Tiffindell Ski Resort

Gk. ornithos = bird; gala = milk, presumably referring to the colostrum-like, high fat secretions produced by the Colombidae (‘pigeon’s milk’) and stored in the crop for feeding the young. Maybe this somewhat resembles the gooey sap that exudes from the cut stems. Some authors suggest that the name merely refers to the milky whiteness of some flowers, while ‘bird’s milk’ to the ancient Greeks was a colloquial expression for something wonderful.

For Albertus Seba (1665–1736), Dutch pharmacist, zoologist and naturalist. In 1700, he opened an ‘apothecary shop’ in Amsterdam and collected exotic plants and animal products from sailors and ship surgeons from which he could make ‘medicines’. In 1716, he sold his first collection (as well as the Dutch botanist Frederik Ruysch’s collection) to the Russian Tsar, Peter the Great, on his visit to the Netherlands. Seba immediately set about building an even larger collection. In 1734, he published his magnificently illustrated four-volume Thesaurus (1734, 1735), with 446 plates (2 volumes published posthumously), which displays marine animals, insects and reptiles. Linnaeus must have seen this collection when he visited Seba twice in 1735. Seba became a Fellow of Royal Society in 1728.

Derivation uncertain. Gk. thes = a hired labourer. An ancient name for a species of Linaria, toad flax, used by Pliny the Elder. Georg Christian Wittstein traces this to the legendary hero Theseus, who slew the Minotaur and to whom Ariadne gave a wreath in which this plant was woven.