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Yes—plants can be named in honor of people, and the honoree’s name may appear in a genus name or a species epithet. The giant water lily Victoria amazonica commemorates Queen Victoria; the pitcher plant Nepenthes attenboroughii honors naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough. Their names also show why a plant’s current scientific name may differ from an earlier one.
How a person’s name becomes part of a plant name
Botanical names have two main parts: the genus, which is capitalized, and the species epithet, which is lowercase. In Victoria amazonica, Victoria is the genus and amazonica is the species epithet. In Nepenthes attenboroughii, Nepenthes is the genus and attenboroughii is the epithet.
An honoree can be commemorated at either level. A name may also change as botanists revise how a plant is classified, so a historical name and a currently accepted name are not necessarily the same. The person honored by a name is distinct from the botanist who formally described or published it.
Queen Victoria and the giant water lily
The giant water lily now accepted as Victoria amazonica carries Queen Victoria’s name in its genus. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, explains that botanist John Lindley identified the water lily as a new genus and named it Victoria regia after the newly crowned queen. Its accepted name is now Victoria amazonica; Kew’s taxonomic record explains that the plant was moved to a genus named in Victoria’s honor. Kew’s giant water lily information and Plants of the World Online’s taxonomic record provide further detail.
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A Victorian botanical sensation
Kew reports that its annual attendance rose from 15,000 visitors in 1844 to 240,000 in 1851, during the Victorian fascination with the giant water lily. These are Kew attendance figures for those years, not a measure of interest across Britain as a whole. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2014 gives the figures.
Sir David Attenborough and a Palawan pitcher plant
Nepenthes attenboroughii is a giant carnivorous pitcher plant found only on Palawan in the Philippines. Kew says it was first described to science in 2009 and was named to recognize Sir David Attenborough’s work making natural history accessible. The International Plant Names Index records the etymology as honoring “broadcaster and naturalist, Sir David Attenborough.” See Kew’s account of the species and the IPNI record.
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Should you capitalize a plant named after a person?
In scientific writing, capitalize the genus and lowercase the species epithet, even when the epithet commemorates someone whose personal name is capitalized: write Nepenthes attenboroughii, not Nepenthes Attenboroughii. Italicize both words when using the full scientific name. In ordinary prose, common names such as “giant water lily” are not scientific binomials and generally follow normal sentence capitalization.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.These are two examples, not a complete list
Plant eponyms can honor people of many kinds, and can occur at different taxonomic levels. The examples above illustrate a genus honoring a monarch and a species epithet honoring a modern naturalist; they do not exhaust the subject. When checking another eponym, distinguish the person commemorated from the name’s author and check whether the name is current or historical.
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