Central Karoo of the Groot Karoo (W. Cape)

La. albus = white or albicans = becoming white; referring to the colouring of some Albuca flowers.

For Herman Boerhaave (1668–1739), Dutch anatomical physician, botanist and chemist, who held three professorships at the University of Leiden, that of professor of botany and medicine (1709), of practical medicine (1714, a year in which he also became rector), and of chemistry (1718). His reputation was such that he tutored Peter the Great in maritime affairs and knew Linnaeus and Voltaire well. During his career he introduced the modern system of clinical instruction, described ‘Boerhaave’s syndrome’, a condition involving a torn oesophagus, described plant species, and published numerous works in medicine and chemistry. In 1728 he was elected to the French Academy of Sciences.

For Henri Auguste Duval (1774–1814), French physician and botanist. He studied medicine at the University of Paris, was famous for his catalogue Plantae succulenta in horto Alenconio (1809) and was the author of Enumeratio plantarum succulentum in horto Alenconio. He was the first person to describe the plant genera Gasteria, Haworthia and Ligulari, and authored a book on all the species found naturally in the environs of Paris (1813).

Gk. eu- = well; phorbe = pasture or fodder; probably after Euphorbus, Greek physician to Juba II, King of Mauretania. Juba was educated in Rome and married the daughter of Antony and Cleopatra. He was apparently interested in botany and had written about an African cactus-like plant from the slopes of Mount Atlas, which he had found or knew about, which was used as a powerful laxative. That plant may have been Euphorbia resinifera, and like all Euphorbias had a latexy exudate (milky emulsion from certain plants). Euphorbus had a brother named Antonius Musa who was the physician to Augustus Caesar in Rome. When Juba heard that Caesar had honoured his physician with a statue, he decided to honour his own physician by naming the plant he had written about after him.

From the Latin 'stella' meaning star and 'spina' meaing spines.

Resembling the genus Erodium known as the storksbill. Closely related to Geranium, it differs from it in having only five fertile stamens, and the tails of the carpels bearded upon the inside.

Indigo is derived from the La. indicus, Gk. indikos, referring to India; La. ferax = bearing. Indigo is blue dye (cf I. tinctoria).