Species Mascarenhasia sessilifolia

For Don Pedro Mascarenhas (1470–1555), Portuguese fleet commander, explorer and colonial administrator, who was the first European to discover the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, in 1512, and may also have seen Mauritius. His helmsman on that trip to Goa was Diogo Rodrigues (c 1490/1501–1577). Years later, in 1528, when making his way back to Portugal across the Indian Ocean from Goa, Rodrigues navigated via the islands of Réunion, Mauritius and Rodrigues (their current names) naming this entire archipelago, including several small islands nearby, the Mascarene Island, Mascarene, or Mascarenhas Islands, after his countryman and commander Don Pedro Mascarenhas.