Compassberg

From the Latin columna = a "pillar", referring to the columnar appearance

Gk. delos = visible, open, transparent; sperma = seed; referring to seeds that are easily visible as they are in an unenclosed chamber of the capsule which has no covering membrane.

Derivation uncertain. Linnaeus only states ‘habitat in Aethiopa’, Africa, where it is widely distributed. Possibly Gnidia was named after a Greek city, Knidos, where a kind of laurel grew, or Cnidus in Caria (modern Turkey) (Hugh Glen). Another possibility is that it could be a Greek word for Daphne or laurel; in Greek mythology, Daphne was a pretty nymph who was turned into a laurel bush (WPU Jackson). It might also have been named after Knossos in Crete (spelled Knidiossos in one version), with the G being substituted for K.

For Adrian Hardy Haworth (1768–1833), English botanist, entomologist, carcinologist and an authority on succulents and lepidoptera. He did pioneering work in North America, Canada and Mexico focusing on cacti, and published Synopsis Plantarum Succulentarum (1819) with subsequent supplements. In England he collected and studied butterflies, publishing Lepidoptera Britannica (1803–1828). During his life he amassed a collection of over 40 000 insects. He was a Fellow of the Linnaean and Royal Horticultural societies and a friend of Sir Joseph Banks. In 1833 he lent support to the founding of what was to become the Royal Entomological Society of London.

From the latin nigra = 'black'

For Mathias de L’Obel (Lobel, Lobelius) (1538–1616), Flemish botanist, traveller, plant collector. He studied medicine in Leuven and Montpellier and practised medicine from 1571–1581 in Antwerp and Delft, where he was physician to William, Prince of Orange. In 1584 he left the Netherlands for England to escape the civil war and never returned. He became physician to King James I of England and also the king’s botanist. His major work, written in collaboration with Pierre Pena, was Stirpium Adversaria Nova (1571), which describes some 1 500 species in the vicinity of Montpellier, also of Tyrol, Switzerland and the Netherlands. A second volume, Plantarum Historia Stirpium, was published in 1576 with more than 2 000 illustrations, and a further work, Icones Stirpium, seu, Plantarum Tam Exoticarum in 1591.