Niewoudtville & Surrounds

Gk. erion = wool; sperma = seed. The seed is covered with white hairs.

Origin uncertain. La. felix = happy, cheerful, though in the neuter plural form felicia = happy things; possibly a reference to the bright flowers. Other sources vaguely refer to a mysterious German official in Regensburg called Felix who died in 1846 but speculatively and more probably for the Italian Fortunato Bartolomeo de Felice (1723–1789), an Italian scholar established in Yverdon who led the European team that wrote the Yverdon Encyclopedia, published between 1770 and 1780 in 58 quarto volumes. This superseded the Parisian Encyclopedie of Diderot and d’Alembert published between 1751 and 1772.

For Heinrich David August Ficinus (1782–1857), German physician, naturalist, botanist, professor of physics and chemistry at the medical-surgical academy in Dresden (1814), then was professor of natural history (1817). From 1822 onwards he worked in his father’s pharmacy but also taught chemistry, technology and physics at the Technical Training Institute in Dresden (1828–1833). He wrote several literary works, textbooks and papers in the fields of botany, optics and mineral chemistry. They include Flora of the Area around Dresden (1807), Optics or Attempts to Follow the Right Outline of the Whole Theory of Light (1828), Foundations of Medical Physics, Foundations of Medicinal Chemistry (1815), and General Natural History (1839) (titles translated from German).

Gk. gaze, gaza = riches, royal treasure; chloe = grass; or possibly after Theodorus Gaza (many spellings of this name) (1398–1478), a Greek scholar who moved to Italy in 1430. He became professor in Greek at the University of Ferrara (1447) and a Greek-Latin translator for Pope Nicholas V (1450–1455). He worked for King Alfonso V of Aragon (Alphonso the Magnanimous) (1456–1458) and subsequently for Cardinal Bessarion. He translated many works including Aristotle’s Problemata, De Partibus Animalium, and De Generatione Animalium and Theophrastus’ Historia Plantarum, works by noted Greek authors, and a Greek grammar (four books). He is regarded as one of the greatest classical scholars and humanists of the Renaissance.

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

From the Latin diffusus = ‘widespread’, 'spreading' or 'diffuse'