H. Trevor Clifford Peter D. Bostock Etymological Dictionary of Grasses

Transcription

1 H. Trevor Clifford Peter D. Bostock Etymological Dictionary of Grasses

2 H. Trevor Clifford Peter D. Bostock Etymological Dictionary of Grasses

3 Authors Prof. Dr. H. Trevor Clifford Queensland Herbarium Brisbane Botanic Gardens Mt Coot-tha Mt Coot-tha Rd Toowong, Queensland 4066 Australia Peter D. Bostock Principal Botanist Queensland Herbarium Environmental Protection Agency Mt Coot-tha Rd Toowong, Queensland 4066 Australia Cover photo: Pennisetum villosum R.Br. ex Fresen., a species widely distributed in Australia. The photo was kindly provided by Bryan Simon, Queensland Herbarium. Library of Congress Control Number: ISBN Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York ISBN Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitations, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Violations are liable to prosecution under the German Copyright Law. Springer is a part of Springer Science+Business Media springer.com Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007 The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Editor: Dr. Dieter Czeschlik, Heidelberg, Germany Desk Editor: Dr. Jutta Lindenborn, Heidelberg, Germany Cover design: WMXDesign GmhH, Heidelberg, Germany Typesetting: Stasch Bayreuth (stasch@stasch.com) Production: LE-TEX Jelonek, Schmidt & Vöckler GbR, Leipzig, Germany 31/3100/YL Printed on acid-free paper

4 For Gill and Pat

5 Preface As employed here the term grass applies only to species included in the Poaceae, one of the largest families of flowering plants. However, the word is often applied to any herbaceous plant with long, narrow leaves. A similar view was adopted by the Ancients. The Greeks applied the words poa, poe and agrostis to herbaceous plants in general and the Romans employed the words gramen and herba in a similar sense. In both cultures, unique names were applied to species of economic or special significance. As a major source of cereals, pasture plants and even timber, the Poaceae are one of the most important economic plant families. Many have acquired vernacular names but these vary from place to place and so are of limited value for technical purposes. For ease of professional communication vernacular names are replaced with binomials whose use is controlled by an International body. Initially the binomials were derived mainly from words of Classical Greek or Latin, but the practice was never strictly enforced. Today taxonomists often employ words from their own language or resort to naming grasses after places, people, ships, uses, acronyms to name but a few sources. In the process the names are often Latinized making it difficult for readers, especially those whose language has not been influenced by the European Classics, to recognize their sources and to determine their meanings. Because it is usually easier to remember a technical name once its meaning is known, the authors hope this work will be of value to ecologists, agronomists and others not primarily interested in grass taxonomy. Those who are concerned can always consult the scientific literature. Even so, without the resources of a large library, determining the origins and meanings of many binomials is impossible. This situation is changing rapidly with the advent of the Internet and the ever increasing amount of information that is available in the public domain. Nonethe-less, searching the Internet is time consuming and a single reference such as that presented here may be helpful to professional biologists and others interested in the origins of names. The entries herein include most of the names published during the past 250 years but the seemingly endless torrent of new names being proposed means that a few of the more recent have been overlooked. Some of the older names for which no interpretation was given with the original description have been omitted and the majority of misspellings have been ignored.

6 VIII Preface The work presented below is based on a previously published dictionary 1 but has been completely revised and expanded. There are about entries and the authors apologize to any reader who searches in vain for a name not included. Trevor Clifford and Peter Bostock Queensland Herbarium, April Clifford HT (1996) Etymological dictionary of grasses (World Biodiversity Database CD-ROM Series). Joint publication of ETI Expert Center for Taxonomic Identification, Amsterdam, The Netherlands and Springer Berlin Heidelberg New York

7 Acknowledgements The authors are particularly grateful to Halina Winters, Librarian, Queensland Herbarium, for her unstinting and cheerful assistance in locating literature, for providing valuable insights into Slavic languages particularly Polish, and for searching the Internet for biographical and geographical information. Meg Lloyd, Librarian, Queensland Museum has also been helpful in searching out obscure references especially to fossil grasses. Our colleagues Bryan Simon and Daniel Healy have taken an active interest in the project throughout, drawing attention to omissions and errors in the text as it evolved. Bryan also provided the photograph of Pennisetum villosum which appears on the cover and which was recommended to us by Will Smith, Botanical Illustrator at Queensland Herbarium. Finally it is our pleasure to acknowledge our indebtedness to Jutta Lindenborn for her wise counsel and ongoing support.

8 Contents Introduction Purpose of Nomenclature Language of Nomenclature Structure of Grass Spikelets Origins of Generic and Specific Names Descriptive Commemorative Habitat Geographical Location Nationality of Taxonomist Classical Geographical Names Homonymy Seasonality Anagrams Acronyms Allusion Hybridity Occupations Vessels Misadventure Conventions Employed in Dictionary References Abbreviations Dictionary A B C D E F G H I J

9 XII Contents K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z