Eastern Cape
Nodes
Chironia palustris
Burchellia bubalina
Chascanum cuneifolium
Hyperacanthus amoenus
Chironia krebsii
Kohautia amatymbica
Pentanisia prunelloides
Pavetta lanceolata
Verbena venosa
Pages
Taxonomy term
Wachendorfia paniculata
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From the Latin paniculatus meaning 'tufted' or a 'panicle' referring to the form of the inflorescence
Wachendorfia thyrsiflora
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Thyrsiflora is derived from the Ancient Greek thyrsos (θύρσος; meaning a 'contracted panicle, wreath, or thyrsos') and the Latin floris (gen. 'flower'), and so, thyrsiflora means approximately 'with flowers arranged in the shape of a contracted panicle or thyrsos staff'.
Wahlenbergia
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For Georg Göran Wahlenberg (1780–1851), Swedish naturalist, geographer and doctor, who became a demonstrator in botany (1815–1828) and professor of botany at the University of Uppsala (1828–1851), succeeding Carl Peter Thunberg. Wahlenberg made his main work in the field of plant geography, and published, among other things the Flora Lapponica (1812), a considerably extended version of the work of his compatriot Linnaeus, who wrote a publication of the same name (1737). His other works were based on his trips to Norway, Finland and the plant world of northernmost Sweden. Wahlenberg was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1808.
Wahlenbergia huttonii
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Named after Harry Hutton, amateur botanist in the mid-nineteenth century
Wahlenbergia juncea
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From the Latin junceus = ‘resembling a reed’
Wahlenbergia krebsii
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Named in honour of Georg (Goran) Wahlenberg (1780 – 1851), a Swedish botanist, successor to Carl Thunberg, and author of A Botany of Lapland.
Wahlenbergia sp
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Named in honour of Georg (Goran) Wahlenberg (1780 – 1851), a Swedish botanist, successor to Carl Thunberg, and author of A Botany of Lapland.
Wahlenbergia stellarioides
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Watsonia
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For William Watson (1715–1787), English physician, apothecary, botanist and naturalist. He introduced the work of Linnaeus and his botanical classification system to Britain. He was the first scientist to observe the flash of light from the discharge of a Leyden jar and to show that electricity could pass through a vacuum and that it had a positive and negative charge; he coined the word ‘circuit’. His articles, entitled Experiments on the Nature of Electricity, appeared from 1745 onward in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, of which he became a member (1741) and vice president (1772). Both he and Benjamin Franklin discovered some of the same characteristics of electricity at the same time, but independently. The two men became friends.
Wurmbea
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For Christoph Carl Friedrich von Wurmb (1742–1782), Saxony-born German naturalist and Dutch colonial administrator, who worked in Indonesia (Java) as a merchant in the service of the United East India Company. Later, in 1778, he moved to Batavia, where he became the first secretary and director of the Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen (Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences) in charge of its library and small botanical garden, donated by a member. A keen naturalist – he had a special interest in palm trees – Wurmb was the first traveller to publish accurate observations on the Bornean orangutan in its adult state (it had never before been seen at that time and initially thought to be a new species). He called this animal ‘Pongo’, named after the Mpongwe nation.
Wurmbea variabilis
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From the Latin variabilis = 'variable'
Xysmalobium undulatum
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From the Latin undulatus = 'undulating' or 'wavy'
Zaluzianskya
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For Adam Zalusiansky von Zaluzian (1558–1613), Bohemian botanist and physician, lecturer and administrator at Charles University in Prague, author of Methodus Herbariae Libri Tres (1592). He was the first man to argue for the separation of botany from medicine, and for a universal classification of plants years before Linnaeus. He stated (in translation): ‘It is customary to connect medicine with botany, yet scientific treatment demands that we should consider each separately. For the fact is that in every art, theory must be disconnected and separated from practice, and the two must be dealt with singly and individually in their proper order before they are united. And for that reason, in order that botany (which is, as it were, a special branch of physics) may form a unit by itself before it can be brought into connection with other sciences, it must be divided and unyoked from medicine.’ Quotation from Herbals: Their Origin and Evolution (Agnes Arbe).
Zantedeschia
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For Giovanni Zantedeschi (1773–1846), an Italian physician, pharmacist and botanist. He studied medicine and surgery at the universities of Verona and Padua. His botanical interests centred on the flora of Brescia, northern Italy, where he discovered and described several new genera such as Laserpitium nitidum, family Apiaceae. He authored Descrizione dei Funghi della Provincia Bresciana (1820) and other works. He corresponded with the German botanist Kurt Sprengel (1766–1833), who named the plant Zantedeschia after both Giovanni and his son Francesco Zantedeschi (1797–1873), professor of physics and philosophy at the University of Padua, who carried out experiments in electrical currents and magnetism.
Zantedeschia albomaculata
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From the Latin alba = 'white' and maculatus = 'spotted', 'stained' or 'blotched'