Taxa Field Guide

For Jacob Bobart (1599–1680), German botanist and the first horti praefectus (superintendent, head gardener) of the Oxford Physic Garden; which cultivated medical herbs; the first garden of its kind in England. He was the author of Catalogus Plantarum Horti Medici Oxoniensis, sci Latino-Anglicus et Anglico-Latinus (1648); a catalogue of 1600 plants that were in the garden. His son, Jacob Bobart the Younger (1641–1719), succeeded his father as horti praefectus and became acting professor of botany at Oxford.

Gk. geisson = title; rhiza = root; alluding to the regular overlapping of the corm tunics in some species.

La. gladiolus = a small sword; referring to the sword-like shape of the leaves.

Ancient Gk. Ixia = a Linnaeus-derived name for a plant noted for the variability of its flower colour or Gk. ixos = mistletoe (viscum), birdlime; referring to the viscous sap (WPU Jackson).

For the legendary Romulus, founder and first king of Rome.

Tritonia (q.v.); Gk. -iopsis = resembling.

Gk. korys = helmet or helmet-like structure; korykion, diminutive of korykos = leather bag. The uppermost three tepals of this coarse, globose flower converge and touch, but not fused together into a hood (shape).

Origin obscure. Börge Pettison believes the plant was named after Queen Disa who occurs in a Swedish legendary saga. The author, Peter Jonas Bergius, was a Swedish botanist.

Gk. dis = twice; pera = a pouch, sac; alluding to the pouches formed by the lateral sepals.

Gk. holos = entire, whole; thrix (thricos) = hair; the plant is hairy all over.

Gk. pterygodium = diminutive of pteryx = wing. Descriptive probably of the dorsal sepal and petals, which are united into an erect, hood-shaped segment, and of the lateral sepals, similar in shape and size to the dorsal, giving a wing-like appearance to the flower.

Referring to the two-horned satyr, a demigod in Greek mythology, half man, half goat; possibly from satyrion, a name used by Dioscorides and Pliny the Elder for an orchid, Aceras anthropophorum, from the presumed aphrodisiacal properties possessed by the plant. The satyrs were closely associated with Dionysius. The allusion is to the two-spurred lip.

From the Latin word decumbens meaning 'lying down' or 'prostrate';