Species Commelina welwitschii

Pictures from Observations

There aren’t any identifications of Commelina welwitschii.

Range:

Location unknown

Locations of Identifications

Etymology of Commelina:

For Jan or Johannes Commelin (1629–1692) and his nephew Caspar Commelin (1667–1731), Dutch botanists, who wrote the two-volume work Horti medici amstelodamensis rariorum plantarum … descriptio et icones. Johannes Commelin opened the popular gardens in Amsterdam in 1682, initially called Hortus Medicus, but later Hortus Botanicus. He was a spice merchant who used his wealth and connections to build the Amsterdam botanical gardens into Europe’s leading centre for the study of botany in the late 17th century especially of exotic plants discovered by Europeans in the East Indies, Africa and the Americas. Commelin wrote much of the text for the aforementioned work and it was completed by his nephew Caspar Commelin (1667–1731) after this death.

Etymology of welwitschii:

For Friedrich Martin Joseph Welwitsch (1806–1872), Austrian naturalist, explorer and medical doctor and director of the botanical gardens in Portugal. He collected plants in the Canary Islands, Madeira and Angola (from 1853) and ‘discovered’ Welwitschia mirabilis in 1859 in the Namib Desert of southern Angola.

Scientific name:

Commelina welwitschii C.B. Clarke

Synonym of:

Unknown

Long etymology:

For Friedrich Martin Joseph Welwitsch (1806–1872), Austrian naturalist, explorer and medical doctor. He studied medicine at the University of Vienna and practised for a short while, but in 1839 gave up medicine and became director of the botanical gardens in Portugal. He collected plants in the Canary Islands, Madeira and Angola (from 1853), then a Portuguese colony. He ‘discovered’ Welwitschia mirabilis in 1859 in the Namib Desert of southern Angola. In 1861, he returned to Portugal and shortly after to London, where, from 1863, he categorised and catalogued his huge Angolan collection at the Natural History Museum and Kew Gardens. His publication, Sertum Angolense, describes 12 new categories and 48 new species. On his death, his collection was split between the Portuguese government (first set of duplicates) and Natural History Museum (second set).

Authors:

C.B. Clarke

Protologue:

Monogr. Phan. 3: 175 (1881)

Synonym status:

Accepted

Year published:

1881