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The subtitle of Anna Pavord’s 2005 book “The Naming of Names,” is this: The search for Order in the World of Plants. It was Aristotle who wrote “All men by nature desire to know.” Knowing means differentiating. Theophrastus, Aristotle’s student, wrote the first book on plants, “Enquiry into Plants.” Today, we still desire to know and name. With a name, a plant becomes a part of us, even if taxonomists keep changing names. Some names describe, some attribute qualities, some locate on a map. But as we learn them, we give the world order. It is an excellent pursuit in the increasing disorder around us. x Ruttyruspolia ‘Phyllis van Heerden’ Alvaradoa amorphoides Schippia concolor 44 THE TROPICAL Garden x Ruttyruspolia ‘Phyllis van Heerden’ is a mouthful, and Phyllis’ story is even longer. The sprawling shrub with pink flowers from South Africa is a natural hybrid between Ruttya ovata and Ruspolia hypocrateriformis var. australis, two genera in the Acanthaceae family. The van Heerden part comes from the name of the woman who discovered the plant in 1957. She lived in Louis Trichardt, a town in Limpopo, South Africa’s northernmost province. Phyllis van Heerden did not find the hybrid shrub in Louis Trichardt, however. She found it in Wylliespoort, elsewhere in Limpopo. But, since this is a feature about names, we couldn’t simply allow Louis Trichardt to stand without finding out how that town came to be named. Louis Johannes Tregardt was a leader of the Voortrekkers, a group of settlers (largely of Dutch descent) who left the Cape of Good Hope for the interior of southern Africa in 1836. Tregardt led a group north and east in search of better farmland, and the town, near where the group camped for nearly a year, was named for him. The town’s name changed a couple of times and ultimately was established as Louis Trichardt. Alvaradoa amorphoides, the Mexican alvaradoa, is named for Pedro de Alvarado, a companion of Cortes, conqueror of Guatemala and Salvador, according to Daniel Austin’s “Florida Ethnobotany.” Amorphoides means “resembling amorpha,” and that means shapeless.


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