having collected in Australia, Austria, Croatia, France, the Czech Republic, Italy, Greece, Madagascar, Mauritius, Egypt, South Africa, Senegal and Israel. He is commemorated with the taxon Restio sieberi and with the former taxa Peucedanum sieberianum (now Nanobubon strictum), Mariscus sieberianus (now Cyperus cyperoides), Salaxis sieberi (now Erica axillaris), Pleurachne sieberi (now Ficinia secunda) and probably also Fimbristylis sieberiana (now F. ferruginea), although one JSTOR record lists this as having been collected by Friedrich Wilhelm Sieber (fl. 1801-1807), an employee of Johann Centurius Hoffmannsegg. The latter individual however apparently only collected in Brazil and this taxon was collected on Mauritius. Two other records just list it as having been collected by F.W. Sieber so this is likely an error. Franz Wilhelm Sieber collected not only plants but also animals, art and ethnographic objects but his increasingly erratic behavior finally led to his being committed and he died at the early age of 55. He is also commemorated with several genera named Siebera and Sieberia, none of which appear in southern Africa. He was in South Africa twice, once in 1822 and again in 1824. (Wikipedia; Gunn & Codd; JSTOR; HUH)

Silene: after Silenus, in Greek mythology a woodland deity, tutor and companion to Bacchus. The genus Silene in the Caryophyllaceae was published in 1753 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

simiana/simii: for Thomas Robertson Sim (1858-1938), Scottish-born botanist, bryologist, botanical artist, prolific collector and first Conservator of Forests in Natal, author of The Forests and Forest Flora of The Colony of the Cape of Good Hope (1907), worked in the botanic gardens at Kew and at Harvard. His brother was James M. Sim who collected some mosses in the East Cape for T.R. Sim. He is commemorated with species in genera Erica, Aloe, Tylophora, Eugenia, Gnaphalium, Diospyros, Phylica, Excoecaria, Anemia, Asplenium, and others that have been synonymized, also with the genus Simia which does not appear in southern Africa. (Gunn & Codd; Flora of Zimbabwe; JSTOR)

simmleri: although my original entry suggested that the epithet Tulbaghia simmleri was named for Gudrun Simmler (1884?-?), Swiss botanist who published a monograph on soapworts entitled Monographie der Gattung Saponaria in 1910, I have reason to question this. The species was published in 1909 by Gustave Beauverd. Although the Harvard University Herbaria database, Tropicos and IPNI all record Gudrun Simmler's date of birth as 1884, a French website called Jardin! l'Encyclopédie by the Société des Gens de Lettres (Society of Men of Letters) gives her dates as 1848-1910 and specifically credits her with Tulbaghia simmleri. If these dates are correct, then she must have worked right up to the end of her life because she published at least two species, Saponaria haussknechtii and Saponaria intermedia in 1910. Interestingly, Beauverd also published Rhipsalis simmleri (which does not appear in southern Africa) in 1907, but this was apparently named for Paul Simmler, chief gardener of the Boissier Collections at Geneva, Switzerland. The first of these derivations (to Gudrun Simmler) is probably incorrect, because what are the chances that someone within a space of two years, would name two taxa simmleri after two different people named Simmler? The Bulletin de l'Herbier Boissier by Gustave Beauverd in 1908 refers to Tulbaghia simmleri as being one of several new plants from the southern hemisphere that flourished at least in part due to the care taken by the gardener Paul Simmler. And the taxon Pleurothallis simmleriana was named for this same Paul Simmler. There is also the slight possibility that Paul and Gudrun Simmler might have been related in some fashion. Further, both Tropicos and IPNI list an E. Simmler with no other information. So this is one of the many derivations that must remain uncertain for the time being, but it seems likely that Paul Simmler is the honoree. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

simpsonii: for Mr. and Mrs. Simpson (fl. 1922), station masters of the railway station at Halenberg, Namibia, in whose garden Juttadinteria simpsonii was first discovered. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

simsiana/simsii: possibly for John Sims (1749-1831), British botanist, physician and botanical engraver/illustrator, served for 25 years as Editor of Curtis' Botanical Magazine in England. The taxa in southern Africa with this epithet are the former Aspalathus simsiana (now A. confusa), Lebeckia simsiana (now L. sepiaria) and Stapelia simsii (now S. hirsuta), but I can confirm none of these as honoring this indivudal.

sitzlerianum: the taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is Conophytum sitzlerianum, but I'm not even sure that this commemorates a person.

skinneri: for W. Skinner of Thornton Heath. The taxon in southern Africa that has this epithet has been variously called Astroloba skinneri, Astroworthia bicarinata and Astroworthia skinneri, but it is considered a natural hybrid that is both a generic hybrid between Haworthia and Astroloba, and a specific hybrid. One of its parents may be Haworthia pumila and the other Astroworthia sp., although another source says Astroloba corrugata and Haworthia margaretifera. JSTOR does have a listing for a plant collector named W.J. Skinner (fl. 1899) who collected in Namibia but I have no evidence that this is the person whose name was put on this taxon. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

skottsbergii: for Carl Johan Fredrik Skottsberg (1880-1963), Swedish botanist and explorer of Antarctica, conservator at the Uppsala University Botanical Museum 1909 to 1914, appointed professor and director of the Göteborg Botanical Garden in 1919, member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences, author of Die Flora der Desventuradas-Inseln, commemorated with the former taxon Stipa skottsbergii, now synonymized to Nassella neesiana. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

slackii: for Adrian Slack (c.1934- ), British landscape architect of Russian extraction, well known carnivorous plant grower, and author of Carnivorous Plants (2000) and Insect-Eating Plants and How To Grow Them (2006), developer of hundreds of cultivars many of which are named for him, commemorated with Drosera slackii. He was one of the first people to start a professional nursery dedicated to raising carnivous plants. (International Carnivorous Plant Society; Wikipedia; Rutgers University)

sladeniana/sladenii: for Walter (or William) Percy Sladen (1849-1900), British biologist and naturalist, Vice-President of the Linnean Society, who specialized in starfish, and/or his wife Constance Anderson (1848-1906). They established the Percy Sladen Memorial Trust to fund expeditions. Aloe sladeniana, Crassula sladenii, Prenia sladeniana and Agathosma sladeniana were all apparently collected during one of these expeditions and named in his honor. He may also be commemorated with Romulea sladenii. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Agoracactus Forum; Wikipedia)

smalliana: for Bill Small, Forest Officer at Cobham Forest Station at the southern end of uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park in KwaZulu-Natal, and his wife Alta, who gave great assistance to the plant authors Hilliard and Burtt in their collecting in the southern Drakensberg, commemorated with Trachyandra smalliana. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

smithersii: probably for an R. Smithers (possibly R.H.N.) who collected Conophytum smithersii at Steinkopf in South Africa and about whom I have no certain details. An R.H.N. Smithers published a book entitled The Mammals of the South African Sub-Region, but this may not be the same person. R. Smithers is also listed by JSTOR as having collected two other species of Conophytum, C. curtum and C. meleagris, sp he must have had a particular interest in Conophytums. (JSTOR)

Smithia/smithiana: for Sir James Edward Smith (1759-1828), British botanist and physician, Fellow of the Royal Society, a founder and first President of the Linnean Society of London, prolific writer. The genus Smithia in the Fabaceae was published in 1789 by Scottish botanist William Aiton. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

smithiae: for Juana María de los Dolores de León Smith (1798-1872), the wife of General Sir Harry Smith, Governor of the Cape Colony and High Commissioner. She met her husband during the siege of her home town, Badajoz, during the Peninsular War, which was a military conflict between Napoleon's empire and the allied powers of Spain, Britain and Portugal, for control of the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars. She accompanied her husband on all of his deployments (except the British and American War of 1812) including his two postings to South Africa. The species Cyrtanthus smithiae was brought from Cafferland in 1836 by Mrs. Smith (or Lady Smith as she came to be called) where it bloomed in the Rondebosch garden of Mr. Watt. The genera Smithiantha and Smithiella which do not appear in southern Africa were named for Matilda Smith (1854-1926), British botanical illustrator associated with Kew from 1877 onwards drawing over 2,300 plates for Curtis's Botanical Magazine, Icones Plantarum and other publications. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

smithiana: for Christen Smith (1785-1816), botanist and proffesor of botany at the University of Christiania (now Oslo), moved to Britain in 1814, commemorated with the former taxon Vernonia smithiana, now synonymized to Hilliardiella aristata, which he collected in the Congo. His collections are among the earliest of Angolan flora. There is also an Oxalis smithiana published by Ecklon and Zeyher in 1835 which was possibly named for Scottish surgeon, explorer, ethnologist and zoologist Sir Andrew Smith (1797-1872), who was in South Africa from 1820 to 1837. He was the first Superintendent of the South African Museum of natural history in Cape Town and was the author of On the origin and history of the Bushmen in 1831. He met Charles Darwin when the second voyage of the Beagle arrived at the Cape in May 1836, and it was Darwin who nominated him for membership in the Royal Society in 1857. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; Gunn & Codd; Wikipedia)

smithii: for (1) Gerald Graham Smith (1892-1976), engineer, amateur botanist, plant collector in South Africa and student of Haworthia, Chairman of the Board of the East London Museum, commemorated with the former taxa Ceropegia smithii, now C. radicans, and Faucaria smithii, now F. britteniae. He had a collection of several thousand living Haworthia plants, and published articles in the Journal of South African Botany. (Gunn & Codd); (2) Christo Albertyn Smith (1898-1956), South African botanist and plant collector in South Africa in 1927, commemorated with Salsola smithii, Malephora smithii, Aspalathus smithii and the former taxa Cyperus smithii (now C.leptocladus) and Heliophila smithii (now H. minima). There is also a moss species named Leptodon smithii, but I don't know who that name honors. Gunn & Codd list seven other Smiths but they may not have been the one so honored. (JSTOR); (3) Gideon Francois Smith (1959- ), South African botanist, lectured in general botany at Potchefstroom University, Deputy Director of Research at the Notional Botanical Institute then Director, later appointed John P.H. Acocks Professor of Botany at the University of Pretoria, collected Crassula smithii. (JSTOR; website of the University of Pretoria)

smitii: for Jacob Smit, teacher at Oudtshoorn, commemorated with the former taxon Haworthia smitii, now synonymized to H. scabra. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

smutsii: for Jan Christiaan Smuts (1870-1950), South African statesman, soldier, philisopher and amateur botanist who rose to the position of Prime Minister of South Africa. He is listed by JSTOR as having been a plant collector from 1926 to 1935. One source indicates that Gen. Smuts was friends with and may have botanized with Pole Evans. He is commemorated with Anisopappus smutsii and the former taxon Digitaria smutsii, now D. eriantha, and possibly with several other taxa including Cyphia smutsii and the former Sporobolus smutsii, now S. iocladus, and Ficus smutsii, now F. tettensis. These last are not certain inasmuch as there was at least one other Smuts who was a plant collector in southern Africa whose name was Neil Reitz Smuts (1898-1963), apparently no relation to the General. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses; JSTOR; Gunn & Codd)

smythae: for Mrs. D. Smythe (fl. 1926) with no further details. Delosperma smythae was published by Louisa Bolus in 1929. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

snijmaniae: for Dr. Deirdré (Dee) Anne Snijman (1949- ), South African botanist, an officer at the Compton Herbarium, worked at Kirstenbosch, travelled and collected extensively with Pauline Perry, married to Colin Paterson-Jones, the superb professional natural history photographer and writer with a special interest in southern Africa’s wildflowers. She is commemorated with Chamarea snijmaniae and Polygonum snijmsaniae. (International Bulb Society; JSTOR; Wikipedia)

snowdenii: for Joseph Davenport Snowden (1886-1973), English-born Ugandan economic botanist, plant collector and mycologist, member of the gardening staff at Kew Gardens, author of The Cultivated Races of Sorghum. He is commemorated with Hyparrhenia snowdenii and Panicum snowdenii both of which he collected in Uganda in 1927. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses; JSTOR)

sodenii: probably for Freiherr Julius von Soden (1846-1941), Governor of German East Africa. The taxa in southern Africa with this epithet, which I cannot confirm as commemorating this individual, are Impatiens sodenii and the former Lightfootia sodenii, now synonymized to Wahlenbergia abyssinica. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

solandri: for Daniel Carl Solander (1733-1782), Swedish botanist who was one of Linnaeus' greatest students and one of Joseph Banks best friends, was the first naturalist to be employed at the new British Museum in London, and who collected in South Africa in addition to many other countries, commemorated with Erica solandri. He was Linnaeus' first choice to be his successor, and Linnaeus also apparently looked on him as his choice to marry his eldest daughter, something that Solander had a different opinion about. Originally a law student who attended the Uppsala University lectures of his uncle, the professor of jurisprudence Daniel Solander, he quickly was influenced by Carl Linnaeus and Johann Gottschalk Wallerius and became interested in botany and the natural sciences. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and later accompanied Joseph Banks on Captain Cook's first voyage to the Pacific aboard the Endeavor. The first landing place of the expedition in Australia gained the name of Botanist Bay (later Botany Bay) in honor to these two botanists. Solander was the author of The Natural History of Many Curious and Uncommon Zoophytes, Collected by the late John Ellis (1786) which was published posthumously. He was perhaps the leading botanist in England in the 1760's and 1770's. He died at the home of Joseph Banks at the age of 49 from a stroke caused by a brain haemorrhage, and there is little doubt that it was this premature death that prevented him from establishing himself as one of the greats in the fields of botany and the natural sciences. A letter written by Banks stated that "I have suffered a loss which will be impossible for me to fill even if I should find another person as learned and as noble." And in a letter he wrote in 1784 to Johan Alströmer, son of the Johan Alströmer who was a pioneer in Swedish agriculture, he said "'This too early loss of a friend, whom I during my more mature years have loved and whom I will always miss, makes me wish to draw a veil over his death, as soon as I have ceased to speak of it. I can never think of it without feeling a mortal pain." There are many other taxa which also have this epithet which are probably named for him, but this is the only one in southern Africa. His name is likewise placed on several marine creatures such as the wahoo (Acanthocymbium solandri), the sharpnosed puffer (Canthigaster solandri), the silver gemfish (Rexea solandri) and a conch called Solander's trivia (Pusula solandri), a bird, the providence petrel (Pterodroma solandri) and a butterfly, Solander's brown (Heteronympha solandri). There are also a number of taxa listed by IPNI with the epithet solanderi presumably named for Daniel Solander, including what appears to be the current taxon Geranium solanderi, published in 1965, but I'm not sure why the customary spelling of this epithet is solandri. David Hollombe suggests that the answer may be found in Latin second declension nouns where two of the choices are 'strong nouns ending in -er or -ir' and 'weak nouns ending in -er.' Second declension nouns include names of plants, and one of the second declensions of strong nouns such as vesper or puer is vesperi or pueri, whereas the declension of weak nouns such as cancer or liber in some cases is cancri or libri. And perhaps in this context the name Solander used as an epithet is considered as a weak noun? According to the most current International Code of Nomenclature Chapter III ("Nomenclature of Taxa According to their Rank") Section 4 ("Names of Species"), Article 23A.1 states: "Names of persons and also of countries and localities used in specific epithets should take the form of nouns in the genitive..." and in Chapter IX ("Orthography and Gender of Names"), Article 60C.1 states: "When personal names are given Latin terminations in order to form specific and infraspecific epithets, formation of those epithets is as follows: (a) If the personal name ends with a vowel or –er, substantival epithets are formed by adding the genitive inflection appropriate to the sex and number of the person(s) honoured;" and the epithet alexandri derived from the name Alexander is given as an example. It would appear that Solander is a similar example. (Ted Oliver, pers. comm.; Wikipedia; Acquisitions of Hordern House in Sydney; PlantExplorers.com; "Daniel Carl Solander: Naturalist on the Endeavor" by Roy Anthony Rauschenberg in Transactions of the American Philosphical Society, 1968; David Hollombe, pers. comm.; International Code of Nomenclature Melbourne Code 2011)

Soliva: for Salvador Soliva, 18th century Spanish botanist and medical practitioner, physician to the Spanish court. The genus Soliva in the Asteraceae was published in 1794 by Spanish botanists Hipólito Ruiz López and José Antonio Pavon. The genus Sonderothamnos in the Penaeaceae was published in 1968 by Swedish-Danish botanist Rolf Martin Theodor Dahlgren, and the genus Sonderina in the Apiaceae in 1927 by German botanist and mycologist Karl Friedrich August Hermann Wolff. He is also remembered in the genus Ottosonderia and other genera. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

sonderi/sonderiana/sonderianum/Sonderina/Sonderothamnus: for Otto Wilhelm Sonder (1812-1881), German botanist, algologist and pharmacist, co-author with William Henry Harvey of the first three volumes of the 7-volume Flora Capensis, and author of Flora Hamburgensis (1851). Gunn & Codd mention two taxa that are named for him, Acalypha sonderiana and the former Ficus sonderi, now F. glumosa. There are other taxa with these epithets in the genera Tragia, Wahlenbergia, Triumfetta, Peucedanum, Notobubon, Oxalis, Erica, Thesium and several more that have been synonymized, but I have not been able to confirm that they are named for O.W. Sonde, although they probably are. There is also a Christoph Sonder (fl. 1890) listed by the Harvard University Herbarium database of botanists and collectors and an Erika Sonder (1936- ) listed by IPNI who has specimens at the British Museum. See also Ottosonderia/ottosonderi. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia; Gunn & Codd)

sonneratianum: for Pierre Sonnerat (1745-1814), French naturalist and draughtsman, colonial administrator, author of Voyage à la Nouvelle Guinée, an account of his experience on the second Moluccan Expedition organised by Pierre Poivre, correspondent with Joseph Banks, and collector for Michel Adanson. He collected alongside Carl Thunberg at the Cape in 1773, was in south-east India in 1775 and later in Ceylon, Madagascar, China and again at the Cape. He was also the author of a two-volume work, Voyage aux Indes orientales et à la Chine, giving his observations of countries he had visited since 1774. He spent eighteen years collecting material for a third major work which would have been entitled Nouveau Voyage aux Indes Orientales but the manuscript and most of the collections were lost to war which was ravaging the Pondicherry area where he resided. He is commemorated with Abutilon sonneratianum, and with the genus Sonneratia which does not appear in southern Africa. (Elsa Pooley; Gunn & Codd; JSTOR)

Sooia: for Károly Rezsö Sóo von Bere (1903-1980), Hungarian botanist and professor of botany at the University of Budapest. The genus Sooia iin the Acanthaceae was published in 1973 by Hungarian botanist Tamás Pócs. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

sousae: for António de Figueiredo Gomes e Sousa (1896-1973), Portuguese botanist and plant collector in Angola and Mozambique, author of Essências Florestais de Inhambane and Dendrologia de Moçambique, commemorated with Memecylon sousae and Warneckea sousae. (JSTOR; HerbWeb)

southii: this is odd because one JSTOR specimen record for Crassula southii says it was collected by a B. South in 1893 while another for the same year has the collector's name listed as B. Souter. Probably just an error by the person who typed up the specimen record. The actual name is Benjamin Herbert South (1861-1914) and he lived and died at Grahamstown, Western Cape. He worked in diamond mining in Kimberly as a youth, then became a seedsman and nurseryman. He died after the amputation of his leg following an accident in which a wagon wheel rolled across his leg. (RootsWeb; David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

Sowerbaea: for James Sowerby (1757–1822), English naturalist and illustrator. His son James De Carle Sowerby, was a minerologist and illustrator, another son, George Brettingham Sowerby, was a naturalist, illustrator and conchologist, and a third son, Charles Edward Sowerby, was an artist and associate of the Linnean Society who brought out the smaller (second) edition of his father's English Botany and also produced in 1841 the Illustrated Catalogue of English Plants. James Sowerby published numerous other works including Mineral Conchology of Great Britain, British Minerology and Exotic Minerology. A website of the Vauxhall Society says "The Sowerby family is without equal in the history of natural history for the depth and variety of its contribution to science. Fourteen members of the family published, wrote or illustrated natural history works between about 1780 and 1954. Subjects covered included botany, zoology, conchology, palaeontology and mineralogy. They worked with and for most of the great names in 19th-century natural history, and the family correspondence is an unparalleled source of biographical, bibliographical and historical information. The founder of this dynasty, James Sowerby, was closely connected to Lambeth." Hugh Clarke adds: "He studied art at the Royal Academy and took an apprenticeship under Richard Wright. His worked initially with the English botanist and entomologist, William Curtis (1746–1799), who recognized his outstanding ability. They created the early volumes of the first British botany journal, The Botanical Magazine, containing seventy of his works. He also illustrated Flora Londinensis, another venture with William Curtis. His major projects were a 36-volume work on the botany of England known as Sowerby's Botany (1790-1814), featuring 2,592 hand-colored illustrations. Besides the renowned botanical works, Sowerby produced extensive volumes on mycology, conchology, minerology, and a seminal work on his colour system." The genus Sowerbaea variously listed as being either in the Alliaceae or the Anthericaceae was published in 1798 by British botanist and founder of the Linnean Society James Edward Smith. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Dictionary of National Biography)

spachiana/spachianus: for Edouard Spach (1801-1879), French botanist who studied with René Desfontaines and Antoine Laurent de Jussieu, then worked at the Jardin du Roi of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, author of the 14-volume Histoire naturelle des végétaux: Phanérogames and co-author with Hippolyte François Jaubert of the 5-volume Illustrationes plantarum orientalium, commemorated with Echinopsis spachiana, and also with the genera Spachia and Spachea which do not appear in southern Africa. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Wikipedia; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Sparrmannia/sparrmannii: for Anders Sparrmann (1748-1820), Swedish botanist and physician, traveler, pupil of Linnaeus and one of his so-called apostles, a group that included Carl Peter Thunberg. He was a doctor on Cook's second expedition on the Resolution and was with Thunberg in South Africa. He was the author of A voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, towards the Antarctic polar circle, and round the world: But chiefly into the country of the Hottentots and Caffres, from the year 1772 to 1776 (1789), Ornithology of Sweden (1806) and Catalogue of the Museum Carlsonianum (1786–89). The genus Sparrmannia in the Tiliaceae was published in 1782 by Carl Linnaeus the Younger. Freesia sparrmannii was collected in 1770 and published in 1814 and this taxon also commemorates Anders Sparrmann. There is as well an Erica sparrmannii which was named for Anders Sparrmann. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Gunn & Codd; Ted Oliver, pers. comm.)

Spetaea: for Franz Speta (1941-?), Austrian botanist. Hugh Clarke provides the following: "He studied botany and zoology at the University of Vienna, graduating in 1972. From 1970, he worked as a research assistant at the Upper Austrian State Museum, first as head of the Department of Botany and Invertebrates, then, in 1985, as deputy director of the Museum and, in 1990-1991, as its interim director. From 1993-2003 he headed up the Biology Centre of the National Museum. Speta’s research focus was bulbous plants, especially Hyacinthaceae with a special interest in Scilla and Ornithogalum. He published about 100 scientific papers and 50 biographical works (mainly of botanists). He was awarded the venia lengendi (authorization to teach) for systematic botany by the University of Salzburg and in 1994 appointed a ‘real Councillor’." The genus Spetaea in the Hyacinthaceae was published in 2003 by German botanists Wolfgang Wetschnig and Martin Pfosser.

Spielmannia: for Jakob Reinhold Spielmann (1722-1783), French chemist and physician, pharmacist and traveler, professor of chemistry at Strasbourg University. The genus Spielmannia in the Myoporaceae (formerly Scrophulariaceae) was published in 1828 by Antoine Laurent de Jussieu. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia)

splitgerberi: probably for Frederick Louis Splitgerber (1801-1845), Dutch botanist who worked in Suriname and was the author of De plantis novis surinamensibus and Observationes de Bignoniaceis surinamensibus. He also worked with Friedrich Anton Wilhelm Miquel, fellow Dutch botanist and head of the botanical gardens at Rotterdam (1835–1846), Amsterdam (1846–1859) and Utrecht (1859–1871), who published the genus Splitgerbera in 1840 in his honor. The taxon in southern Africa which POSA lists as having this epithet is Pyrenotrichum splitgerberi, collected in Suriname and published by French bryologist Jean Pierre François Camille Montagne. Neither IPNI, Tropicos or The Plant List record this as a valid species, but that could be because it is a species of fungus which they do not include. There is also a genus Splitgerbera in the Urticaceae which does not appear in southern Africa.

Sponia: presumably for Jacob (Jacques) Spon (1647-1685), French physician, archeologist, traveller and a pioneer in the exploration of Greek monuments. He was the author of Recherche des antiquités et curiosités de la ville de Lyon, Histoire de la république de Genève, Récherches curieuses d'antiquité and Miscellanea eruditae antiquitatis, as well as a treatise on fevers. He died of tuberculosis at the age of 38. The genus Sponia in the Ulmaceae was published in 1834 by French botanist and agronomist Joseph Decaisne. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia; The Encyclopaedic Dictionary, Vol. VI, 1887, by Robert Hunter)

spragueanum: possibly for Thomas Archibald Sprague (1877-1958), Scottish botanist, plant collector on expeditions to Venezuela, Columbia and the Canary Islands, author of many plant names, on staff at Kew eventually becoming deputy director, member of the Linnean Society, and one of the world's foremost authorities on the theory and practice of nomenclature. He was responsible for the treatments of the Loranthaceae and the Bignoniaceae in Flora of Tropical Africa and Flora Capensis. Along with his sister he published The Herbal of Valerius Cordus. The taxon in southern Africa that has this specific epithet is Viscum spragueanum. (JSTOR)

Sprekelia: for Johann Heinrich von Spreckelsen (1691-1764), German lawyer and collector of natural history specimens and secretary of the Hamburg city council. Hugh Clarke adds: "He was a personal friend of Carl Linnæus (1707-1778) who admired his fine garden and many exotics and orange trees. Linnaeus mentions that he had 45 Aloes and 50 kinds of Mesembryanthemums. He also had 'a big collection of fossils, I've never seen larger'. In addition, he had a splendid library from which his guest could borrow Patrick Blair's Botanck Essays. In return, Linnaeus displayed his collection of insects." He was born and died in Hamburg. The genus Sprekelia in the Amaryllidaceae was published in 1753 by German anatomist, botanist and physician Lorenz Heister, based on plants that he received from Spreckelsen. Sprekelia plants are sometimes called Aztec lilies although they are not true lilies. (Hugh Clarke)

sprengelii: probably for either (1) Anton Sprengel (1803-1851), German botanist, or (2) Kurt (Curt) Polycarp Joachim Sprengel (1766-1833), Anton's father, for whom the genus Sprengelia, a genus that does not appear in southern Africa, was named. Clifford and Bostock have this epithet commemorating Kurt Sprengel, and since their book deals with grasses I presume that it refers to Restio sprengelii. Both father and son contributed to Linnaeus' Caroli Linnaei...Systema Vegetabilium. Taxa in southern Africa with this epithet include Ramalina sprengelii and former species in genera Trypethelium, Uncinia, Erigeron and Utricularia, but I have been unable to confirm which one of the two were so honored, but Kurt is the more likely of the two.

sprengeri: I think but am not certain that this is named for Carl (Charles) Ludwig Sprenger (1846-1917), German botanist . The JSTOR website refers to Richardia sprengelii being cultivated by a Mr. Sprenger of Naples, in 1902. He was an enthusiastic plant collecter and had his own nursery, which tragically was buried by the ash from a 1905 eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. In 1907 he became the supervisor of Kaiser Wilhelm's garden on the island of Corfu. He was completely deaf. However, JSTOR also records Plagiochila sprengeri (now synonymized to P. lastii) as having been collected in the Transvaal in 1897 by an A. Sprenger, so the first derivation may not be correct for these taxa. There is a fern called the Sprengeri fern (Asparagus aethiopicus) which is native to the Cape which supposedly is named for the German botanist, and there are more than a dozen other taxa with this epithet that do not appear in southern Africa. (Kew Bulletin, Vol. 16, 17; JSTOR)

sprenglianus/sprenglianus: the taxa in southern Africa with these epithets are the former Echium sprenglianum and Lobostemon sprenglianus which are both synonyms for Lobostemon montanus, but I have no information as to the derivation.

Staavia: for a particular Martin Staaf of Gottenburgh, a correspondent of Linnaeus in 1772 and a great patron of botany. The genus Staavia in the Bruniaceae was published in 1787 by Swedish botanist Anders Dahl. (JSTOR; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; The Cyclopedia, Vol. 33 by Abraham Rees)

Staberoha: apparently for one H. Staberoh, a chemist who wrote a phamaceutical book called Pharmacopoea Borussica: Preussische Pharmakopöe in 1829; further details unknown. The genus Staberoha in the Restionaceae was published in 1841 by German botanist Karl Sigismund Kunth. (Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.; Nomenclator Botanicus Vol. 2 by Ludwig Georg Karl Pfeiffer)

Stadmannia: for Jean Frédéric Stadtmann (1762-1807), physician, botanist, plant collector in Madagascar, Mauritius and South Africa, and artist who besides doing some of the drawings for the botanical volume of Panckroucke's Encyclopedie Methodique, had gathered an important herbarium. This was during the visit of Francisco Noroña to Madagascar after which Stadtmann dedicated the genus of oleaginous plants Noronhia to his friend's memory. The genus Stadmannia in the Sapindaceae was published in 1793 by French naturalist Jean Baptiste Antoine Pierre de Monnet de Lamarck. The CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names lists his name as Stadman, but I believe Stadtmann is correct, although one wonders why the genus is spelled the way it is. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; JSTOR; "Little Known Travellers and Natural Systems: Francisco Noroña's Exploratory Voyage Through the Islands of the Indian Ocean" by Susan Pinar in Archives of Natural History (1997), 24(1): 127-144)

stainbankiae: for Eliza Munro (Mrs. Henry Ellerton Stainbank) who collected around 1885. She was the wife of Henry Ellerton Stainbank (1836-1915) who came to South Africa from England with his brother Dering Lee Warner Stainbank (?-1907) and settled in Natal. The Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturists has the following entry for Henry Ellerton Stainbank: "To Natal, 1855. Merchant and coffee planter. He and his wife occasionally sent plants to Kew. Member of Committee of Durban Botanic Garden." He is listed as having gotten married in 1858. Dering's son Kenneth's name is memorialized on the Kenneth Stainbank Nature Reserve, one of the finest in the Durban area. JSTOR and HerbWeb record the taxon Blepharis stainbankiae as having been collected in the Transvaal by Stainbank with no initials, so whether that refers to the husband or wife I don't know, but it would appear that the commemoration is for the wife because of the 'iae' ending. (JSTOR; HerbWeb)

stalmansii: for Marc Stalmans (fl. 1990-2004), PhD botany student at Witwatersrand University, studying under Kevin Balkwill, one of the authors of Hemizygia stalmansii. Stalmans first recognized this taxon as a new species in 1994 during an ecological survey of the Songimvelo Game Reserve in Mpumalanga. The taxon has since been synonymized to Syncolostemon stalmansii. (Kew Bulletin 56: 2001)

standleyanus: for Paul Carpenter Standley (1884-1963), American botanist, Amaranth authority, and botanical explorer of central and western North America, commemorated with Amaranthus standleyanus. From 1909 to 1928 he was at the United States National Museum (Smithsonian) and then until 1950 he was at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. He worked in the library and herbarium at the Escuela Agricola Panamericana in Zamorano, Honduras, and did field work there until 1956. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

stanfordiae: for Kate Canova Stanford (1881-1952), British-born plant collector who came to South Africa and started a nursery near Stellenbosch which was one of the first to specialize in indigenous plants. She is commemorated with Lampranthus stanfordiae and Hereroa stanfordiae, and the former taxa Gladiolus stanfordiae (now synonymized to G. ochroleucus), Watsonia stanfordiae (now W. fourcadei) and Hesperantha stanfordiae (now H. vaginata). (JSTOR; Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Stangeria: the genus Stangeria in the Stangeriaceae was first described by Kunze in 1836 from a sterile specimen collected by Johann Franz Drège. It was misidentified as a fern. Dr. William Stanger (1811-1854), physician, geologist, colonial officer, naturalist on the 1841 Niger River Expedition of Capt. Henry Dundas Trotter, plant collector in South Africa 1843-1844, and an Inspecting Engineer and first Surveyor-General of the British colony of Natal, sent a live plant to England and in 1851 it coned, which revealed its true identity. It was named by Thomas Moore in 1853 as Stangeria paradoxa; however, in 1892, Baillard resurrected Kunze`s specific name eriopus. Stangeria eriopus is the only member of the family Stangeriaceae. The generic name which was also published by Moore in 1853 honors Dr. Stanger. He died in Durban, South Africa at the age of 43. The town of Stanger on the north coast of KwaZulu-Natal, which was famous for being the place of Shaka Zulu's assassination, was named after him in 1873. (PlantzAfrica; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; JSTOR)

stanleyi: for (1) Edward George Geoffrey Smith Stanley (1799-1869), 14th Earl of Derby, English statesman, three times Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and to date the longest serving leader of the Conservative Party. It was in his employ that Joseph Burke went to South Africa on collecting expeditions, commemorated with Clematopsis stanleyi, which has been synonymized to Clematis villosa. In going through my notes, I can find no source for this information, so until I do this derivation must be viewed guardedly; (2) Victor Stanley Peers (1874-1940), Australian civil servant, conservationist, amateur archeologist and plant collector, commemorated with Chasmatophyllum stanleyi (syn. Mesembryanthemum stanleyi, Hereroa stanleyi). (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; JSTOR)

Stapelia: for Johannes van Stapel (1602-1636), Dutch physician and botanist who published drawings and descriptions of one of the first stapeliads discovered and one of the first cultivated in Europe, which was Orbea variegata. His name is given by the CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names as Jan Bode van Stapel (Johannes Bodaeus Stapelius) and his date of death as c. 1636. The website of the Cactus and Succulent Society of America states that he was born in Amsterdam in 1602, that his main desire was to publish an annotated edition of the botanical works of Theophrastus but he died before it was finished. So it was actually his father Egbert Bodaeus Stapelius and not him who edited and published the work entitled Theophrasti Eresii de Historia Plantarum in 1644 which included drawings of the plant which was then called Fritillaria crassa and is now known as Orbea variegata that were done by Justus Heurnius (1587-1653) during a brief stay at the Cape in 1624. Gunn & Codd say that Heurnius deserves the credit as the first person to make a permanent record of plants at the Cape, and the genus Huernia was named for him. Van Stapel graduated with a medical degree from Leyden University. The genus Stapelia in the Asclepiadaceae was published in 1753 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. (PlantzAfrica; Gunn & Codd; Cactus and Succulent Society of America)

stapfiana/stapfianum/stapfianus/stapfii: for Dr. Otto Stapf (1857-1933), Austrian-born British botanist, taxonomist and plant collector in Europe and Iran, Curator of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, Fellow of the Linnean Society and the Royal Society. He was honored with the genera Stapfia, Stapfiella and Ottochloa, none of which appear in southern Africa, and was the author of hundreds of taxa of plants. Probably most or all of the taxa with these epithets commemorate this person, including Eragrostis stapfii, Eriochloa stapfiana, Sporobolus stapfianus, and Panicum stapfianum. While at Kew he worked on the flora of Mt. Kinabalu in northern Borneo and helped Sir Joseph Hooker on The Flora of British India. He had a particular interest in the Poaceae and wrote on this family in William Turner Thiselton Dyer's edition of the Flora capensis. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses)

stapffii: for Friedrich Moritz Stapff (1836-1895), German-born geologist and mining engineer who collected in Namibia, author of Geologisches Profil des St. Gotthard in der Axe des grossen Tunnels während des Banes, commemorated with Zygophyllum stapffii and Albuca stapffii. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Gunn & Codd)

starkeae: for Letitia Marie Starke, plant collector in South Africa, teacher of outdoor nature study classes at Kirstenbosch Gardens, author of A Nature Study Course for the Primary School, commemorated with Watsonia starkeae (now synonymized to W. wilmaniae) and Glottiphyllum starkeae (now synonymized to G. depressum). (JSTOR)

starkiana: for Prof. Peter Stark (fl. 1934), about whom I have no information, commemorated with the former taxa Haworthia starkiana (now H. scabra) and Anacampseros starkiana (now A. subnuda). (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Staudtia: for Alois Staudt (?-1897), German botanist and botanical collector who collected specimens in Togo and Cameroon from 1893 to 1895 with Georg August Zenker (1855-1922) at Yaounde in the Cameroon. Zenker left in 1895 and moved to Bipinde in the Cameroon, but Staudt continued where he died. The genus Staudtia in the Myristicaceae was published in 1897 by German botanist Otto Warburg. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

stayneri/Stayneria: for Frank J. Stayner (1907-1981), South African horticulturist and farmer born in Natal and trained at Kew Gardens 1933-1934, specialist on succulent plants, assistant Superintendent of Parks in the Port Elizabeth Parks Department 1935-1946, horticulturist for Ford Motor Company 1949-1954, and Curator of the Karoo Botanic Gardens at Worcester 1959-1969. The genus Stayneria in the Aizoaceae was published in 1960 by South African botanist Louisa Bolus. He is also commemorated with Lachenalia stayneri, Phiambolia stayneri, Lampranthus stayneri, Sphalmanthus stayneri, Antimima stayneri, Braunsia stayneri, Trichodiadema stayneri, Bersama stayneri, Machairophyllum stayneri, and other taxa that have been synonymized. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; JSTOR)

steetziana/steetzii: probably for Joachim Steetz (1804-1862), German botanist, plant collector in Europe and North America, and physician at Hamburg. He had a herbarium of about 5000 specimens. The taxa in southern Africa with these epithets are Vernonia steetziana and the former Helichrysum steetzii, now H. kraussii. (JSTOR; Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol 55; Australian National Herbarium Biography)

stefaniae: the taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is Gladiolus stefaniae, with no information as to its derivation. JSTOR has the following note: "Cultivated by Mrs S. Pienaar for some years but did not flower." Is this perhaps a clue? There is a Stephanie Pienaar who is listed as a contributor to the Protea Atlas Project, and I have also seen reference to a Stephanie Pienaar, Amathola Museum, King Williams Town, but this is a shot in the dark.

stegmannianum: for a Mr. and Mrs. F. Stegman on whose farm 'Kruidfontein' the holotype of Conophytum stegmannianum was found by South African plant collector Philip Albert Brand van Breda. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; JSTOR)

steinbergiana: the taxon in southern Africa witht this epithet is Erica steinbergiana, with no information as to its derivation.

steineri: for Julius Steiner (1844-1918), Austrian lichenologist and plant collector, commemorated with Acarospora steineri and the former taxa Parmelia steineri (now Xanthoparmelia melliuscula) and Usnea steineri (now U. undulata). (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

steingroeverii: for Wilhelm Josef Steingröver (Steingroever) (?-1886), German natural historian and sailor who left Hamburg for Cape Town at the age of 26 and disappeared on an expedition to the Orange River to look for mineral deposits for the Bremen Museum. He drowned with Franz Adolf Eduard Lüderitz either in the Orange River or at sea off the Orange River mouth. He is commemorated with the former taxa Salvia steingroeveri (now S. garipensis), Galenia steingroeveri (now G. meziana), and Antholyza steingroeveri (now Gladiolus saccatus). (Gunn & Codd)

stentiae/stentiana: for Mrs. Sydney Margaret Stent (1875-1942), South African botanist and agrostologist who collected in South Africa and Zimbabwe, caretaker of the herbarium in the Division of Botany under Burtt Davy in the Transvaal Department of Agriculture, commemorated with Ceropegia stentiae, and the former taxa Eragrostis stentiae (now E. laevissima) and Digitaria stentiana (now D. eriantha). (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses; Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Gunn & Codd; Wikipedia)

Stephania: although the genus Stephania in the Asteraceae (which does not appear in southern Africa) is named for Christian Friedrich Stephan (1757-1814), German botanist, professor of chemistry and botany at Moscow, Director of Forestry Institute at St. Petersburg, that is not true for the genus Stephania in the Menispermaceae, which is the genus that appears in southern Africa. According to the CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names and Eggli & Newton, this Stephania derives from the Greek stephein, "to crown," or stephanos, "a wreath or crown," in reference to the connate arrangement of the stamens. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

stephanii: for (1) Franz Stephani (1842-1927), German bryologist, author of the 6-volume Species Hepaticarum in six volumes, a monographic enumeration of all liverworts known at the time, along with Icones Hepaticarum, which consisted of pencil drawings of more than 9,000 species. He became a world authority on liverworts although he only pursued his scientific interest in his spare time, being professionally a salesman. He is commemorated with the former taxa Kurzia stephanii (now K. capillaris), Jensenia stephanii (now J. spinosa) and Aneura stephanii (now Riccardia amazonica). He was known for naming new species for taxa that already had published names, and taxonomists have been working diligently trying to rectify the situation. Wikipedia says: "The poor quality of Stephani's work in his later years may have been the result of a progressive brain disease that affected work on the final three volumes, and the remnants of his life's work were published posthumously by Bonner in 1953"; (2) Paul Stephan (fl. 1927-1933), German gardener in charge of succulents at the Hamburg Botanical Garden and friend of Gustav Schwantes, commemorated with Lampranthus stephanii and Conophytum stephanii. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

stephansenii: the taxon in southern Africa with this epithet is Isoetes stephansenii, with no information as to its derivation.

stephensiae: for Edith Layard Stephens (1884-1966), South African botanist, plant collector in South Africa and Namibia, lecturer in botany at the University of Cape Town, known for her two illustrated booklets on poisonous and edible fungi, was awarded a grant by the Cape Tercentenary Foundation which she used to buy a piece of land called Isoetes Vlei which she donated to the National Botanic Garden and is now called the Edith Stephens Cape Flats Flora Reserve. She is commemorated with the former taxon Hymenogyne stephensiae, now synonymized to H. glabra. (Gunn & Codd)

Sterculia: apparently after Sterculius, the Roman god of fertilization and manure, this in reference to the unpleasant aroma of the flowers of this genus. The genus Sterculia originally in the Sterculiaceae but now in the Malvaceae was published in 1754 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Wikipedia)

sternbergianum: probably for Count Kaspar Moritz von Sternberg of Prague (1761-1838), also known as Caspar (Kaspar) Maria von Sternberg, Bohemian theologian, author of the first German essay of a Geognostic-Botanical Description of the Antediluvian Flora (1825), mineralogist, geognost, entomologist and botanist who published several studies on the family Saxifragaceae, established the Bohemian National Museum in Prague, and is deemed to be the founder of modern paleobotany, commemorated with the genus Sternbergia which does not appear in southern Africa. There is also the former taxon in southern Africa Chlorophytum sternbergianum, now synonymized to C. comosum. (Wikipedia)

Steudelia: for Ernst Gottlieb von Steudel (1783-1856), German botanist and chief state physician for the Kingdom of Württemberg, author of Nomenclator botanicus in 2 vols. (1821-1824), listing of more than 3300 genera and nearly 40,000 species, and co-author with Christian Ferdinand Hochstetter of Enumeratio plantarum Germaniae (1826) and Synopsis planterum glumacearum in 2 vols. (1853-1855). The genus Steudelia in the Molluginaceae was published in 1822 by German botanist and physician Kurt Polycarp Joachim Sprengel. (Hugh Clarke, pers. comm.; Wikipedia)

steudneri: for Dr. Hermann Steudner (1832-1863), German physician, botanist, explorer, and plant collector who worked in Ethiopia and Eritrea. He was on Heuglin's expediton to the Nile (1861-1862) to Lake Tana and Khartoum. The next year he and Heuglin joined the Dutch adventurer Alexina Tinné in her exploration of the White Nile, but he became ill and died in the Sudan. He is commemorated with Bonatea steudneri and Crotalaria steudneri, and also had a gecko named for him, the Algerian sand gecko, Tropiocolotes steudneri. (Elsa Pooley; Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles)

stevens-jonesianum: for William (Bill) Stevens-Jones of Liverpool, dates probably 1908-1976. In 1948 he was honorary secretary and treasurer of the Liverpool branch of the British Cactus and Succulent Club, which later became part of the National Cactus and Succulent Society of which he acted as chairman. Louisa Bolus named Conophytum stevens-jonesianum in his honor in 1964. In researching the question of hyphenated names, I find that according to the International Code of Nomenclature Melbourne Code, Article 60.9 states: "A hyphen is permitted only when the epithet is formed of words that usually stand independently…” This would seem to apply to epithets formed from two personal names that are independent of each other such as this one. (International Code of Nomenclature Melbourne Code 2011; David Hollombe, pers. comm.; A History of the Liverpool Branch of the British Cactus and Succulent Society)

stewartae/stewartiae: for Mabel M. Stewart (fl. 1910-1911) who collected in Swaziland, commemorated with Moraea stewartae, Clematis stewartiae and the former Eulophia stewartiae (now E. parvilabris). There is one other taxa in southern Africa named Selago stewartiae, but I'm not sure whether it is named for the same person or not. (JSTOR; Gunn & Codd)

steyniae: the JSTOR website has a specimen record of the type specimen of Oedera steyniae having been collected in Riversdale District of South Africa by a J.G. Steyn in 1904, and there is a Hester Steyn who worked or works at the National Herbarium, Pretoria and was the co-author of South African Wildflower Guide No. 10: Cedarberg, but there is no relation between the two, and the taxa is almost certainly named for J.G. Steyn, about whom I have no further information. (Hester Steyn, pers. comm.)

steytlerae: for Miss J.W. Steytler (fl. 1928-1940), secretary of the National Botanic Garden at Kirstenbosch, commemorated with Erepsia steytlerae which she collected in South Africa in 1929, and also Delosperma steytlerae which does not appear in southern Africa. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Women and Cacti)

Stirtonanthus/Stirtonia/stirtonii: for Charles Howard Stirton (1946- ), South African-born botanist and taxonomist, associate professor of botany University of Natal, botanist and Deputy Director at Kew Gardens, founding director of the National Botanical Garden of Wales, author of Plant Invaders - Beautiful But Dangerous, Problem Plants of Southern Africa and Weeds in a Changing World, and senior resident fellow at University of Birmingham, Fellow of the Linnean Society, currently a visiting professor at the University of Wales and Honorary Research Associate at the University of Cape Town. The genus Stirtonanthus in the Fabaceae (formerly Stirtonia) was published in 1995 by South African botanists Ben-Erik Van Wyk and Anne Lise Schutte. He is likely also the honoree of the taxon Colchicum (formerly Androcymbium) stirtonii. The Genus Stirtonia in the Fabaceae was published in 1994 by South African botanists Ben-Erik Van Wyk and Anne Lise Schutte. (Wisdom Research, University of Chicago; Debrett's)

Stoeberia: for a Mr. Ernst Stoeber (Stöber) (1889-?), German-born teacher at the Lüderitz (Namibia) Primary School during 1923-1924, and botanical explorer, with no further details. The genus Stoeberia in the Aizoaceae was published in 1927 by German botanists Moritz Kurt Dinter and Martin Heinrich Gustav Schwantes. (PlantzAfrica; Wild flowers of the Southern Namib by Coleen Mannheimer; Louise Hoffman, pers. comm. to Hugh Clarke)

stohriae: possibly for a Mrs. Stohr (née Elsa Maude Stanley Hall) (1877-1976), Australian-born concert pianist and wife of Otto Frederick Stohr (originally Stöhr or Stoehr) (1871-1946), medical practitioner in Zambia, keen ornithologist and occasional plant collector in Zambia and the Transvaal. She was the author of an autobiography entitled The Good Die Young, published in 1969. She did not die young and was in her 100th year at the time of her death. The taxon in southern Africa with this specific epithet is Ixia stohriae, collected in Swellendam in 1924. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.; Australian Dictionary of Biography)

Stokoeanthus/stokoeanthus/stokoei: for Thomas Pearson Stokoe (1868-1959), mountaineer and member of the Mountain Club of South Africa, watercolor artist and prolific plant collector, a Yorkshireman who left his wife of 16 years and daughter and emigrated to South Africa in 1911. He rented a cottage near the South African Museum, the herbarium of which he put to good use in learning about the local plants. He began and maintained a close relationship with the curator of the Museum's herbarium, Edwin Percy Phillips, and availed himself of the extensive knowledge of the black and colored flower sellers of Cape Town. Nivenia stokoei was only properly documented in 1924, after it was found by T.P. Stokoe who collected numerous specimens in the Kogelberg, many of which were named after him, including the now apparently extinct Mimetes stokoei. His ashes are scattered near Stokoe's Bridge in the Kogelberg Reserve. His long career included both plant collecting and mountaineering, and in his jaunts into remote areas in the high country of the southwestern Cape, particularly the Kogelberg and Hottentots-Holland mountains, he discovered many high-altitude plants and rediscovered many others that had not been found since the early days of botanical exploring in the Cape. Due perhaps to his amateur status, he was not taken seriously by the professional botanical community as evidenced by the fact that the Cambridge botanist Robert Harold Compton, in 34 years as director of Kirstenbosch, never invited Stokoe along on his field trips. He is commemorated with the genus Stokoeanthus in the Ericaceae which was published by South African botanist Edward George Hudson (Ted) Oliver in 1976, and also by many species names including taxa in genera Gladiolus, Watsonia, Erica, Oxalis, Chironia, Thamnochortus, Staberoha, Elegia, Lachnaea, Agathosma, Muraltia, Phylica, Esterhuysenia, Antimima, Drosanthemum, Amphithalea, Aspalathus, Raspalia, Brunia, Nebelia, Pseudobaeckea, Protea, Mimetes and Klattia. (Cape Nature website, Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Gunn & Codd; JSTOR; Wikipedia)

stolzii: for Adolf Ferdinand Stolz (1871-1917), German missionary and merchant, plant collector in Angola and Malawi who specialized in orchids, commemorated with current taxon Grewia stolzii and former taxa Melinis stolzii ( now M. repens), Sporobolus stolzii (now S. paniculatus), Digitaria stolzii (now D. flaccida), Pennisetum stolzii (now P. macrourum), Commiphora stolzii (now C. mossambicensis) and Heteromorpha stolzii (now H. involucrata). (JSTOR; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Gunn & Codd)

Stoneobryum: for Ilma Grace Stone (née Balfe) (1913-2001), Australian botanist, author, collector, and researcher of Australian mosses. Hugh Clarke adds the following: "She studied botany at the University of Melborne, completing her M.Sc. in 1933 [at the age of 20]. In 1936, she married Alan Stone and spent the next 20 years away from research, raising her family. From 1957, she worked as a part-time demonstrator and researcher at the University of Melbourne. She obtained her Ph.D. in 1963 and was offered a full-time position. She retired in 1978 but was made a Senior Associate and later Associate Professor of the Department of Botany. She published 70 papers and authored The Mosses of Southern Australia (1976) with Dr. George Scott. She was made an honorary member of the British Bryological Society in 1982." She is also honored with the genus Stonea. The genus Stoneobryum in the Orthotrichaceae was published in 1981 by Daniel Howard Norris & Harold Ernest Robinson. (Wikipedia)

straussiana: for Obergartner S. Strauss, Berlin gardener, commemorated with Fossombronia straussiana. and also with Erica straussiana. (Elsa Pooley; Notizblatt des Königlicher Botanischen Gartens Und Museums zu Berlin)

streetiae: for Mrs. Sarah T. Street (fl. 1867-1892), née Fawcett, wife of Louis Street (1833-1892). She was an American teacher from Indiana, plant collector in Madagascar, commemorated with Cheilanthes streetiae. With her husband she spent ten years in missionary work in Madagascar, being supported by Friends in England and America, and acting under the auspices of the Friends Missionary Society in London. (JSTOR)

Strelitzia: for Queen Sophia Charlotte, the wife of George III of England. She was a princess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, hence the genus name Strelitzia. The bird of paradise, Strelitzia reginae, named for her, arrived in England in 1733. She was also an amateur botanist who helped expand Kew Gardens. The genus Strelitzia in the Strelitziaceae was published in 1789 by British botanist Joseph Banks. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

streyana/streyi/streyianus: for Rudolf Georg Strey (1907-1988), German farmer and botanist, curator of the Natal Herbarium and scientist at the National Botanical Research Institute in Durban, commemorated with Anginon streyi, Crassula streyi, Eriosema streyi, Turraea streyi, Anthospermum streyi, Pseudosalacia streyi, and the former taxa Lapeirousia streyi (now L. littoralis), Lithops streyi (now L. gracilidelineata), Indigofera streyana (now I. hochstetteri) and Piaranthus streyianus (now Orbea maculata). (PlantzAfrica; Elsa Pooley; Gunn & Codd; Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

strubeniae: for Miss Edith Struben (?-1936), gardener and artist in South Africa, member of the Botanical Society of South Africa, commemorated with Watsonia strubeniae and Ruschia strubeniae. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names; Women and Cacti; JSTOR)

stuhlmannii: for (1) Franz Ludwig Stuhlmann (1863-1928), German army officer and naturalist from Hamburg, director of the Biological-Agricultural Institute at Hamburg (1903), then secretary of the Colonial Institute (1908) and eventually director of the Weltwirtschaftinstitut in Hamburg. He collected extensively in Africa (especially Mozambique and Tanzania) and later in India, Sri Lanka and the British and Dutch East Indies (1900-1901). He is supposed to have been honored with many species names including Crinum stuhlmannii, Ficus stuhlmannii, Caperonia stuhlmannii, Aponogeton stuhlmannii and the former Herbertus stuhlmannii (now H. dicranus). He was also commemorated with the genus Stuhlmannia which does not appear in southern Africa. This entry and the following entry (2), involving as they do two such similar names, generates some confusion, which is not helped by many specimens which are recorded by JSTOR or HerbWeb as having been collected by a Stuhlmann with no initials or an F. Stuhlmann which could be either. Combine this with the fact that they both were plant collectors in Tanzania, they both had at least some colonial administrative experience, and it leads one to wonder whether they are not the same person, or at the very least related. For one species at least, Xeroderris stuhlmannii, there are conflicting derivations with Flora of Zimbabwe saying for F.E. Stuhlmann and Trees and Shrubs of Mpumalanga and Kruger National Park saying for F.L. Stuhlmann, so I am not the only one that is confused. This could just be a typo resulting from a misreading of an 'E' or an 'L' on a herbarium specimen sheet. (Flora of Zimbabwe; JSTOR; CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; PlantzAfrica); (2) Franz Ernst Stuhlmann, one time Acting Governor of Tanganyika (now Tanzania) and an avid collector of plants, commemorated with Terminalia stuhlmannii, Millettia stuhlmannii, Acacia stuhlmannii. There are other taxa such as Cassine stuhlmannii and the former Ipomoea stuhlmannii (now I. rubens), Strychnos stuhlmannii (now S. potatorum), Parmelia stuhlmannii, Zanthoxylum stuhlmannii (now Z. leprieuii), Tinospora stuhlmannii (now T. tenera), Olax stuhlmannii (now O. dissitiflora), Argyrolobium stuhlmannii (now A. tomentosum), Ehretia stuhlmannii (now E. amoena) and Commiphora stuhlmannii (now C. mollis), but I can't pin down who they commemorate. I have found at least two websites which say that Franz Ludwig Stuhlmann was twice (possibly more than twice) acting governor (of an area I assume to have been Deutsch Ost-Afrika, which included Tanganyika, and this makes me think that these two entries really refer to the same person. Flora of Zimbabwe and PlantzAfrica both refer to Franz Ernst Stuhlmann as one-time acting governor but I now think this is a mistake. (Flora of Zimbabwe; Wikipedia; www.Avibushistoriae.com; PlantzAfrica)

Sturmia: for Jacob Sturm (1771-1848), German engraver specializing in entomological and botanical scientific publications, naturalist, insect collector and botanical artist He was the founder of the Nuremberg Society for Natural History, and was the author/illustrator of Deutschlands Flora in Abbildungen nach der Natur mit Beschreibungen. Nürnberg, gedruckt auf Kosten der Verfassers and numerous other publications, which were purposely printed in a small format to make them readily available to the greatest number of people possible. The genus Sturmia in the Orchidaceae was published in 1826 by German botanist Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach. He was also honored with the genera Sturmia in the Rubiaceae and Poaceae, which do not appear in southern Africa. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

stylesii: for David G.A. Styles, South African botanist, commemorated with Plectranthus stylesi, only known from material collected by him during a joint botanical expedition to the Lupatana River Gorge in the Eastern Cape. (David Hollombe, pers. comm.)

suckertii: for E. Suckert (fl. 1930-1933), plant collector, commemorated with the former taxon Balanites suckertii, now synonymized to B. aegyptiaca. (HerbWeb)

Suessenguthiella/suessenguthii: for Karl Suessenguth (1893-1955), German botanist, professor of botany at the University of Munich, Curator of the Botanische Staatssammlung (a natural history collection in Munich), author of Neue Ziele der Botanik and Mitteilungen der Botanischen Staatssammlung München. The genus Suessenguthiella in the Molluginaceae was published in 1955 by German botanist Hans Christian Friedrich. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; JSTOR; Wikipedia)

Susanna: for Mrs. Susan Phillips, née Kriel, second wife to South African botanist Edwin Percy Phillips (1884-1967). The genus Susanna in the Asteraceae was published in 1950 by her husband. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

susannae: for (1) Susanna Amelia Koekemoer (née Kruger) (1939- ), mother of Dr. Marinda Koekemoer. She joined her daughter on many collecting trips, and was honored by her when Dr. Koekemoer published the name Amphiglossa susannae. (Miranda Koekemoer, pers. comm.); (2) Suzanne Lavranos (fl. 1962), former wife of succulent plant collector John Jacob Lavranos (1926- ), commemorated with Crassula susannae. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names); (3) Susanna Charlotte Louise Muir (née Steyn) (1882-1970), wife of Scottish physician and naturalist Dr. John Muir (1874-1947), commemorated with Protea susannae, Thesium susannae, and Euphorbia susannae. (Gunn & Codd; Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Sutera: for Johann Rudolf Suter (1766-1827), Swiss botanist and physician, professor of philosophy and Greek at Berne, author of Flora Helvetica (1802). The genus Sutera in the Scrophulariaceae was published in 1821 by German physician and botanist Albrecht Wilhelm Roth. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Sutherlandia: for James Sutherland (1639-1719), Scottish botanist, King's Botanist for Scotland, first Superintendent of the Royal Botanical Gardens and professor of botany at Edinburgh, and author of Hortus medicus edinburgensis. The genus Sutherlandia in the Fabaceae was published in 1812 by Scottish botanist Robert Brown. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

sutherlandii: for Peter Cormack Sutherland (1822–1900), a medical doctor from Aberdeen, Scotland, who succeeded William Stanger as the Surveyor-General of Natal in 1855; he made many plant collections during his term of office. He was also the first person to send specimens of the tree Greyia sutherlandii to England. He sailed as surgeon on HMS Sophia commanded by William Penny to the Arctic in search of the missing ships Erebus and Terror which had carried John Franklin to his death. He was also aboard the second Franklin mission on the steamer Isabel and on both of these missions he was able to collect plants in Canada. He was the author of Journal of a voyage in Baffin's Bay and Barrow Straits which was based on these voyages. He is commemorated with Argyrolobium sutherlandii, Greyia sutherlandii, Lobelia sutherlandii, Helichrysum sutherlandii, Begonia sutherlandii, Vernonia sutherlandii and the former Hebenstretia sutherlandi, now synonymized to H. dura. There are other taxa with this specific epithet in Delosperma, Lotononis, Millettia, Cryptocarya and Philenoptera, and since P.C. Sutherland is the only one of that name on the JSTOR list of plant collectors in Africa, it is my unconfirmed assumption that they are all named for him. But there are other Sutherlands on the HUH list of botanists, so this may not true in every case, and since Sutherland is a town in the Northern Cape, that is also a possible derivation for some of these epithets. Peter Cormack Sutherland was killed in a car accident in South Africa in 1900. (PlantzAfrica; David Hollombe, pers. comm.; JSTOR; Wikipedia; Gunn & Codd)

suttoniae: for a Miss Sutton (fl. 1966) with no further information, commemorated with Delosperma suttoniae. (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

swanepoelii/swanepoelianum: for Jac Swanepoel (fl. 1971), the owner of San Marina Nursery, Joostenbergvlakte, Republic of South Africa, commemorated with Conophytum swanepoelianum and the former taxon Quaqua swanepoelii, now synonymized to Q. parviflora). (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names)

Swartzia/swartzii: for Olof Peter Swartz (1760-1818), Swedish botanist, taxonomist and physician, the first specialist in orchid taxonomy, author of Nova genera et species plantarum (1788), Icones plantarum incognitarum (1794-1800) and Flora indiae occidentalis (1797-1806). The genus Swartzia in the Fabaceae was published in 1791 by German naturalist Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber. There is also the former taxon Echium swartzii, now synonymized to Lobostemon glaber, but I'm not sure who that commemorates. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

Swertia: for Emanuel Sweert (1552-1612), Dutch herbalist, florist, nurseryman and cultivator of bulbs, prefect of gardens for Emperor Rudolf II in Vienna, and author and illustrator of Florilegium Amplissimum et Selectissimum (1612). The genus Swertia in the Gentianaceae was published in 1753 by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names)

swinnyi: both Gunn & Codd and the Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturists record Bersama swinnyi as commemorating H.H. Swinny (1876-1958), British-born South African plant collector with the Forestry Department, also collected butterflies, birds and small mammals in Tanzania, whereas JSTOR records the syntype of this taxon having been collected by an A. Swinny in the Port St. Johns area of South Africa in 1914. Both of these listings may refer to the same person, or they may be two related people, or the A. Swinny may just have been an error in transcribing specimen records. There are JSTOR records for the same numbered specimen that have in one case A. Swinny and in the other case H.H. Swinny, so I think there's only one Swinny. Gunn & Codd have him listed as H.H. (Gunn & Codd; JSTOR; Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturists)

swynnertonii: for Charles Francis Massey Swynnerton (1877-1938), Indian-born African farmer, game warden and biologist, plant collector in Zimbabwe, Director of the Tsetse Research Department in Tanzania. He worked primarily in Tanzania and is commemorated with Plectranthus swynnertonii, Dicliptera swynnertonii, Diplolophium swynnertonii, Helichrysum swynnertonii and with former taxa in genera Acalypha, Coffea, Hugonia, Alepidea, Aloe, Hibiscus, Eulophia and Oricia that have been synonymized. He is also remembered in the genus Swynnertonia which does not appear in southern Africa, and with Swynnerton's forest robin, Swynnertonia swynnertoni. (Etymological Dictionary of Grasses; JSTOR; Flora of Zimbabwe; Gunn & Codd)

sykesii: probably for an F.W. Sykes, plant collector in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique around 1905. The type was collected by a Mr. Sykes in Zambia with no initials. Once again Wikipedia has made an error in attributing the taxon Pentanisia sykesii published in 1906 to William Russell Sykes (1927- ). (Kew eFloras; Wikipedia)

symonsii: for Roden E. Symons (1884-c.1974), South African game warden, naturalist and plant collector, commemorated with Gladiolus symonsii and the former taxa Erica symonsii (now E. straussiana) and Dicranella symonsii (now D. cardotii), and possibly also for the former taxon Campylopus symonsii (now C. aureonitens). (JSTOR)

Synnotia: for Captain Walter Synnot (1773-1851), Irish plant collector at the Cape of Good Hope, emigrated to Australia in 1836 and died in Tasmania. He sent many Cape bulbs to England and British botanist Robert Sweet who published the genus Synnotia in the Iridaceae in 1826 credited him with having sent more new and rare bulbs from the Cape at one time than any other individual. (CRC World Dictionary of Plant Names; Gunn & Codd)

szyszylowiczii: for Ignaz von Szyszylowicz (1857-1910), Polish plant anatomist, specialist in tropical flora and liverworts, author of Diagnoses plantarum novarum, commemorated with the former taxon Cassine szyszylowiczii, which is now listed in the POSA database as Cassine sp. A., which may indicate that they consider it a new, unpublished species. (CRC World Dictionary of Grasses)