Species Pearsonia metallifera

For Henry Harold Welch Pearson (1870–1916), British-born South African botanist and the first director of the former National Botanical Institute of Southern Africa. He worked at the Cambridge herbarium, was a professor of botany at the South African College, Cape Town (now the University of Cape Town), a plant collector and botanical explorer and founder and honorary director of the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in Cape Town. He was a Fellow of the Linnaean and Royal societies and made several expeditions to South-West Africa (now Namibia) to study the monotypic Welwitschia.